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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Friday Night PopCult Dreams Open Thread: Trump Fantasizes Himself James Bond

Friday Night PopCult Dreams Open Thread: Trump Fantasizes Himself James Bond

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Guy who wrote Art of the Deal for Trump:

Foreign security expert; Professor, Naval War College:

As many critics have pointed out, Ian Fleming wrote the first James Bond novels just as the sun was conclusively setting over the British Empire. While grey little MI bureaucrats coped with rationing coupons and currency restrictions, every day seemed to bring news of another embassy ceded or outpost overrun by lawless wogs and ungrateful colonials. But the imaginary Bond was an invicible Trickster, breezing past every finger-wagging Moneypenny and shadowy figurehead M to play one exciting scenario after another in a world of limitless funds, fast cars, exciting tech toys, bangable women, high-end cuisine, and a whole carefully-curated shopping list of the top consumer brands in every category. Even President Kennedy — who knew to a nicety just how much it cost to live like Bond — enjoyed the paperback fantasies where constant physical discomfort and the subliminal Cold War drumbeat of Mutually Assured Destruction could be ignored, however briefly.

Half a century later, as the American Exceptionalism empire ebbs, and even the bedrock verities of white racial superiority and ‘natural’ patriarchy are under assault, an aging New York developer stands in front of a full-length gilt mirror in his knockoff penthouse, adjusts his made-in-China self-branded tie, and whispers to himself “Trump. Donald Trump.”…

First time as tragedy, second time as farce.
.


trump putin 16 make tyranny great again kasich20n-1-web-500x263

Reader Interactions

328Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    I thought of another potential scenario — since The Donald is buddies with a lot of oligarchs, I could see one of them hiring hackers to do this. So would that count as an illegal campaign contribution from a foreign national?

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    HowardKurtz ✔@ HowardKurtz
    To believe Trump was serious about Russians hacking Hillary, you’d have to believe he is clinically insane

    maybe the dopiest Villager ever to make Sally Quinn’s A list

  3. 3.

    Burnspbesq

    Odd to think of Trump and Assange as allies.

    On second thought, what’s so odd about an alliance between dangerous, self-absorbed, narcissistic megalomaniacs?

  7. 7.

    different-church-lady

    Nice to see you do some real writing instead of just re-tweeting without the Twitter.

  8. 8.

    Burnspbesq

    Per Rick Hasen’s blog, another District Court took a bite out the Wisconsin voter ID law today.

    I hate to say it because it’s still inexcusably bad legal reasoning, but Shelby County might not turn out to be as bad as originally feared.

  12. 12.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    To believe Trump was serious about Russians hacking Hillary, you’d have to believe he is clinically insane

    If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck…

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: ‘Campaign contribution’ would be far down the list of things to worry about. Even putting aside the national espionage question, being directly tied to these hacks would make Trump an accessory to umpteen felonies.

  16. 16.

    Steve in the ATL

    (1) I can’t keep up with all the posting here these days;

    (2) You know how when you are sick or injured and you go back to work or working out too soon and you’re not 100% healthy and really not ready? That’s how I feel about the BoB’s I’ve been slowly unhiding on Facebook. Give it a fucking rest, you idiots. Vote for the party that aligns almost completely with your beliefs, then organize a party to your liking after the election when it’s not too late to do something about it.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    The true purpose of the hacks is clearly to threaten people with identity theft/credit-card fraud if they donate money to Democrats, not to obtain any kind of politically relevant information.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    If Assange got the emails from the Russians, I wonder why they wanted to release the ones they did. I can’t imagine Putin was pissed off at DWS, and all that whole episode did was expose the hacking operation.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    I keep expecting to see a Tweet from @dick_nixon any day now, about what an amateur Trump is and how he’s disgraced a long line of dirty tricksters and “October surprisers” with all of his thin-skinned ‘tell’ Tweets.

    Because frankly, the guy (Trump, not Nixon) is a rank amateur at this game.

  23. 23.

    Agrippa

    I think that the base popular vote for Trump is 45%. So, with 5 or 6% more he can win. people will vote for him because he is who he is – not in spite of who he is.

  24. 24.

    hovercraft

    Crimea has formally invited Donald Trump to visit. See he’s already improving our relationships overseas.

  32. 32.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    To piss off the Bernie supporters and hopefully create chaos and hurt Clinton. He did say that this is personal.

  34. 34.

    Emma

    @Baud: This. This has been bugging me. Those emails were anodyne stuff. A bunch of people working and sometimes letting off steam in inappropriate ways. There was a storm, it passed, and essentially nothing happened. Something about it feels off.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    @Agrippa: I think it’s true of ‘normal’ generic Rs, as Baud notes. I believe Trump is losing more college-educated whites than he’s gaining non-college educated whites, though. This will probably translate to just a couple million votes nationwide, and in the 7-8 battleground states it is likely to be a wash, so we’re probably looking at Obama’s 2012 margins, not his 2008 ones.

    I’ll take it.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @amk: I would love to keep him under the historic 40% level. That may be too much to ask for, although with the possibility of a high third-party vote, who knows?

    Speaking of third parties, does it seem like the media is promoting the Greens over the Libertarians, even though (I think) the Libertarians poll better?

  40. 40.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @PigDog:
    He’s the man with the tiny touch
    the spine-y touch
    Such a short finger
    Beckons you to enter his web of sin
    But don’t go in

    Golden words he will pour in your ear
    But his lies just want you to fear
    For a golden girl knows when he’s kissed her
    It’s the kiss of death from Mister Gshortfinger
    Pretty girl, beware of his heart of mold
    This heart is cold

  42. 42.

    Aleta

    Here’s something Trump said in Colorado: transcript

    As far as I can tell, he’s pretending that there are many more people outside his speaking place who want to get in but aren’t allowed to enter, because a fire marshall who is secretly working for Clinton won’t let them. All this to explain the empty seats. Or perhaps the fire marshall is real and really did limit attendance in accordance with the law–I can’t tell.

