Sedition is Illegal– Even for Ex-Presidents!

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back.  The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?”  The scorpion says, “Because if I do, you’ll drown and I will die too.”  The frog is satisfied, and they set out.  But in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog.  The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”  Replies the scorpion: “Don’t blame me…you knew I was a scorpion!”  — Aesop (my changes)

Webster’s dictionary defines sedition as “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.  Subversion is “an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority and hierarchy.”

There’s lots of evidence that the Democrats, including the former Obama administration, have been guilty of these two offenses, both of which are illegal.  Of course, the Democrats and their communication wing, the Mainstream Media, would say there’s some other reason for the flurry of Obama’s executive branch appointments during the final weeks of his administration, appointments to senior positions not easily replaced by the incoming administration.  But then we’d have to believe that all those leaks coming out of the Executive Branch (the White House, intelligence agencies, etc.) must be coming from Trump appointees.  Does that make sense to you?

Perhaps we should re-visit the idea of Congress just meeting once per year, in the fall, because they obviously don’t do much but play politics most of the time.  I mean, it’s clear that the Democrats are too busy stalling the approval of President Trump’s Cabinet appointees, and making all manner of wild accusations about Russian hacking and Jeff Sessions’ (et al) supposed collusion with the Russian ambassador, etc., to be doing much in the way of conducting the nation’s business with anything remotely like a serious or responsible approach.

Yet Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could have simply asked the Russian ambassador about the issue directly when the ambassador sat with Schumer – not with any Republicans – during the President’s recent address to the Congress.  Or House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi could have asked him during one of her many photo-ops with the Russian ambassador over the past several months.  If meeting with (“collusion”) Russian officials somehow disqualifies elected officials from office, then most of the Democrats and Republicans need to be impeached!  Yet we only hear one side of the story.

Weeks ago Obama’s handpicked former Attorney General Loretta Lynch called for more anti-Trump unrest, marches in the street and violence, which we witnessed against the pro-Trump marchers at Berkeley the following weekend, and again in Huntington Beach this past weekend.  So much for the integrity of the former “chief law enforcement officer of the country.”  Both she (and Eric Holder) and Obama have let their “blackness” override any sense of honesty, respect for truth and the rule of law.  But because they’re black, nobody had the guts to hold them to account.

When President Trump accused former President Obama of wiretapping his campaign headquarters, the media responded as if he’d lost his mind.  But various left- to mainstream-media outlets (e.g., Washington Post, NY Times, et al) wrote last year about the Obama administration’s two requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, which must approve such surveillance.  The first was rejected as “too broad,” but the subsequent re-written request was approved in October, ostensibly aimed at Russian communications with Republican campaign officials.  Now we’re hearing from a former CIA officer that the surveillance goes way beyond simple wiretaps and that it is “worse than Watergate.”  But you probably haven’t read that story in the MSM, have you?

FISA says, “the President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year, provided that it is only to acquire foreign intelligence information, that it is solely directed at communications or property controlled exclusively by foreign powers, that there is no substantial likelihood that it will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party… .”  When you consider that Obama got an intelligence briefing daily, which would have included the results of this electronic surveillance, is it too much of a stretch to think that his appointees or lingering White House staffers leaked this info to the press?  This has been exactly Obama’s approach to government, and here’s why –

The only job Barack Obama ever had before being elected to the House of Representatives was as a “community organizer.”  Saul Alinsky is the father of the concept, and he wrote in Rules for Radicals that a successful organizer should be “an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community, to fan latent hostilities…to the point of overt expression…Once such hostilities were whipped up to a fighting pitch, the organizer steered his group towards confrontation, in the form of picketing, demonstrating and general hell-raising.”  [italics mine]  In other words, he was a professional rabble rouser.

How much did Alinsky’s work influence Obama?  Consider Obama’s actions while in office, and now, in light of Alinsky’s words – “[The man of action] asks of the means only whether they will work…In war, the end justifies almost any means…Our cause had to be all shining justice, allied with the angels; theirs had to be all evil, tied to the Devil…You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments…”, etc. [italics mine]

Perhaps the most telling of Alinsky’s teachings is this: “Yesterday’s immoral terrorist is today’s moral and dignified statesman of high standing — because he was successful. Yesterday’s moral statesman is sitting in front of a war crimes tribunal today — because he lost.” [italics mine]  No matter the means, then, it’s simply about winning, getting the power and then using it to get what you want.  To Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, et al, the means – i.e., the actions taken – do not matter, as long as the goal is achieved.  The Clinton campaign used the same bullying and violence against Trump supporters during the presidential race that Obama’s Organizing for Action minions are using against Republican townhall meetings (and Trump supporter rallies) today.

Yet for all the hype about his background as a community organizer, Obama only did that job for three years.  A fellow organizer noted that Obama seemed to realize that it was very, very hard to get anything done.  “He didn’t see organizing as making any significant changes in things,” his friend recalled.

Another friend and organizer, Mike Kruglik, said, “He was constantly thinking about his path to significance and power.“  Obama told him, “I need to go to [Harvard Law School] to find out more about power.  How do powerful people think?  What kind of networks do they have? How do they connect to each other?”  When he returned to Chicago after law school, he joined a civil rights law practice, then in 1996 ran for the state senate.  Eight years later he was elected to the U.S. Senate and two years later was elected president.

He got the power he wanted, yet what did he do with it?  The only thing he did for “his people” was to re-affirm that old crutch that fosters dependency and irresponsibility: “It’s not your fault if you’ve failed, if you’re a criminal, if you don’t support your children…it’s racism.”  The Great Uniter…hardly?

But he did expand the control of the federal government (nationalizing General Motors, taking control of one-fifth of the national economy, health insurance).  He directed his Justice Department to harass political enemies, then in his final days planted moles in the Executive Branch to undermine the authority of the new administration.  His new organization (Organizing for Action) is coordinating protests and disruptions at GOP townhall meetings and against pro-Trump activities.

He’s set for life, at taxpayer expense, including lifetime Secret Service protection (rather than just ten years), a bonus he gave himself with an Executive Order last year.  Plus he and Michelle just signed a dual book deal for $60 million.  Why, then, when he now has all the free time he wants to play golf, would he spend his time and efforts engaging in such pursuits?

The only answer that makes sense is the one we get from Aesop’s fable about the scorpion…it’s his nature, it’s what he is.  He promised to “fundamentally transorm this nation,” and he lived down to that threat.  And we let him.  Like the frog, we have no right to be surprised that he’s still at work subverting this nation, actively involved in sedition…we knew what he was when we elected him.

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Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional liberties.

Paul E. Scates

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