For everything we do (or don’t do), we mentally perform a cost/benefit analysis first. Let me explain:
You wake up in the morning and you don’t want to get out of your warm, comfortable bed and go to work. After all, who wants to get out of a warm bed and go to work?
The benefit of staying in bed is that you continue to be warm and comfortable. The cost of staying in bed is you could lose your job, which leads to no housing, bed, utilities, food, car and so on. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then do it. If the costs outweigh the benefits, you might not want to do it.
Another example: In countries where Islam is the primary religion, theft was a rare crime because they tended to lop a hand off for being a thief. In the immediately preceding years, they have become “Westernized” and don’t do that as much today.
So, your benefit is whatever your stole, while the cost can include losing at least one of your hands and all the future handicaps associated with having only one (or no) hands.
I bring this up because for the past eighteen months, we have been pounded on an hourly basis about the “Trump collusion with Russia.” Up until recently, the whole story was, the event that started the “investigation” was when Papadopoulos told Downer (when specifically asked), “the Russians have Hillary’s missing emails.” We now know, thanks to the outing of Halper, that the entrapment started a month earlier, with Halper telling Papadopoulos, “Did you hear the Russians have Hillary’s missing emails?” Of course, the FBI had to approach Halper and prep him to do this, then there was the time invested in thinking this up before Halper was recruited, but you get my point. But I digress.
Those who have created and fed this "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative, have finally realized realized the jig is up because even their most ardent supporters are seeing that this entrapment wasn’t Kosher, have been trying to do a “Peace with Honor” kind of withdrawal, begging the Republicans to not put them through what they have been putting Trump through since he took office. They want to get away scot-free with just a “we’re sorry.”
The point here is the Trump Administration needs to set the cost/benefit analysis for anyone who wants to “weaponize the government” (use the massive investigatory and prosecutorial resources of the federal government to advance personal or political agenda) way into the “costs outweigh the benefits by several orders of magnitude” category so no one never even considers doing something like this again.
The best way to do this is to prosecute everyone involved in the decision-making progress to the harshest extent possible. This means a public trial and upon conviction, lengthy prison sentences for Obama, Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Clapper, everyone in a government leadership position who participated or did not hinder this plan. This also means Downer, Halpin, the partners of Fusion GPS, and anyone in that little incestuous circle of “Hillary’s Friends” who worked on this. Maximum sentences, running concurrently (10 convictions @ 10 years each = 100 years jail time).
We know Obama was briefed on what was going on because of the texting between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, things like “POTUS wants to know everything." If Obama was the as transparent and ethical as he wants us to believe, the investigation could have been stopped with five words by him, “Shut it all down. Now.”
I NEVER want to see the resources of the federal government used to advance illicit political objectives ever again. Men went to prison and Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal. There should be negative consequences of equal stature levied against those in the Obama Administration and Hillary campaign for this heinous usurpation of federal power.
If you disagree with this, please comment as to why you think this spying was okay. Your choices are 1) you can toe the party line and use convoluted reasoning to justify it, or 2) just publicly admit you're in favor of an American Police State.