    From now til election and beyond, we’ll see him spreading blame as often as bats leave barns at dusk in mosquito season.

  43. 43.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Well duh: the Greens pull votes from Democrats. Libertarians pull votes from Republicans.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    Holy Cripes. The conventions have barely finished and Trump is a walking nervous breakdown. I love how he reacts to the op Ed pieces suggesting that he should be denied national security briefings by insanely suggesting that Hillary is too unstable to receive them. Absolutely textbook case of Trump projecting his own weakness and failure into someone else.

    And yet, for a core of sadsack voters, he remains the Great White Hope. And the GOP is chained to him. The only problem is that the GOP is willing to drag the entire country down with them.

    What is it, 100 days until the election. This is gonna be crazy.

  46. 46.

    I Am Not King Jon Snow

    Trump said this afternoon that the military shouldn’t communicate electronically because of hacking. He said they should use couriers. Is he talking about sending ravens? Not sure how that would work in a crisis.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: They’re trying to keep the Greens stirred up in order to make it a horse race, even though a) the Ds cover 95% of what the Greens want

  49. 49.

    JPL

    Anne, If you can, put the interview with the Khan’s up. I’m in tears. He said that his wife was there to give him strength, because he is the weak one. He is now pleading with the Republican leadership to repudiate Trump. Politico magazine mentioned they were not registered Democrats, and no one saw his speech before hand, since it was from the heart.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @Brachiator: I don’t know how much Hillary needs the briefings. Maybe she should say no briefings this time around, so that Trump doesn’t get them. As president, I’m sure she wouldn’t want Trump to have possession of national secrets.

  53. 53.

    dmsilev

    @Emma: That may just be that the people behind it don’t understand the US electorate all that well. Or that this was the best that they had to work with. Remember, Assange dropped another load of stuff during the convention (some voicemails) and it was so blah that most outlets didn’t even bother reporting it as news.

  54. 54.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Steve in the ATL: I’m awarding Tunch Points for anyone here who has seen a Bernster lift the “vote your conscience” line from Ted Cruz and straight-faced say it to us one the left in the last week.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @dmsilev: I was wondering what happened with that. I know I’m not in the majority of Americans here, but each one of these “scandals” gives me more confidence in our operations, not less.

  62. 62.

    D58826

    The Khans are on O’Donnell now.

    What he said last night was only half of the message that he wanted to deliver. The other half was directed at Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. If they are patriots they must repudiate Trump now. But they don’t seem to want to because of political expediency.

    In other words evil will succeed when good men remain silent. And yes I am giving Ryan and McConnell the benefit of the doubt that they are ‘good’ men.

  63. 63.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Well, I suppose there’s always our own confirmation bias to take into account. But what’s the fun in that?

  65. 65.

    ? Martin

    @JPL: Agreed. People need to see this interview. It’s brutal and amazing and almost impossibly genuine.

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Emma: It makes sense if the real purpose is not to release any damaging information, but to cut off Hillary Clinton’s and the Democrats’ campaign funding by making people scared to donate through the web. The message isn’t “Hillary is bad,” it’s “we’ll hurt you if you support Hillary”.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @lamh36: Assange has outright said that he is working to bring down Clinton. So, anything and everything that Wikileaks releases needs to be interpreted through that lens.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Speaking of third parties, does it seem like the media is promoting the Greens over the Libertarians, even though (I think) the Libertarians poll better?

    Which media? Where? When?

    I haven’t seen any promotion, but maybe I haven’t been watching the right channels. I did, however, hear a tortured radio with a Bernie supporter who said that he was voting for Jill Stein, and didn’t care if Trump won because (and this is the good part) it was all the Democrats fault because they did not let the superdelegates switch their votes to Bernie, and anyway he can’t vote for Hillary because the first thing she is going to do is start a war.

  72. 72.

    Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter

    @Emma: It certainly gave my BoB friends on FB all the “proof” they needed that the DNC is corrupt and/or the nomination was stolen from Bernie. :(

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Assange hates Secretary Clinton. He thinks she personally tried to get the US government to go after him for the Manning leaks. He is also convinced that she would be horrible to the media because of that and that she would start multiple wars.

  74. 74.

    Quinerly

    @? Martin:
    I watched the rally. The craziest part was how much the crowd was agreeing with him. They clearly thought we should go back to “couriers”…whatever the hell that means.

  76. 76.

    ? Martin

    @Baud: Ok, but it looks like we have a nation-state attacking their servers, not a bunch of Anonymous guys. There’s no fucking way that the parties should have expected to prepare for that. Of course it’s swiss cheese. If the NSA were attacking Wikileaks or Google or anyone else, it’d be fucking swiss cheese as well.

  78. 78.

    D58826

    Mrs Khan asked her son not to be a hero but just to come home. He told her that he had to take care of his soldiers. And the right is trying to slander these patriots.

  81. 81.

    mike in dc

    Even Snowden is criticizing WikiLeaks for not excluding people’s credit card info from the data dump. WikiLeaks snarked back at him. Looks like they’re jumping the shark. The only thing up in the air is whether Saint Greenwald will distance himself from them.

  82. 82.

    amk

    Are the dems on campaign trail hitting the rethugs about the voter restriction laws in all gop leges and how the courts are striking them down one after another as illegal?

  85. 85.

    JPL

    @? Martin: Politico spoke with Mr. Khan today.. link It explains how he become involved with the Clinton campaign. They are not registered Democrats. The campaign offered the help of a speechwriter, and he said no. There was no teleprompter.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @? Martin: I don’t know all the details, but wasn’t sensitive donor information kept in plain text files rather than encrypted?

  89. 89.

    Waspuppet

    I’ve taken to responding to Trump’s tweets with #BeQuiet in honor of his totally nonsexist reply to Katy Tur.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    I don’t know how much Hillary needs the briefings. Maybe she should say no briefings this time around, so that Trump doesn’t get them.

