Fanis and his cousin Kera are in
Kera’s flat in London. Kera is an
international Chinese art dealer and Fanis is her personal bodyguard. Now that impeachment hearings are over, Kera
knows that it was a complete debacle and was not doing well in the court of
public opinion. Kera calls over to
Fanis, “Well I’m sure you’re happy that your president is still safe.”
Despite their living in London,
they were both born and raised in the United States. Fanis responds, “Not really; it’s just the
third hoax, there will be another one.”
“Third?”
“Hoax one was that Trump
colluded with Russia and hoax two was the Mueller probe prosecuting for
criminal charges then it transitioned to the third one; the Ukraine phone call. There’s going to be another one and another
one. If he wins re-election, it’ll go on
for five more years.”
“Any ideas what’s going to be
the next one?”
“Yea, it’s going to be that he
colluded with Turkey.”
“What?! Turkey? Why?”
“We didn’t give them aid to
fight the Kurds so they’re going to say that we aided Russia or some bullshit
like that. Don’t worry, you’ll find out
in a week or two.”
“That soon?”
“Who, knows? They transitioned from Mueller to Ukraine in
a day.”
“No, the call was a day later
but it was exposed to the public like a month later.”
“That’s my point. It’s already in the works.”
“I guess time will tell but I
haven’t heard any indication of this.”
“Yes we will.”
“We’re on the move again.”
“Where to?”
“Italy”
“Oh God”
“Why ‘oh God?’”
“Italians are the worst in
hitting on girls. I’m going to have to
make sure I don’t leave you alone or else there’s going to be a posse of nine
guys around you. They’re not going to
hurt you but they’re just going to hardcore hit on you and I may overreact
given it’s my job.”
“Well, you know how the Italians
are; so just don’t overreact”
They board the plane and head
for Rome. Kera utters, “December 9 is
the day you’ve been waiting for.”
December 9 is the day Inspector
General Horowitz is releasing his report on whether the FBI had sufficient
predication to get a FISA warrant on Trump campaign member Carter Page. “Not really, I just want to get it over with
because I’m sick of all these media reports getting ahead of it.”
“It’s the first offensive
against the Democrats”
“Technically the second but
based on the first IG report being a dud, I’m not too hopeful this one is going
to be as damning as people think.
Inspector Generals use vague, non-strong words to describe things that
any person can twist to being not a big deal.
Durham’s report should be more interesting but just look it at 30,000
feet.”
“What’s that?”
“The government is investigating
the government. It’s a conflict of
interest so they’re going to put kid gloves on. They already have a fall guy
with the FBI lawyer they fired for doctoring Carter Page’s e-mail. They’re just going to go with that.”
“What about the FBI?”
“They’re going to grasp at
straws to come up with an excuse to spy on Trump. The FBI gets false tips all the time but it’s
their job to vet the credible information from non-credible ones. That’s what they fucked up on. It’s like death threats on social media. Almost all of them have no credible risk but
celebrities cite them all the time when they want to play the victim card even
though they get them daily.”
“You’re saying the FBI is going
to take a false allegation and pretend it was real so they can claim to have a
legal reason to spy on Donald Trump?”
“Yes”
“That is so mind boggling I
can’t even begin to strip it down. Do
you have an idea what the false information is going to be?”
“Yes, the FBI was sent an e-mail
by then-head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The FBI agent that received the trip was
Leonardo Bernardo, who also happens to work for George Soros. The e-mail claims that they have a document
that shows Loretta Lynch is going to scrap the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal.”
“Well, they did investigate
Hillary’s e-mail.”
“Yea but nobody has seen this
e-mail. Bernardo, Lynch and Schultz all
deny it exists and there’s no evidence that it’s real. We have detailed text messages from Strzok
and Page but somehow nobody can find this e-mail?”
“Doesn’t the FBI have people
that can investigate this stuff?”
“Well that’s the point
right? They are supposed to vet
information but they didn’t with Trump information. There was an FBI rank and file people that
looked into it and found that it was crap.”
“Then when did it come up?”
“After the election, Comey
talked about the existence of the e-mail was Russian disinformation and it was
so damaging that he couldn’t discuss it in an open setting.”
“Ah, so all of a sudden Comey
thought it was legitimate.”
“Yes”
“When did Comey first get
involved?”
“July 5, 2016 when he unveiled
all the stuff he had against Hillary Clinton but then concluded, which he’s not
supposed to by the way, that no prosecutor would ever prosecute this.”
“You remember the date?”
“Day after 4th of
July is pretty memorable.”
