Democracy Dies in Darkness... and they like it that way

Ok, so I've finally read the dreaded "FISA Memo" which the GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote in regards to classified materials, which they had vetted on sources and methods, approved by President Trump, and released to the public. I've heard the Democrat's warnings about endangering national security and about out of context charges. I've read the NeverTrump'rs downplaying of the memo, by Nat'l Review's David French, and the L.A. Times; and of course, although I'd like to read it, we do not yet have the Democrat 'counter memo' available yet, to get 'the other side' of.

The three points noted below are what I find most significant in the FISA Memo, and everything here hangs upon them. If those three points are true, nothing else matters (and if they are fabrications then these charges should be reversed, with a vengeance). But let's deal with the above items first.

As regards the hysterical 'Endangering National Security!' shrieking that we've been deafened by over the last few days by members of the Democrat Party, there are zero credible, or even stretchable points, that can be construed as to be threats to National Security, in this memo. The charge is ridiculous on the face of it, and further makes the case that they'd go to the most desperate measures possible to keep what's referenced in the memo, under wraps. IOW, 'Democracy Dies in Darkness... and they like it that way.'

Then there's the exercise in blinkered besides-the-point Fith'king (pansified 'Fisking'), from NeverTrump'rs (Left and Right) seeking to bone up the almost immediately discredited charges in a New York Times article last year, as being the only noteworthy points in the memo, and their 'oh boy this is gonna be great!' gleefulness about supposedly substantiating some fringe pieces of the "Russia! Russia! Russia!" case against Trump, are pathetic examples of personal pique, and desperate ideologically snowed-blind efforts to avoid allowing any 'good' to get near a story on Trump.

If anyone can read this memo, and come away focused only upon the charges against Trump, or Trump's charges against the media and FBI, instead of being absolutely incensed over the obvious use and abuse of power perpetrated against the American people, by those entrusted with protecting the American people, in order to further their own interests of political and personal gain, then they possess, IMHO, only sick, twisted, stumps of burned out apparatus, where effective minds had perhaps once dwelt.

The Democrats tell us that they'll put out a counter-memo, soon, that will show just how deceptively out of context the memo's charges are, which I'd very much like to see.

But.

Decades of experience reading what passes for 'The News' from all sides, has accustomed me to seeking out the possibility of missing contexts in stories, and as the bits and drabs of the truth of them have leaked out weeks, months or years later have confirmed to me, I'm fairly good at it. I can imagine a large number of clipped, minimized or dropped contexts in this Memo, but none that would actually matter, where it actually matters most.

What I find most damning in the FISA Memo isn't open to much deflation as a result of an expanded and clarified context, because whether or not the essential piece referenced in the Memo (developed from the Steele dossier) actually served as a foundational basis for the FISA warrants, or instead simply lent some additional support to the request for that warrant to spy upon American citizens, the nature of that document's unsubstantiated charges, and its authors' personal animus, bias, financial and political interests involved in its being used, catastrophically taint everything connected to it - especially as that nature was concealed from those who were presented with it as if it was worthy of respectable consideration.

Seriously! If Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the 'Russia Investigation' because he publicly talked to a Russian diplomat in a greeting line at a State Dept sponsored event, then there's damn sure no room for anything connected to that piece (sponsored and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign), being used in establishing any aspect of any warrant, let alone the highly volatile nature of a FISA Warrant, and that goes doubly for such information being used while those facts about its origin were deliberately withheld from those who were given them to aid in determining whether or not to issue said warrant (see #4 below).

No matter the imaginable contexts and scenarios that may be brought to light in the future, the following points alone, establish unacceptable behavior, corruption, in the use of the most sensitive and debated investigatory powers our government is able to bring to bear upon American citizens, so as to abuse those powers for the very worst, most corrupt of purposes - that of changing the outcome of a presidential election, to suit the political judgment of a few.

And people, please, stop bringing up Watergate. There is no comparison to Watergate here - that scandal involved a criminal break-in for political purposes. This matter involves using the legal apparatus of our judicial system, to legally spy upon American citizens, in order to corrupt the public mind for political purposes, in a campaign for the highest elected office in the land - not to steal politically sensitive materials, but to corrupt the political judgment of the entire nation. I'll restate that last point: The purpose of obtaining this FISA Warrant, was to corrupt and taint the judgment of the entire American electorate, to manipulate their votes by corrupting the highest functions of our government - our judicial system and defense systems - to taint and dis-inform the public mind and alter their votes by means of our most powerful institutions which are entrusted to 'protect and serve' that same public.

These few points from the FISA Memo, short of their proven to be outright lies, these are not open to the sway of additional context:

• "1 a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials."
• "3 a "During this same time period, Ohr's wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife's opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs' relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC."
• 4 "...While the FISA application relied on Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information." [emphasis mine]

If you can defend behavior such as that, I can find no means or warrant for defending yours.