    Even as secretary of state, she obviously was in the thick of national security matters. But I don’t think that her turning briefings down would prevent the courtesy offer of briefings to Trump.

  93. 93.

    D58826

    Not a criticism but wonder why they use the English God rather than the Muslin Allah. and dumb question last night when he had his hand across his chest – is that just the usual hand over heart of the pledge of intelligence or a Muslim/Pakistani greeting/benediction?

  97. 97.

    Barbara

    @Adam L Silverman: And if the fire marshal let them in he would start complaining about the heat and the poor air conditioning system, like he did the other day at the Hotel Roanoke.

  98. 98.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Emma: Assange framed this as a gigantic scandal hoping, based on his observations of the US new media, that his hyperbole would be a nice shiny lure, they’d then take the bait, allowing him to set the hook and he’d get what he’d want. Creating a scandal to bring down the Clinton campaign. Because he’s either too dumb to verify where the info came from/who did the hack or too dumb to understand that partnering with Russian Intel was going to set off huge red flags here in the US. And because he didn’t run this batch through a consortium of newspapers, he’s got no top cover this time. The reason the Obama Administration didn’t prosecute Assange in regards to the Manning leaks is they couldn’t figure out how to do it without also prosecuting all the reporters and newspapers involved in the reporting consortium. He doesn’t have that cover this time. This time he’s going to get charged with cyber crimes, espionage, Identity Theft, and a whole bunch of other things. And pressure will eventually be brought on Ecuador to cut him loose.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    POLITICO Magazine ✔ @POLITICOMag
    Khizr Khan didn’t use the teleprompter. There was nothing to put on it, because he had written nothing down.

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein
    The Khans are simply stunning role models of courage, compassion and patriotism. The best of America and American values.
    9:20 PM – 29 Jul 2016

  106. 106.

    PsiFighter37

    I read that the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County chapter of BLM endorsed Portman for reelection?! Kay – WTF?

  109. 109.

    Mary G

    I can’t decide if the Russians just don’t get America, and thought that since there was so much screaming about Hillary’s server, that the DNC emails would knock her out, or if they have more and worse to come, maybe the morning of the debate. Or they are just enjoying our humiliation on the world stage every time Trump opens his mouth and want to keep the race close enough that the Republican party doesn’t dump him.

  112. 112.

    D58826

    In addition to saviong his soldiers he may have saved the lives of many of the local Iraqi workmen waiting to go to work that day.

    Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein
    The Khans are simply stunning role models of courage, compassion and patriotism. The best of America and American values.
    9:20 PM – 29 Jul 2016

    worth repeating in bold.

  113. 113.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Aleta: he was in Colorado Springs – a totally wing nut area – highly unlikely the fire Marshall is a Democrat. I know that’s besides the point but jeezus Trumpster is supposed to be a fabulous builder but he doesn’t understand maximum occupancy? What does he do at MarLago and the Trump Hotel ballroom? Let however many people he can fit in go in? Fvcking maroon.

  114. 114.

    Barbara

    @Baud: Well, it is possible that Jill Stein provides better entertainment value than Gary Johnson and William Weld or maybe it’s that that they don’t really want to have an actual discussion with people who were actually once considered to be quite mainstream Republicans. That might lead to a discussion of what made them leave the party.

  116. 116.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: I linked to the article at 85. The republican party is a white nationalist party for old white guys these days. Who would have thought that the best testimony for the next President, was unscripted.

    That had to be a tough interview for Lawrence.. It was tough listening to it.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mike in dc: GG already did. He did an interview with Slate, I think, where he was concerned about them not redacting the PII.

  119. 119.

    J R in WV

    @D58826:

    There is no limit to the despicable lies the Right Wing bigots will spin to try to destroy someone they hate, especially someone who is putting them under a spotlight, showing everyone what is crawling under that Republican rock.

    Almost as bad as the way they have treated First Lady Michelle Obama. And Captain Khan sounds like a real hero to me, in defense of the Constitution of the United States of America…

    Nothing worse than someone lying to tear down someone who is so much better than they are, which is of course why they attempt to tear them down. The Khan family should, if needed, get government protection from the right wing nuts, who are both crazy, despicable, and scary (sic) !!

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodinger’s cat: They’re originally from Pakistan. They moved from Pakistan to UAE for the husband’s education (if I’m recalling correctly). From the UAE they came here. They’re not Arab and definitely not speaking with Emirati/Gulf Arabic accents.

  121. 121.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @NotMax: I hope the Intel briefings include Yankee Doodle Pigeon, from the Hanna Barbera documentary. I can see Trump asing why we don’t use more carrier pigeons.

  123. 123.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @JPL: Kareem Abdul January introduced them as coming from the UAE. I’m assuming they’re originally from Pakistan.

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: That’s correct. All the Personally Identifying Information (PII) is completely unredacted. Names, addresses, phone #s, credit card #s, etc.

  125. 125.

    Timurid

    @JPL:

    Probably Pashtuns, as that’s where that surname is most common.
    Pashtuns originally came from what’s now Northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, but there are enclaves all over Pakistan (and India).

  128. 128.

    JPL

    @Baud: The other testimony that I personally liked was the partner from Cantor Fitzgerald. Lauren Manning showed courage, poise and grit and I was glad She’s with Her.

  129. 129.

    Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter

    @Emma: I live in Oregon and my FB friends are unrepresentatively skewed towards BoB. It gets tiring…

  131. 131.

    Chris

    As many critics have pointed out, Ian Fleming wrote the first James Bond novels just as the sun was conclusively setting over the British Empire. While grey little MI bureaucrats coped with rationing coupons and currency restrictions, every day seemed to bring news of another embassy ceded or outpost overrun by lawless wogs and ungrateful colonials. But the imaginary Bond was an invicible Trickster, breezing past every finger-wagging Moneypenny and shadowy figurehead M to play one exciting scenario after another in a world of limitless funds, fast cars, exciting tech toys, bangable women, high-end cuisine, and a whole carefully-curated shopping list of the top consumer brands in every category.

