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by dpatru 1556 days ago
The most significant aspect of “government” surveillance is that whoever controls the surveillance also controls the government. It was clear that Trump was not in control of the surveillance state: it was working against him. Biden does not seem to have this problem, but he seems deeply compromised, https://www.foxnews.com/media/hunter-biden-scandal-cnn-msnbc..., and, because of his mental condition, it’s clear he’s not the real executive who’s running the country.
1 comments
jay3ss 1556 days ago
> It was clear that Trump was not in control of the surveillance state: it was working against him

> because of his [Biden's] mental condition

Can you please expand on these?

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dpatru 1555 days ago
The fact that the US intelligence services were undermining Trump was obvious to anyone paying attention to headlines. Here is a specific example: the FBI submitted a false affidavit to the FISA court so that they could spy on Carter Page, https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/17/politics/fisa-court-slams..., and through Page probably the President, since a wiretap allows listening on other people up to two hops away. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/485072-was-president...

Biden’s mental decline is obvious. See for example https://nypost.com/2021/12/03/joe-bidens-made-up-stories-and..., https://youtu.be/9ssNav3MnBg.

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tdfx 1555 days ago
> It was clear that Trump was not in control of the surveillance state: it was working against him

The Russian collusion narrative comes to mind. There was so much momentum behind it that at the time I assumed it was true, as well. I naively believed there was a class of patriotic, more or less selfless bureaucrats in the IC and DOJ (Comey, Clapper, etc.) that was more intent on preserving the democratic system and the stated principles of their organizations than pursuing any political agenda.

The results of the Mueller investigation and subsequent disclosures have thoroughly disabused me of that notion. I didn't realize just how stacked the deck was against Trump until watching them successfully bury the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 election [0] where they astonishingly managed to discredit and bury a massive news story without ever denying any of the contents were true by saying nothing more than "it seems like something Russia would do".

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-... "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say"

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