“Not really, the holiday is
memorable not the day after.”
“How is that relevant now?”
“If he didn’t close the
investigation, then he never could have re-opened it right before the
election.”
“Oh right, he cost Hillary the
election and Trump thanked him by firing him.” Fanis glared at the smiling Kera
and she continued, “Now there’s a possibility that the response to the dubious
Russian dangling accidentally elected Trump.”
“That has nothing to do with
it. Hillary stopped campaigning in July
and the disenfranchised voters came out.”
“If you say so.” she articulated
and then giggled.”
“The whole collusion was to
cover up the FBI’s poor decision to interfere in a presidential election.”
“And Comey investigated both
candidates.”
The plane landed in Rome and
they checked into their hotel.
Afterwards, they walked around the ruins of Rome and then went outside
the city to visit the catacombs, which is a little known tourist attraction in
Rome. Fanis and Kera end with sitting by
the Fontagne di Trevi. Even though it’s
a tourist trap, Fanis enjoyed the Fontage di Trevi. While sitting there, there were more
Americans talking and they were discussing the upcoming IG report. One of them opined, “I don’t know what the
FBI is going to do in response.”
Fanis replied, “Comey will say
that the predicate for the investigation was that they received information in
the intervention of an e-mail telling them Loretta Lynch was going to scrap the
investigation so the FBI had to take over to make sure that Lynch didn’t
corrupt the DOJ.”
“They didn’t want Lynch to
shelve the investigation so they shelved it?”
“I didn’t say it made sense; I
just said what they’re going to claim.”
“How are they going to turn that
into spying on Trump?”
“Well, that narrative is that
Mifsud was a Russian agent that tried to meddle in the election.”
“That was debunked too.”
“Exactly, and both narratives
originated in the same place.”
“And that would be?”
“The CIA and John Brennan. Comey and the FBI are going to blame the CIA
and Brennan for giving them shitty information.”
“Is there any evidence of that?”
“He’s going to appeal to
reason. If the CIA tells you that Mifsud
is a Russian agent, you have to investigate.”
“Yea, but the FBI is supposed to
vet the information before opening the investigation. There’s a procedure.”
“That they didn’t follow. That’s
why the FBI isn’t completely innocent in this either.”
Kera and Fanis head back to the
hotel and the next day Kera goes to her meeting to negotiate the sale of an item. While at the meeting, Fanis is talking with
the client’s bodyguard. Apparently, even
Italy is curious about the inspector general report coming out in three weeks
as that’s what the bodyguard asks him.
Fanis sighs and states, “Comey has already said this all over the
media. He’s going to claim that when an
ally ambassador, in this case Downer of Australia, tells you that a major
party’s nominee’s staff member is talking to a Russian agent, a FBI agent has
to investigate or else he would be a shitty agent. In fact, Comey claims, an agent should be
fired if he didn’t investigate.”
“That makes sense.”
“Not really, you first verify
the information then, if credible, you open an investigation based on it. He also claims that he got an e-mail that Lynch
was going to get the Hillary investigation dropped but everyone knew that there
was no evidence of that whatsoever.”
“Who was the Russian agent?”
“A guy named Joseph Mifsud.”
“Joseph Mifsud! He’s not a
Russian agent. he’s a professor from Malta!”
Fanis kicked himself for not
remembering where he was. Italy is right
by Malta. Now, he was interested in the
Italian bodyguard’s take of the matter.
“Right, his ties seem to be to western intelligence agents.”
“Of course he is. He brags all the time about all these English
MI6 and government people he knows. He
teaches at Cambridge in England and he’s also on the link campus here in
Rome. Everything is about Italian and
English contacts. La Republicca (the main Italian newspaper) has talked about the
absurdity that he’s a Russian agent so I thought America knew this. You’re telling me they still think there’s
any truth to this? You Americans don’t
know how to look at a map. Malta is
right by your beloved Sicily where all your mafia people are from.”
“Don’t worry I know! Don’t say ‘Americans’ the only person that
still thinks Mifsud is a Russian agent is Jim Comey. Even Mueller didn’t claim that in his
report.”
“Well, he’s going to have to
come up with something else because that never made any sense.”
“He can’t come up with anything
else. That’s the entire case. Papadopoulos talked to Mifsud who is a
Russian agent, which is why they opened the investigation.”
“What about that fake e-mail
about Loretta Lynch and the tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton?”
“That was to explain why they
dropped the Hillary investigation not the Trump one.”
“It’s hard to keep all your
investigations into president candidates straight. You Americans are always so concerned about
corruption in other countries’ election but you can’t even keep your own ones
straight.”