    What’s really interesting about the books is that they end up being a kind of record of every anxiety the British upper class had at the time. Even before the movies de-politicized the story, Bond hardly ever left the West (at most, colonies like in the Carribbean or allies like Turkey and Japan), and almost all of his early villains, though supposedly working the East, are Westerners. Specifically, Westerners who represent some kind of challenge to the established order – labor unions (Le Chiffre), black power (Mr. Big), Irish nationalism (Red Grant), or “new money” (Drax, Goldfinger). The uber-villain, SMERSH, is basically a plot device that ties all these troublesome movements together into some sort of giant conspiracy controlled from the Kremlin to destroy the West.

    Compare and contrast with the way COINTELPRO and foreign equivalents (it wasn’t just the U.S.) behaved in terms of infiltration and disruption of all kinds of activist groups or unpopular parts of civil society, always justified by accusations that they were all full of communists… It’s not hard to guess that the James Bond novels are basically an accurate snapshot of how the J. Edgar Hoover, Dulles brothers types saw the world.

  132. 132.

    lamh36

    @speechboy71
    Khizr Khan on @Lawrence right now just tearing the bark off of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan

    Yet none of the media I see, even remotely try to confront Ryan, McConnell et al

  133. 133.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J R in WV:

    And Captain Khan sounds like a real hero to me, in defense of the Constitution of the United States of America…

    Given what he did, I was surprised that he was awarded only the Bronze Star.

  134. 134.

    lamh36

    @JDiamond1
    Trump gets crowd of supporters in Denver to boo retired 4-star General John Allen: “He’s a failed general.”

  137. 137.

    ? Martin

    Man, that interview was brutal. Turned the knife in a way that no politician could have done.

  139. 139.

    JPL

    @Mai.naem.mobile: I’m not sure where, but I heard they went from Pakistan to UAE, before immigrating to the United States.

    I’m waiting for Trump to come out and say of course, he’d allow their son to stay.

  141. 141.

    CaseyL

    The DNC leak may have started with Wikileaks and Russia, but after that I suspect it was Trump who gave the “go,” because it has his kind of fingerprints. A whole lot of stuff was released, accomplished very little against the intended targets, and now people are on guard. Plus Assange and Wikileaks have lost whatever residual heroic aura they may once have had. Sort of an own-goal, IOW.

    (That doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal for other reasons. Trump is conspiring with an often-hostile foreign power against the US. He should be in jail. But then, he should be in jail for a lot of the shit he’s pulled.)

    I don’t think people will stop contributing, because we’re kind of inured to the idea that credit card info gets stolen; we just get new cards. That’s how I look at it, anyway; I check my account activity regularly and if something looks odd I call the bank.

  145. 145.

    japa21

    @D58826: Allah is Arabic for God, not Muslim. An Arab Christian also uses Allah. The hand over the heart is “Thank you.”

  146. 146.

    Adam L Silverman

    @D58826: Because Allah means God in Arabic and is the default for all Muslims regardless of whether they are Arab or not for prayer. Jews that are native Arabic speakers refer to God as Allah. So do Christians when referring to God the Father. Many Muslims that speak other languages, when speaking in them and to non Muslims, use the word for God in the language they’re conversing in. When I (used to) speak Arabic and said God I didn’t say “God” in the middle of the Arabic sentence. I used Allah because its Arabic. Just when I (used to) speak Hebrew I used one of the variations (El, Eloha – this is basically the same as Allah – etc).

  147. 147.

    encephalopath

    On the subject of intelligence briefings for Trump, all they have to do is provide him with written briefings.

    He’s known to never read anything that isn’t about himself. There’s no way he’d get through more than a couple of paragraphs of a written briefing before giving up.

  151. 151.

    lamh36

    Wow…Lawrence has the ghostwriter for Art of the Deal on now and WOW. I saw a few clips of what he’s said about Trump, but my god…you can tell the mad is quaking with emotion when he talks about how souless Donald Trump was/is…it’s a if he’s really describing Lucifer himself…

    Wow

    @zizii2 3m3 minutes ago
    Yep that’s it. @tonyschwartz says #Trump “is a black hole. Nothing inside”. Has constant need to fill it w/ adulation. @Lawrence @msnbc

  155. 155.

    Gravenstone

    @dmsilev:

    Assange has outright said that he is working to bring down Clinton. So, anything and everything that Wikileaks releases needs to be interpreted through that lens.

    So, he’s basically declaring war against the US by actively trying to undermine our political process and ability to self determine our leadership? Sounds like someone is asking for a Hellfire through his window.

  157. 157.

    ? Martin

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Yeah, they went through that story that they fled Pakistan to UAE then to Boston where he got a master of law degree at Harvard then to Maryland.

    It was apparent to everyone in my house that his pocket constitution was well worn when he held it up. The interview makes it abundantly clear he has a much better understanding of what the founders intended than any Republican I’ve met.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Perhaps he has all their emails? Its really unclear. President Correa has tweaked the US a few times, including on human rights, so perhaps thats it.

  159. 159.

    D58826

    @japa21: Yes I phrased that wrong. Palestinian Christians refer to Allah also. Just used to hearing in the Muslim context.

  165. 165.

    different-church-lady

    @Gravenstone:

    Sounds like someone is asking for a Hellfire through his window.

    I bet Ecuador would would have something to say to Secretary Kerry after that.

  167. 167.

    Emma

    @? Martin: I’ll bet you anything it’s one he got in law school. West distributes those like confetti at the start of the academic year.

  168. 168.

    Chris

    @Brachiator:

    I did, however, hear a tortured radio with a Bernie supporter who said that he was voting for Jill Stein, and didn’t care if Trump won because (and this is the good part) it was all the Democrats fault because they did not let the superdelegates switch their votes to Bernie, and anyway he can’t vote for Hillary because the first thing she is going to do is start a war.

