Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

People are complicated. Love is not.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Usually wrong but never in doubt

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Everybody saw this coming.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Republicans in disarray!

Second rate reporter says what?

I was promised a recession.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, “Secretary of Swagger”

Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, “Secretary of Swagger”

by | 34 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has become increasingly frustrated in recent weeks by the departure of top State Department officials and claims that he failed to defend the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, from a smear campaign against her, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

As part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch testified to Congress this week that she was unfairly removed based on false claims pushed by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

One of the sources tell CNN that Pompeo was alerted to internal and external concerns about Giuliani’s effort to push out Yovanovitch, but Pompeo failed to act — he was wary of getting too deeply involved over fears of derailing US-Ukraine policy and potentially sharing the fate of his former colleague John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser who was fired for not being aligned with the President…

Pompeo’s apparent choice not to put guardrails between State officials and Giuliani has come under scrutiny by House Democrats who are bent on learning as much as they can about what exactly Pompeo knew of Giuliani’s dealings. In recent interviews, Pompeo has declined to answer questions about Giuliani’s entanglement in the administration’s Ukraine policy.

He was however aware of it. In March, Pompeo received a packet from Giuliani containing unfounded claims about Yovanovitch, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter regarding their dealings in Ukraine…

As the State Department has stopped working with Congress due to orders from the White House, Pompeo himself continues to defend Trump. He has called the Ukraine impeachment inquiry a conspiracy theory to take down the President.

But there will be new questions about conversations regarding quid pro quo in the coming days given the pronouncement by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in a news conference Thursday that the US withheld military aid from Ukraine in hopes of securing a promise that the foreign government would look into the possible presence of the physical Democratic National Committee server hacked by the Russians in 2016.

Pompeo, whose department oversees a hefty amount of that assistance to Ukraine, was also asked last month if it would be a problem if there were a quid pro quo arrangement. Pompeo said it is his job to be sure that foreign assistance is “completely appropriate” and that “American taxpayer dollars are used appropriately.”

IMO, “All better now!” should *definitely* be added to the rotating tags list.

Reader Interactions

34Comments

  2. 2.

    Sebastian

    This drives me mad. There is no server! It’s Trump’s deranged theory why the Russians totally didn’t hack his glorious victory.

    withheld military aid from Ukraine in hopes of securing a promise that the foreign government would look into the possible presence of the physical Democratic National Committee server hacked by the Russians in 2016.

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    Wasn’t Pompeo one of the “Freedom” Caucus guys with Mark Meadows? Full of every conspiracy theory? When he got CIA I thought he might be smarter than the average bear. I was wrong. He’s way in over his head. He’s the Gym Jordan of the State Department.

  8. 8.

    prostratedragon

    Definitely where I started out:

    Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
    For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
    So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

    And that’s not all. “He is the Jabba the Hutt of privilege.” He punches down and below the belt and while his victims are down. And there’s more. The last sentence is wonderful.

    Why “some British people” do not like Donald Trump.

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    Funny how white evangelicals dumb (Pompeo) and dumber (Pence) get sent at taxpayer expense to Turkey and come up empty-handed.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Sister Golden Bear:
    I’d more say that things were out of hand before pompous and mulvaney got sucked into the vacuum that is trumps brain and signed on for the lousing. All they’ve done is stirred the shit, gotten it all over themselves and made everything worse. We don’t deserve them but they deserve each other.

  18. 18.

    pat

    I have an alternate nightmare.
    Republicans turn on trump, he is impeached, pence becomes president and is elected in 2020.

    Nah, too far-fetched…. right..???

  19. 19.

    Bruce K

    @pat: The odds of that aren’t great, but they’re enough higher than zero to have me worried. Still, Trump strikes me as a scorched-earth burn-it-all-down-on-the-way-out type, and if the GOP turns on him, they’ve got to peel away not just the evangelicals, but the Southern Strategy bigots that Trump captured on his way to the White House. Plus, there’s a very good chance Pence gets smeared by the Trump ur-scandal, weakening him further.

    I’m starting to get a whiff of desperation out of the whole gang. Reminiscent of Berlin, spring 1945. Dangerous vintage, even more so because Trump has the nuclear weapons his predecessor didn’t.

  21. 21.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @WereBear: Also, Pence has none of the the “qualities” that attracted voters to Trump, Trump ran as an outsider, a successful businessman, and a reputation for quickly dealing with problems(“your fired”). In reality it was all an act, but voters bought into and he was also able to drive turnout among, to put it bluntly, racists by saying the quiet parts out loud and proud. Pence can do none of that, he’ll motivate the fundies but almost no one else.

  25. 25.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @prostratedragon: Too bad he doesn’t read or someone could pass him that article. The comparison to Obama alone would be enough to send him over the edge permanently. Maybe an interviewer could read him that sentence and politely ask him to respond?

  28. 28.

    Barry

    @pat: “Republicans turn on trump, he is impeached, pence becomes president and is elected in 2020.”

    By the time that that happens (20-odd GOP Senators out of 53 defecting on an extremely public vote), the GOP would be toast in 2020. The only question would be how huge of a landslide defeat that it would be for them.

  29. 29.

    Anya

    Pompeo always looks like he’s seething with anger. He can’t take criticism or disagreement. I feel for his wife, his children and his underlings. He seems like someone who always wants to be in control and will never accept anything less than complete obedience and deference.

  31. 31.

    low-tech cyclist

    When I see pics of Pompeo, the words “the man you are about to see has no fucking neck” emerge from a distant place in my past.

  32. 32.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Bruce K: Maybe we should start calling the crowd around Hair Furor the Unter Gang. Zum Beispiel:

    “Das war ein Befehl, ich meinte, ein Befehler, ich meinte, ein Befeelher! Greift ihnen durch Fotzen!“

  33. 33.

    Booger

    @Sphouch: Rupert Holmes’ first one-hit wonder. You can hear the similarities between “Timothy” and “The Pina Colada Song.” It’s practically a remake!

Comments are closed.