“I can’t even argue with you on
that at this point. It’s sad to say but
you got a point.”
“Is that really the only thing
Comey has on why he spied on the President of the United States?”
“He’s good at blaming other
people. He also claims that the FISA
court said it was okay so obviously it was legitimate.”
“I don’t know how it works in
America but in Italy, the court doesn’t investigate claims. The lawyers swear information is true and the
judge bases the decision on the information they receive. If you lie, then that’s a crime but it’s not
the judge that catches you in the lie, it’s an opposing attorney or the
defense.”
“No, that’s how it works in
America too. At least, it’s supposed
to.”
“Then Comey is lying”
“Yes, yes he is.”
Kera finishes up with her
meeting and walks out. Fanis shakes
hands with the bodyguard and they head back to the hotel. Kera lets out a huge breath and announces, “I
want to go out tonight. Like really go
out; to a club.”
“I’m 35 and you’re 32, we’re a
little too old for clubs.”
“Fuck you, I’m not too old.”
“Fine, we’ll go.”
“Dress up.”
“I didn’t bring nice clothes.”
“Then we’ll buy some.”
Kera and Fanis go shopping and
Kera picks out an outfit for Fanis to wear and she goes back to put on a very
revealing outfit to go out. Kera has big
breasts that she is flaunting in a halter top and Fanis rolls his eyes, “Are
you just doing this because of what I said about the womanizing of Italian
men?”
“Yup, but there are womanizers
all over the world; not just Italy.”
“I lived here for three and half
months. Trust me, it’s worse.”
“That was in 2004; things
change.”
“Instead of taking a cab, they
take a bus to the club and Fanis has a scowl on his face. He keeps reminding himself not to get too
upset because this is his job. The bus
is crowded so they are standing and holding on with their tickets that they’ve
already validated. Fanis smiles as he
reminisces how he would stand next to the validation machine hoping that an
agent wouldn’t get on so he could reuse the ticket. This is how college students tried to save
money when he studied abroad in Florence.
Fanis turned around and saw something that didn’t surprise him but would
surprise those not familiar with Italian men.
Normally, he’d tried to solve this privately but he wanted Kera to be
alerted to it. He snapped his arm out
and grabbed the guy standing directly behind Kera by the neck and yelled, “Put
your fucking dick away.”
Kera snapped her head around and
looked down and was horrified to find the man exposed with his penis in his
hand as he was masturbating to her on the bus.
He fumbled with his pants and pulled them up over him as he was losing
breath from Fanis choking him. Kera
pulled the string indicating that she was getting off at the next stop even
though it wasn’t the stop of the club.
The guy bowed his head in shame and Fanis pointed to the back of the bus
where the pervert made his way. As Fanis
looked around, nobody else on the bus was reacting confirming that they knew
what Fanis knew. This happens more often
than people want to believe. At the next
stop, Fanis and Kera get off and they hail a cab for the rest of the way to the
club. Kera squirmed as she was still
skived out by what happened. “That was
fucking disgusting.”
“I told you.”
“No, you didn’t say that. You said I’d be hit on not that someone would
whip it out. There’s no way you could
have seen that coming.”
“You’re the third person I know
that it happened to.”
“Ewww”
“I warned you. We’re not even in the club yet.”
They arrive at the club and Kera
dances and enjoys the attention while Fanis watches close by but isn’t really
dancing. He just has a drink in his hand
and knows he’s out of place. As he looks
around, he realizes that unlike most countries, 35 is not too old to be an
Italian club as old Italian man hit on young college students at clubs all the
time. Kera signals to Fanis to come
rescue her by not subtly holding her hand out and waving her four fingers that
aren’t her thumb towards and away from her.
Fanis walks over and grabs her arm and pulls her away and Kera wraps her
arms around Fanis’ neck and smiles. The
four guys around her put their hands up and back up yelling “Mi Scusi.”
Fanis stares at Kera with a look
saying that he wants to leave and poses, “You ready to go yet?”
“Yea, I just still want to know
that I still got it.”
“There’s no way to tell. These people would hit on a mannequin.”
Kera slaps him on the shoulder
and rejoins, “Thanks a lot.” hurtfully
“You’re welcome” he responds
seriously.
As they leave the club, Fanis is
on his phone trying to call an uber. While
he does, he forgets that there is another thing that Italians do. He sees a moto coming at her and he cries
out, “Switch your purse to the other arm!”