    Honestly, those people scare me. The Clinton Derangement Syndrome is absolutely out of control, and I’m hearing it everywhere. I’m hoping it’s a case of silent majority, or that Trump is enough to scare enough people into their senses at least this time. But I feel like I can’t throw a stone without hitting a “not a dime’s worth of difference!” believer.

  170. 170.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @D58826:
    I told my boy if he came home with any medals I would kick his ass. I thank pasta every day he never had the opportunity to be a hero. though he was in fire fights. He was just a stupid kid & he would have done what was right instead of what was smart.

  177. 177.

    J R in WV

    @D58826:

    Allah is to God as si is to yes in Spanish. He was speaking to an American audience in English, so he used the English words we would understand.

    I think he had his hand over his heart because that’s where he hurts, but that’s just my opinion. Mr Khan may have intended something more spiritual than that, it may be something more spiritual that is common to Pakistan, I believe that’s where they came from, but I’m not at all sure. In any case, my best wishes to him, his wife, and his family

    I think you meant pledge of allegiance? rather than intelligence, but I know sometimes the fingers type a more common word than the head intended, or autocorrect is more used to seeing one word than another more proper word. No offense either way…

  179. 179.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: It seemed to be the default for KIA during OIF and OEF. If you go and look at the link lamh provided to all the Muslims KIA in OIF and OEF its posthumous Bronze Star and Purple Heart. I’m pretty sure if you check a lot of other KIAs in OIF and OEF its the same thing. Of course, as you know, it also depends on how the incident is written up, what the chain of command puts in, and what has been signaled from higher as acceptable.

  182. 182.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: Also this was a good moment for Assange to gather more supporters. The anti-Hilary people were still in formation in Phil, and some of the energy (anger at the emails) might be captured to organize new pressure for his freedom.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mary G: The fact that the second big data dump, the voicemails, was a complete nothing that sank without a trace gives me some hope.

  185. 185.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @D58826:
    That is a “my heart” sign.Many people used it at the convention & a lot of ball players use it as a way to say thanks or I am heartfelt. It is not unusual

  187. 187.

    Emma

    @Omnes Omnibus: When I worked for a law library in the eighties they would give out briefcases and logo bags by the dozen during the law librarians conference. I have given away a whole bunch over the years. Better than backpacks for college kids.

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: Which is interesting because unlike LTG (ret) Flynn he was not forced out/relieved of his last command early and forced into early retirement. He was also then made the Special Envoy for Security Dialogue (Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations) and then the Special Envoy for ISIS.

  192. 192.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: No, I’m lying to you. Wikileaks actually bought everyone identified in the list a pony and sent it to them via Prime 2 day delivery after removing all their personal information from the info dump. They also set up college funds for the grandkids of everyone on the list.

    Yes, really!

  193. 193.

    Chris

    @CaseyL:

    Plus Assange and Wikileaks have lost whatever residual heroic aura they may once have had.

    If anything good’s come of this, it’s that. They were hardly ever uncontroversial, but they also did have the sympathy of a lot of people, extending beyond just the antiwar hard left and Paultards. This is going to cost them a lot.

  194. 194.

    Dadadadadadada

    @D58826: “Allah” is Arabic, not Muslim. It translates into English as “God” just as surely as the Spanish “Dios” or the French “Dieu,” etc. Most English-speaking Muslims, when speaking English, use “God,” because they’re speaking English. Non-Muslim Arabic speakers (many, many Jews and Christians are Arabic speakers) use “Allah” when talking about their versions of God, because that’s what the word means.

  199. 199.

    divF

    @Baud:

    When did they stop using big sacks of money with dollar signs on the side?

    Scrooge McDuck has converted his fortune to municipal bonds and bitcoins.

  202. 202.

    J R in WV

    @lamh36:

    Jeezes, like you get to be a 4-star Marine for failing! in the Marines?

    Trump is truly ignorant, pig ignorant of History in general and Military History in particular.

  203. 203.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Emma: The knife was from when I was clerking. KeyCite came out and WestLaw said it was like a SwissArmy knife and, at the training, gave us the knives with a KeyCite logo on one side and the traditional Victorinox logo on the other.

  205. 205.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Sounds depressing, but I’ll probably check it out.

    (As soon as I’m finished with “The Power Broker,” which I’m regretting having checked out. You could knock out a bull elephant with something less heavy than that book).

  207. 207.

    cortanya

    Bill Maher had on Bernie Sanders and Cornel West on tonight. West was so ridiculous with his Hillary bashing. Basically said she was just as bad as Trump.

  208. 208.

    lamh36

    Hey Adam…

    this is a question you may know. Will we know if/when Trump will start receiving briefings?

    And if/when he does…with his lose lips…how would be know if he leaked security briefings…I mean how could one tell the difference between Trump lies and a true slip?

    Steve Schmidt made the point that the Russia stuff is disconcerting, but in regards to if the story has “legs” he said that before Trump gets briefings his team have to be vetted…if it came out that someone on his team was denied access…that would be a big deal, because folks would want to know why and how high up they are in the campaign Trump campaign team?

    Again, I ask though, how would we know?

    Apparently he’s said this before, but it still begs the question…how would be able to tell a true breech vs his usual “Trumpism” rants

    @yarotrof Yaroslav Trofimov Retweeted Ben Jacobs
    If there is now a US military base in Saudi, it is classified and mentioning it should have legal consequences.

    @Bencjacobs
    Trump is now complaining “we pay rent for our base to Saudi Arabia”

  212. 212.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid: Its a personal honor issue. His son gave his life for his country. Those who do not respect that dishonor his son’s memory, which dishonor’s his family and all of their near relations. The insults and lies about his religion and co-religionists just piles on the dishonor. These folks are proud. They’re proud of their son, his service, and his sacrifice. They’re proud of what they’ve built as naturalized Americans, and as many immigrants they see the US in a way that those of us born here don’t. And they’re polite folks from a culture that promotes that politeness in communication and expression, but they have been wronged and they are now making that known. They are a class act.

