Freedom’s Just Another Word By Peter Van Buren December 11, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Here’s what’s left of democracy in America. We had an election, and the candidate favored by Washington, media, and many business elites did not win. Here’s what happened next. — CIA unambiguously but without documentation or evidence presented says, via anonymous leaks, that Russia interceded in the election to help elect Donald Trump. — Democratic Congresspeople, alongside several media outlets, have called for investigations into whether or not Trump colluded with the Russians to influence the election. That would be an impeachable offense, a criminal offense, treason. — The underlying message is that the Russians believe Trump as president will so favor them (for some reason) that they risk war, or a cyber version of war, to see him in power. Trump’s legitimacy is now undermined, and his every action toward the Soviet Union Russia will be tainted. — Though this “information” was known in Washington since at least the election, it was only released 10 days ahead of the Electoral College vote. — Meanwhile, Jill Stein, as proxy for Hillary Clinton, raised $7 million over a long weekend after claiming the vote count in three key states was wrong and/or the counting machines (not connected to the web) were hacked and cannot be trusted. A recount could have sent Clinton to the White House. — Clinton supporters continue to try and get the Electoral College to do something it has never done in some 220 years, select a candidate who did not win the most electoral votes. — Hillary Clinton has re-emerged, making speeches and public appearances, concurrent with all of the above. — Democrats as a group continue to insist winning the popular vote entitles Clinton to… something. — Clinton supporters earlier claimed the FBI interceded in the election to defeat Clinton. — Candidate Clinton claimed during a debate the now president-elect is a stooge working on behalf of Putin, literal treason. This is banana republic crap, people, that looks to negate the votes of some 62 million Americans. We no longer believe in our own system. When the candidate many people did not support wins, the response is to seek to negate the democratic process, via accusations that make McCarthy in the 1950s look like a sad amateur. What we have are anonymous voices at an intelligence agency supposedly dedicated to foreign intel saying the Russians helped elect our next president. That says the process is flawed and cannot be trusted, and that Trump will owe a debt to the Russians and can’t be trusted. It will keep alive the idea that Clinton should have won if not for this meddling and undermine for his term the legitimacy of Trump. Via the classification process, the CIA will only need to make public the snippets of info that support its contention. This is an attempted coup as sure as it would be if there were tanks on the White House lawn. The CIA might as well have tried to shoot Trump during his next trip to Dallas. To date, all of these accusations have been based on anonymous sources and leaks. The president of the United States remains silent. And we are so easily manipulated — liberals/progressives who have rightly attacked the CIA for decades for domestic spying, WMD lies, overthrowing foreign governments, torture, drones, renditions, etc., overnight now believe and support every word the Agency says. America, our goose is cooked. You worry about an autocracy? It doesn’t have to be in one man. It can be via an Agency. Peter Van Buren , a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq. Following his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , the Department of State began proceedings against him. Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department on his own terms. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.