Kera gives him a quizzical look
but before Fanis could explain, the person on the moto, leaned over and grabbed
a hold of Kera’s purse as he kept the forward momentum. Kera couldn’t maintain her grip with the
power of the moto pulling away from her and the purse was snatched. Since, Fanis saw it coming, he already had
his knife out and as the moto went by him, he tossed the blade into the spokes
of the wheel. It caught and the Moto
fell to the side and slid with sparks coming up from the street. Fanis ran over to the moto and pulled off the
guys helmet and picked up the purse and tossed it toward Kera who went and
grabbed it. The cyclist yelled out, “Mi
Scusi”
Fanis nodded and started walking
away. Usually the Italians will retreat
quickly but this one wasn’t one of them.
He charged at Fanis and dove into his hamstrings collapsing him to the
ground. Fanis got up and stared at a
scowling cyclist. He scolded, “You
ruined my moto.”
“You shouldn’t be stealing
handbags.”
“Your president can steal an
election but I can’t steal hand bags?”
Fanis’ eyes squinted in
confusion and answered, “Really?”
“Even your last president Obama
said that the Republicans colluded with Russia just because they hate the
Democrats.”
“Yea, but before that, he said
that Russian meddling in the election was ridiculous. Since there are 50 state elections, it’s
impossible to do that.”
“Why would he say that?”
“Because Donald Trump called it
that they would pull this crap so told everyone that if he lost it was Russia’s
fault. He got him on record saying what
they were going to accuse him of was impossible. Didn’t do much good since people have no
memories but we have the video.”
Just to bolster his point, Fanis
showed him the video and then wondered how this encounter ended up here. This guy tried to steal Kera’s purse and then
he blindsided and tackled Fanis and now they were having a discussion.”
The response brought it back to
how the encounter originated when the cyclist threw a punch. Fanis ducked under the punch and rapidly fired
off two punches to the cyclist’s kidneys.
Fanis ducked anticipating him to swing his arms back at him but,
instead, the cyclist dropped to one knee.
Fanis kicked him in the back of the head flattening him on his stomach
and then retreated again. He asked Kera,
“Did you call an Uber?”
“No, I thought you might punish
him a little more.”
“I’m not your hit man; I’m your
bodyguard. I got your purse back so
we’re good now.”
“Oh really? Maybe you should turn around then.”
Fanis does so and sees the guy
approaching him with his bike helmet in hand.
Fanis rolls his eyes and, not learning from the first time, the cyclist
swings the helmet at Fanis’ head. Again
Fanis ducks and this time kicks at the back of the cyclists’ leg causing him to
fall forward onto his helmet. He rolled
on the ground grabbing his face and Fanis jumped and stomped on his sternum and
kicked him in the face. Fanis then picked
up the helmet and swung the helmet down at his face three times busting him
open. When he looked down at the bloody
mess that was his face, Fanis shouted, “Can we be done now?”
The man nodded and Kera called
an uber. While they were waiting, the
cyclist sat on the curb moping and Fanis couldn’t decide if he was just waiting
for him and Kera to leave or if the bike was ruined. The driver came and Fanis and Kera got in and
headed toward the hotel. She inquires, “Did
you hear about AOC?”
“No, but everything she says is
retarded so I’m losing interest.”
“She isn’t promising free stuff
anymore.”
“Wow, maybe she actually is
getting some intelligence.”
“She wants people to think of
education and health care as a public good.”
“And she’s back! She realized the Elizabeth Warren’s campaign
was derailed by claiming it won’t cost them anything. It actually makes sense. Bernie Sanders admits people will have to pay
more in taxes for it and AOC is Sanders’ protégé.”
“If the populous is educated,
isn’t that good for society?”
“Cuba has like a 98% literacy
rate but that hasn’t helped their society all that much.”
“I take it you disagree.”
“Of course I do. Public goods are supposed to be to the
benefit of the country and also doesn’t have a viable private option. It’s also non-excludable. You can’t fulfill one requirement and get rid
of the other parts. It’s clearly
excludable because you can deny education and care if someone doesn’t pay
you. There is also obviously a viable
private option since there are concierge doctors and private schools.”
“I just don’t understand why
your problems in the inefficiencies of government spending isn’t a problem for
public goods but not other aspects.”
“There’s no contradiction. Military spending and other public good
spending are still completely inefficient.
But if you had privatized armies then what? You don’t get protection unless you can
afford to have a bodyguard like you do.
Like, if you had your own military, you could nuke Italy because of the
harassment you had here. That’s not a
viable private option that anyone with money can have military personnel get
revenge. I guess, people can still do
that but it benefits the country as a whole if the country is defended by
someone that doesn’t just go to the highest bidder. Also, if you are slighted, you should be able
to sue someone. If the judges are
privatized, that would be a problem.”