  213. 213.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Adam L Silverman: You mean my tax dollars paid for that chart? Were there actual career civil servants who were paid to create that, and who thought it would actually benefit someone, or was that just masturbating?

  218. 218.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: No, because I don’t think I’ve ever used a hammer while speaking Arabic. And since my Arabic (and Hebrew and Spanish and limited French) are now so rusty its highly unlikely I would in the future.

  219. 219.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So, three boxes for Crime and Narcotics… is that even close? Seems like it’s a primary motivator for lots of activity over there from the reports I’ve read. What do you think?

  226. 226.

    Adam L Silverman

    @D58826:
    без проблем; pas de problème; de nada; meesh mushkilla (transliterated Arabic); ayn baya (transliterated Hebrew).

  227. 227.

    Timurid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No doubt… it’s just that few Democrats would ask or demand anything of specific people like Ryan, McConnell, etc (other than to lose their next election).

  228. 228.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Let me add to this that, at the risk of shamelessly profiling, they probably are ex-Republicans – until the 2004 election, Muslim Americans were a fairly loyal Republican demographic. It would hardly be surprising for him to feel betrayed.

  229. 229.

    Vhh

    @Gravenstone:wikileaks published PII info of US citizens. This is Federal felony with penalties up to 15 yrs prison plus huge fines. I think per count. US now has grounds to pressure Ecuador to force Assange out of London embassy and extradite him. Sweden has a rape charge against him, but would likely let the CIA and FBI have first shot. They need to offer him a few decades inside to squeeze out the Russian/Trump connection.

  231. 231.

    stinger

    @D58826: “Allah” is the Arabic word for God. The majority of Muslims are not native Arabic speakers, though they may know Koran verses or prayers in Arabic. My guess is that he says “God” when speaking English and the Punjabi word for God when speaking Punjabi (or whatever his actual native language is).

    The hand patting over the heart was used by several speakers throughout the convention, including Bill Clinton, and seems to be a gesture meaning “thank you — thank you from my heart”.

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I believe that nothing and no one can dishonor this Khan family, after first their son’s bravery and performance to the highest standard, and then Mr Khan’s performance both yesterday and today. What a Mensch he is. A great man who has raised great sons. A shame he doesn’t have a raft of wonderful daughters as well.

    It takes some bravery to do what this man has done, and no one can take that honor away.

  233. 233.

    Chris

    @Dadadadadadada:

    LOL! It was your recommendation, I blame you.

    (Nah, not really. I’m only through the intro, which looks interesting enough. But yeah, the page count and weight of the thing definitely reminded me why I hadn’t picked it up before).

  239. 239.

    Chris

    @Vhh:

    Sweden has a rape charge against him, but would likely let the CIA and FBI have first shot.

    Honestly, I think I might prefer to let the Swedes handle it. Instead of the political circus that’ll happen if he’s tried in the U.S. for his cyber-crimes, let him pay for the kind of crime that they don’t make folk heroes out of. And by a government he hasn’t been engaged in a virtual war with for years.

    Of course, the Swedes can’t bring the same pressure to bear that we can.

  240. 240.

    Joel

    @cortanya: Bill Maher’s still around? I noticed that HBO has demoted him to the “John From Cincinnati” level of “HBO features”.

  242. 242.

    divF

    @Gin & Tonic: I was sitting in a cafe in DC yesterday overhearing a conversation between (it sounded like) a government economist and a … well, the second guy was extolling the virtues of currencies like bitcoins, because they can’t be manipulated by central banks, and the are completely untraceable. The government economist was as politely as possible saying that those were not virtues – central banks need to act in financial crises to increase liquidity to keep the system from grinding to a halt, and untraceable transactions make any sort of regulatory system, from taxes to preventing money laundering by drug dealers, impossible. The whole thing was kind of surreal, kind of a libertarian hallucination.

  244. 244.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chris: US pressure vis-a-vis charges could get the Ecuadorans to kick him out. The US could then cede priority to the Swedes.

  245. 245.

    different-church-lady

    @Terry chay:

    They are the left’s version of Trump supporters.

    As far as practical effect goes, they are literally Trump supporters.

  247. 247.

    patrick II

    @Burnspbesq:

    I am no lawyer (obviously), but a thing that still worries me about restrictive voting laws, even in the course of some lately favorable decisions, is last minute changes in voting laws without the preclearance requirement (thanks John Roberts).

  248. 248.

    Chris

    @Joel:

    Has Maher weighed in yet on how this all just proves that the Khans belong to a dangerous anti-modern cult and we should all be terrified of them?

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They could. I’m just not sure they would want to, I can see them wanting to get their own hands on him first. Which I think would be a less preferable option. Trial’s more likely to turn into a political circus.

  250. 250.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chris: And, if you are capable of making that assessment, do you really think that Loretta Lynch can’t do the same?

    ETA: Lynch and Kerry.

  251. 251.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: My understanding is that the President, in combination with the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Central Intelligence will determine and establish the guidelines for what each party’s nominee gets and who, within their organizations, may also be read on. As for counterintelligence countermeasures to know if he leaks something in a rally, interview, press conference, and/or debate? I have no idea what those are, but I’m sure they exist. Finally, as to the alleged secret base in Saudi Arabia: I know its been reported on by the BBC and others in the past year. I don’t know anything beyond that. We do have personnel deployed there doing normal military partnering with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. Here’s the fact sheet from the Department of State:
    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm

  252. 252.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris:

    Instead of the political circus that’ll happen if he’s tried in the U.S. for his cyber-crimes, let him pay for the kind of crime that they don’t make folk heroes out of.

    Except that his fans all think he was framed and the women he raped were some sort of honey trap. Speaking of fantasies of being James Bond.

