THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT (1977) – With the latest blatant abuses by the FBI and elsewhere coming to light here’s Robert Ludlum’s novel about abuse of intelligence-gathering by BOTH the left and the right. There are Deep State operatives, too, like in today’s headlines.
TIME PERIOD: From shortly before J Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972 up to early 1973. The novel’s “what if” premise depicts the 77 year old FBI Director’s death as a planned assassination to prevent the Nixon White House from getting ahold of Hoover’s legendary files. (That’s NOT a spoiler – all that is made clear in the novel’s opening pages.)
Those files contain so much “raw meat” on powerful U.S. figures that we readers are told that whoever takes hold of said files will be able to rule the U.S. from behind the scenes by blackmailing the rich and the powerful.
The novel’s naïvete shows in that premise. I despise Hoover but I’ve always considered his abuses to be the EPITOME of the behavior of “the intelligence community” (LMAO), not an aberration from it. The accumulation of private information about people carries with it the implicit intent to USE that information against them.
The Obama Administration abused the FBI and other organizations far beyond even Nixon’s corrupt activities. And, of course, these days Zuckerberg and his fellow Corporate Fascists cheerfully help “the intelligence community” (LMFAO) spy on all of us.
At any rate this is an escapist novel so the tale gets told in a simplistic “good guys vs bad guys” way, despite Ludlum’s attempts at a more nuanced approach.
HERO: Peter Chancellor, an up and coming novelist who is part muckraker and part conspiracy hound. His successful espionage novels have not only made him rich but have caused minor public uproars over the kind of governmental abuses we take for granted these days but which were considered shocking in this novel’s time period. Continue reading
Peter Schweizer’s 2018 non-fiction book regarding the way that the rival gangs of white-collar criminals called Democrats and Republicans have raised graft and illegality to new levels has been named the Fourth Best Book of All Time at Exposing Political Corruption. That’s from BookAuthority.com. 
The book is titled SECRET EMPIRES: HOW THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CLASS HIDES CORRUPTION AND ENRICHES FAMILY AND FRIENDS. Schweizer pulls no punches and – as Balladeer’s Blog loves to see – details corruption by BOTH the Democrats and Republicans. Have I mentioned lately that we need Third Parties? Yeah, I thought I had. 
It’s no secret that Sharyl Attkisson – the Ida Tarbell of the 21st Century – is one of the few actual journalists left in America. She broke with her unethical colleagues over their refusal to cover the Obama Administration’s many scandals and found herself targeted by Obama’s FBI and NSA thugs. 
The incredibly courageous Attkisson still goes after tough stories on both political parties, and she doesn’t care if the facts reflect poorly on Trump, Obama or George W Bush before them. 
And, even better, the Trump Department of Justice has reopened the investigation. 
Privileged white one percenter Alyssa Milano told a non-existent reporter for Balladeer’s Blog that for Christmas she recommends the new book BARACK OBAMA IS AFRAID OF SHARYL ATTKISSON: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE SHENANIGANS OF AMERICA’S 44th PRESIDENT. 
15: Benghazi
26: Hillary Clinton
Sharyl Attkisson, the Ida Tarbell of the 21st Century, is virtually the only journalist left in the United States. She courageously continues her lawsuit demanding full disclosure of Barack Obama’s illegal targeting of her for electronic surveillance. (So many other reporters were just Democrat publicists happy to write Obama Fan Fiction, meaning there was no need to harass them like Obama harassed Attkisson.) 
They were on much more solid ground pointing out the way Obama was patted on the head, coddled and lied about from day one, being granted a Nobel Peace Prize “on spec” after just a few months in office. And how youtube is loaded with videos of Barack making remarks every bit as stupid as any that the pathetic George W Bush ever made.
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