“Yea, a big problem.”
“That’s not a problem for
education and health care. It is easy to
turn an individual person away but it’s hard to turn away individual people
from using roads or not being protected by the United States military by
foreign actors.”
“You could turn someone down
from suing in a federal court just like you can turn them away at a hospital.”
“You could but the problems are
worse if the judicial system is privatized and convictions can be bought.”
“Judges can still be bribed.”
“It’s harder because the
government can beat any corporation when it comes to spending money and
outbidding.”
“I see your point. So even with public goods, you’re saying
government spending is inefficient?”
“Absolutely,”
“At least you’re consistent.”
“Am I not explaining it
right? Do you get what I’m saying? There is no perfect strategy but if the trade
offs between private control outweigh the trade offs of public, then it’s a
public good. That’s very rare though.”
“Yea, I do.”
“Okay good.”
They arrive back at the hotel
and Kera declares, “I thought that celebrities were excluded from using the
courts but (Republican congressman) Nunes is suing CNN and the Daily Beast for
defamation.”
“There you go; nobody is
excludable.”
“He’s not going to win.”
“I know but maybe it’ll help
with Nick Samdman’s cases. He actually
has a case.”
“Who is that?”
“One of the high school kids
that were vilified in the national media for not engaging a fake Native
American beating a drum in their face.”
“Oh yea, he’s not a public
figure so that actually has some ground.”
“A lot of suits have been
filed. As far as I know, no
settlements.”
“Don’t give up. Maybe he’ll get one.” She remarked
condescendingly.
“Perhaps, but back to the issue;
if the mainstream media and Democrats are attacking Nunes then that means he’s
on to something. They are scared of the
Horowitz and Durham investigations.”
“You said you didn’t think the
Horowitz report was a big deal?”
“I did say that but that doesn’t
mean it doesn’t worry the Democrats and media.”
“Ah, misplaced fear”
“Yea, they’re big on that.”
“At least they’re distracting
Trump from implementing his policy so they are saving the country from Trump
even if they don’t impeach him. “
“What do you mean? Trump just flipped the 11th
circuit court. Now, seven out of the 13
federal courts are Republican majority nominees. That’s officially a majority of them.”
“Oh shit”
“Yup, now most federal appeals
will be based on the constitution instead of fleeting whims of judges that
abuse their power by legislating from the bench.”
“Republican appointees can’t do
that?”
“There’s less of a chance. That’s what we mean by limited government and
we like the constitution so no, the likelihood is much less.”
Fanis and Kera go to sleep after
a long day. On the plane back to London,
Kera poses, “When you said that AOC learned from Warren’s mistake, what did you
mean? I thought she was leading in the
polls?”
“She’s down 14 points after she
put out her price tag for free healthcare.”
“Oh, yea, that exposed her for being a liar.”
“Also, explains why Sanders and
AOC have transitioned to public option instead of just calling it ‘free.’”
“Well, Sanders always did admit that
people would be happy to pay more in taxes for these programs.”
“Yea, not sure people like
paying more in taxes”
“AOC and Sanders think they do.”
“At least they’re honest.”
“Yea, and now 34% of blacks
support Trump.”
“That’s high. Wasn’t it like 8 when Bush was president?”
“Something like that.”
“Why though?”
“Candace Owens and Larry Elder
mostly but I’m sure it didn’t help that Elizabeth Warren lied to a black
woman.”
“How?”
“The black woman told her that
she can’t talk about school choice when her kids went to private school. Elizabeth Warren told her that her kids went
to public school, which is a lie. It was
also easy to disprove because it’s not hard to get the year book for those
years and conservatives did.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“Because the mainstream media
like the Washington Post and MSNBC ignore stories that make Democrats look
bad.”
Kera rolls her eyes, “Always the
same conspiracy theories.”
“You keep giving it
ammunition. It’s shocking you think it’s
still a conspiracy.”
“Anything can be twisted to fit
a conspiracy.”
“True but you should realize
which are spin and which aren’t. Your
inability to do that is not something I can really help you with although I’ve
tried.”
They land in London and head
back to their flat. It was an
interesting trip but now that it was over, they had to move forward. All Fanis could hope was that someone,
whether it be Durham, Horowitz, or someone else, needed the deep state to pay
for their reprehensible actions. If
nothing else, hopefully the American people were waking up and they would vote
out the Democrats so that the era of big government could finally be over like
Bill Clinton claimed when he was president approximately 25 years ago.
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