  254. 254.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Emma: Its referred to as the spaghetti chart or the technicolor puke slide. I actually know what everything on that slide is, but I also did a far more user friendly version as a way to teach how to (my way) and how not to (that chart) present this type of information.

  255. 255.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J R in WV: Its a huge problem. Of course part of the issue is we look at it from how we consider crime and corruption and not how the various different ethnic groups within Afghanistan understand crime and corruption.

  257. 257.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Even worse are the ones with a dozen little call out text boxes where the text is so small, to cram it all in, its completely unreadable. Both on the slide and on the read ahead print outs.

  262. 262.

    Adam L Silverman

    @stinger: The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

    But that’s usually the way to bet!

  264. 264.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: My law school had two guys who taught Civ. Pro. On the first day of class one guy had a chart like that on the blackboard; My guy brought in Candyland. He showed the board and the pieces and said “This is substantive law.” Then he held up the top of the box with the rules printed on it, and said “This is Civil Procedure.”

  269. 269.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Its not gone. They go into the trash category. I still don’t know why. I can dig them out and if people are putting up comments that stuff is getting eaten I go looking. If I’m around.

  272. 272.

    Adam L Silverman

    @divF: My brigade commander had a very mild red/green color blind problem. Of course one of the defaults is a red, yellow, green stop light chart. Red is bad, yellow is improving, green is good. We had to be very careful to not go from presenting this stuff horizontally to vertically.

  279. 279.

    Amir Khalid

    @D58826:
    Someone’s probably answered this by now, but God and Allah are not two different things. “Allah” is what Christians and Jews call God when they are speaking in Arabic.

  281. 281.

    Gravenstone

    @Vhh: Thanks for that. I know the legal system(s) have to work their way through to seeing that ass gets the punishments he so richly deserves. Been in a pissy mood and let my hyperbole run wild.

  282. 282.

    lgerard

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Excellent new book on Dulles and the CIA. The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot. It’s up next in my to read list.

    Son of the great Lyle Talbot. I have David’s “Season of the Witch” on my list for next month.

  283. 283.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud:

    Speaking of third parties, does it seem like the media is promoting the Greens over the Libertarians, even though (I think) the Libertarians poll better?

    I’ve set aside a couple long-form pieces about Gary Johnson’s Libertarian challenge this week, for when there was more time. But the Jill Stein lookit crazy elitist lady embarrassing the moonbats meme is much more soundbite-friendly for teevee and quick-hit social media.

  290. 290.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Thanks. I really do appreciate the shit you do here. Not the just the FP stuff, which is first rate, but the backroom stuff like this. Not a term my WASPy ass uses often, but you are a mensch. Normally, I would say “Well done.” or “Nicely done.” I drive a 10 year old Saab.*

    *This is not a non sequitur.

  292. 292.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: that troll did come back, I believe, as FIBark- rather disturbingly, he seems to be the same guy you connected me with to do a dog rescue a while back. He posts under several different nyms.

  295. 295.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: Okay. Let me know if he/she causes a problem and I’ll take a look. Provided its just run of the mill annoying, we’ll let it go.

  296. 296.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: He was just drunk or high or something and spewing a lot of garbage. it was weird because if it’s the same guy I talked to/emailed, he was perfectly rational and nice then.

  297. 297.

    sukabi

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: what gets me is Kurtz can listen to drumpf, read his stream of twit-twattle, watch the shitshow of a rnc convention and his subsequent twit-trum and NOT come to the conclusion that there’s something seriously askew in drumpfs brain.

  298. 298.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: I am a bit uncomfortable that more people have been banned recently. I am down with Cole’s principle that unless you drop something like the N-word at someone, you get to stay. I am weirdly absolutist on freedom of speech. I get Cole’s goal and I approve of it.

  302. 302.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Assange hates Secretary Clinton.

    I would add that Assange has trouble dealing with women as equals in general, going back to his early Australian hacker days, and an ongoing obssession with ‘masculinity tests‘. Not a surprise that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are his soul mates!

  305. 305.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Finally, as to the alleged secret base in Saudi Arabia: I know its been reported on by the BBC and others in the past year. I don’t know anything beyond that.

    Didn’t we have bases in Saudi Arabia until after 9/11, when the Cheney Regency’s splendid little war made things sufficiently complicated that it was adjudged wisest for a strategic deployment outside The Holiest Muslim Site(s)?

    Occam’s Razor would indicate that Trump never paid enough attention since 2004 to notice any overseas news that didn’t directly affect the market for Trump-branded real estate. It may just be that he’s a decade out of touch, not that he’s loose-lipped to the point of sedition… as though being that uninformed wasn’t bad enough for the GOP presidential nominee!

  306. 306.

    mudslide567

    @Miss Bianca: As someone said, this is the art of The Christianist Wild West so I was surprised at the modest ttendance.wWarm up was some of the batshit crazy county pols but crowd was mostly just impatient to hear from Trump. He spent about 30 minutes telling how much better RNC was than DNC — no flags at DNC until they read his tweet and went out and got one etc. Said he had just come from editorial meeting with ‘your wonderful newspaper’ which oddly he never named. Went on some semi incoherent ramble about Boeing being forced to build its planes in China which he would fix because… Then got into the red meat of Crooked Hillary and the crowd got into the Lock Her Up chant… which he clearly encouraged.

    Not really sure why he came here. This county is redder than red. At the D caucus you could get all the people in one room. This is Cruz country though so that may explain low attendance.

  307. 307.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: For the record, I am not calling for a banning, merely providing information. Which could perhaps be deleted from the public record, if Adam or someone can do it after the fact.. I am not advocating a hanging, so much as peddling the rope. So to speak. To a lawyer, perhaps, that will seem a mere quibble..

    Time for bed.

    ETA: It wasn’t the interaction with me that disturbed me: he was making some pretty gross borderline-homophobic remarks – that was what disturbed me.

  309. 309.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am a bit uncomfortable that more people have been banned recently.

    Every four years, this & probably every other political blog is assaulted by a new wave of trolls determined to derail intelligent commentary by their political enemies. This year, the usual politi-cranks have been joined by the Mens Rights Advocates and their fellow babymen, with the not-exactly-hidden encouragement of Trump’s supporters.

    I’ve got a growing file of links & a half-dozen drafts of a long post about the intersection, but there’s never a ‘slow news day’ in 2016. Here‘s a starter, on the Trump connection; here’s a People [warning: autoplay] report on the MRAs swarming Ghostbuster Leslie Jones for the ‘crime’ of being both female & African-American.

    As with so much else in American politics, Trump is the hot wet compress drawing the infected pus of our worst citizens to the surface.

  311. 311.

    Anne Laurie

    @mudslide567:

    Not really sure why he came here. This county is redder than red.

    Best that the political experts I’ve read can figure, Trump isn’t actually interested in persuading voters, he’s only interested in getting his ego stroked. So he throws around campaign money & time jetting to deep-red venues, or to deep-red pockets in deep-blue states, to bask in the cheers of his many, many yuuuuuge fans.

    The down-ticket Repub races are already bitching about this in public. By Labor Day, if things don’t change, they may be in open revolt (Trickster god Murphy make it so)!

  312. 312.

    Anne Laurie

    @Major Major Major Major:

    ugh MRAs are the worssssstttttttt

    Long before they started using that nym for themselves, us mere feminists were warning the rest of y’all that men with those kind of anger issues could never be trusted not to start attacking other “allies” for real or perceived infractions.

    Another draft post that needs to get finished oneofthesedays: what one tweeter called “Day Three”, because that’s when the media finds that the latest Lone Wolf Terrorist Mass Murderer has a history of domestic violence…

  316. 316.

    PurpleGirl

    @hilts: In their story Yahoo got where the family lived wrong. Yahoo said they lived in Jamaica. Nope, even in the 1950s Jamaica was becoming more AA and minority. The Trumps lived in Jamaica Estates which was an upper middle class area in far eastern Queens.

  317. 317.

    Anne Laurie

    @Major Major Major Major: There’s pros and cons to marrying one’s Tech Expert. Using Eudora might be classified as one of the cons.

    (Cuz there’s two things every man is convinced he’s an expert at — the third one being navigation.)

  319. 319.

    PurpleGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: When I first joined The NYC School Volunteer Program (an independent non-profit) their Comptroller was a Muslim. He over heard me explain halal to another new employee. Qumar later asked me how I knew what Halal was. Later we talked a lot about various things. One day I asked him where he was from. He explained tht when he was born it was one country, now it was three but he didn’t say where exactly on the sub-continent his family was from. He did tell me that after the partition they first moved to Britain, where he became a chartered accountant, then they went to Canada and then moved to New York. I liked Qumar very much. He was a gentle man and he was surprised that I knew so much about Islam and the different cultures.

  320. 320.

    PurpleGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: When I took the training give by the Industrial Areas Foundation we used The Power Broker as a text book. Yes, it is a slog but it’s an excellent book about Robert Moses and how real estate works in NYC.

  321. 321.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Emma: The Royal family has a small team of couriers who transport State documents and other things around the UK and the world. Unusually some time back the Palace put out an advertisement for a vacancy in the team some time back which attracted interest, not surprisingly. As I understand it the posts are usually filled by ex-service people with security clearances on recommendation.

  322. 322.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Vhh: To actually convict him on the Swedish rape charge, he’d have to get a trial in the next few years, because there’s a statute of limitations. (The statute of limitations on some of the lesser charges has already run out.)

  323. 323.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think heavy moderation on political blogs (and many other types of blogs) is fine, because otherwise, irritants who know how to stay one millimeter short of the line just camp there and take over the discussion. They’re not even necessarily trolls in the sense of being insincere.

    I’m thinking of, say, Mark Kleiman’s group blog and the way its comment section is basically owned by Brett Bellmore. Every discussion there consists 100% of everyone else arguing with this guy who is just writing the same racism-tinged right-wing boilerplate arguments over and over, about how everything bad that anyone mentions was also done by Obama, and how Democrats are making America less white for electoral gain and that’s not fair. (At least he hasn’t been going on about racial IQ stuff lately, which is where he can really make a splash.)

    They treat him as a legit commenter, and as a result he just dominates the place. I don’t think he ever does anything you could identify as personally abusive; he’s superficially polite and he never uses bannable words, and yet the whole discourse there is just poisoned by his presence; the conversation would be vastly better if he were just not there. But there’s no rule you could use to ban him that wouldn’t seem tyrannical or biased if you believe in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas.

  326. 326.

    Vhh

    @Adam L Silverman: Multiple counts of identity theft—of ordinary Americans-+- alone could put Assange away for decades. I would be very disappointed if the feds are not already leaning on Ecuador to cut him loose. His connections to the Russian FSB will destroy his celebrity status.

  327. 327.

    Chris

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think heavy moderation on political blogs (and many other types of blogs) is fine, because otherwise, irritants who know how to stay one millimeter short of the line just camp there and take over the discussion.

    This. There have certainly been periods here where a troll essentially took over the blog, in the sense that every third or fourth post would end up completely drowned by comments from the troll until the conversation was derailed onto one of the few pet issues they wanted to talk about all the time. (Used to be Matoko, then after that there was Ted & Helen. Probably others I can’t think of right now).

    And while I am mostly pretty good about not feeding the trolls (helps that the blog hasn’t been that bad in a long time), I also think “don’t feed the trolls” is the practical equivalent of advising abstinence only sex education. Nice thought; but we know perfectly well that’s not how human nature works.

  328. 328.

    Emma

    @Robert Sneddon: The “boxes,” which are the Queen’s briefing papers. Yes, I know, but that’s completely different. They don ‘t often travel outside the UK and they mostly move from Westminster to places like Holyrood or Balmoral. And they, like other “ceremonial” jobs, hire a hell of a lot of retired SAS.

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