AL put the signal up earlier for some analysis on what is going on with the leaks regarding the Russians placing bounties on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Here’s what I think is going on:
First, someone or several people who are significantly senior enough to have access to the information that is being leaked, meaning that they have access to the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) are leaking. And they’re leaking A LOT! Most likely because they either have had enough or because they’re worried something even worse is coming, likely because they are read onto that compartment or special access program, and these leaks are their version of the Bat-Signal. What they are doing is not without significant personal and professional risk. They have not gone through regular channels. They are not whistleblowers in the legal sense of the term. So they have no legal protections should they be caught. But they appear to have a strategy and they are following it. Every time the President, the White House Spokesperson, a Republican member of Congress, and/or one of the President’s senior national security appointees releases a new explanation or excuse or tries to spin the reporting, a new and more damaging leak is fed out to one of several reporters who cover national security.
This brings us to the response of the President, his senior appointees, Republican members of Congress, and his surrogates in the media, which is basically that everyone knows the President doesn’t read anything, so if it was really important someone would have told him. Senator Johnson tried his hand at this, but he’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the plastic chop stick drawer, so…
“Nobody felt it was verified enough to even raise it to the level of the president,” Johnson said, adding that despite reports suggesting that info about the bounties was included in Trump’s daily briefing book, senators were told Tuesday that Trump was not orally briefed on it.
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) June 30, 2020
Despite Senator Johnson failing to stick the landing, the play, for now, is “he doesn’t read, whatcha gonna do?” Among the president’s base, reading is something elites do. Real people, and especially real men, make decisions based on gut instinct. This leaves them with something along the lines of “the President wasn’t told, everyone knows he doesn’t read, if it was important someone should have said something, and that’s why he had to get rid of Coates and MacGuire at DNI and Bolton, etc because they know if something is really important they have to tell it to him. The President didn’t let down the troops, they did.”
The second response is what we saw from the Republicans briefed yesterday. According to Congressman Banks, and other Republican members of Congress, the real crime is that someone highly ranked has anonymously leaked to The New York Times and a number of other reporters. Now that the info is out, the leaker has screwed up the intelligence, as well as the intel process, harmed sources and methods, and really put Americans at risk.
I expect the third response will be AG Barr announcing a federal investigation to find the leakers. This will flow into the fourth response, which will be an attempt to link the leaker or leakers to Vice President Biden. This will be a replay of what the President, the Republican members of Congress, and the President’s surrogates tried to do with the IC whistleblower all the way through the impeachment trial in the Senate. Here too they will try to link whomever they identify as the leaker or leakers back to Vice President Biden.
This seems to be the playbook they are using now. I expect that they will eventually roll the search for whomever leaked to CNN about the President’s phone calls with foreign heads of state into their response.
I don’t think this is going to go away any time soon. What I don’t know is whether it will be overtaken by the next scandal and just become part of the background noise of the President and his administration.
Open thread!
RIP Carl Reiner
NotMax
Scrutiny on the Bounty is destined for a long run.
Gin & Tonic
Somebody is executing a plan. It isn’t Trump.
dmsilev
To be fair, Trump has plenty of gut.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic:
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Thanks Adam. Always appreciate your insights.
It’s extra hard to compartmentalize the rage today, though. Holy shit, what a bunch of motherfuckers.
feebog
Adam, how likely do you think that this is more than one leaker? And if you think it likely, are they working in concert?
Mallard Filmore
I thought the MSMs had multiple sources … or was it multiple MSMs had one source … or one source confirmed multiple ways ???
Adam L Silverman
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
joel hanes
nut graf :
All else is dependent outcome.
Adam L Silverman
@feebog: I honestly have no idea. And even if there are just two, one for the bounty leaks and one for the phone call leaks, they may be working independently. The minute two people know a secret, it is no longer really a secret.
Adam L Silverman
@Mallard Filmore: That is a good question.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Gin & Tonic: Trump (or at least his cronies) have clearly hatched a “plan” in response. Their plan just sucks.
Gvg
Since this has risk, why couldn’t they use the whistle blower process? Is that compromised? By risk, do we mean they could go to jail?
this has alarming implications of what they think comes next, but I don’t know enough to ask more yet.
Mike in NC
There have been many articles out there speculating whether or not Fat Bastard has dyslexia or some other learning disability. Pretty common thing to cover up among the worthless idle rich.
Jeffro
Since this is and OT and it is getting late I would just like to mention that Megan McArdle is calling for collective action (in the WaPo) and Jesus I must be high.
also telling people “ Not to be smug”
we can discuss the finer points in the morning, but really, there are no finer points: she is just casting about for a both-sides solution instead of beating the Republicans over the head for supporting their chief ignoramus trumpov
Tom Levenson
I am fascinated by the dynamics of this story. So far the leakers are controlling them. After each GOP attempt to turn the narrative to some internal process piece, a new, and quite precisely targeted story appears that both undercuts and overwhelms the talking point.
Somebody knows how to play this game.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: truth
Cheryl Rofer
@feebog: One of the Times stories mentioned three sources.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: Well the Intel Community inspector general (ICIG) has been fired and replaced with someone that the Presidential Personnel Office is a loyalist. And the DNI is now John Ratcliffe, who has no background or experience with intelligence, padded his resume, and was an obnoxiously partisan Tea Party member of the Republican House minority about two months ago. Given that things went sideways last fall when the ICIG was legit and the Acting DNI also had a reputation for integrity from his Naval career, I can’t imagine anyone would have any confidence in the process right now.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
It looks to me like the intelligence community is running a campaign against Trump. These damaging leaks feel like an intentional series, rather than happenstance. Do you anticipate more leaks, as I do?
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: It has been reported that he needs reading glasses, but refuses to wear them because he’s vain and doesn’t want to be seen reading them. Which is why he doesn’t read anything in general and is constantly engaged in existential struggle with the teleprompters in specific.
Jeffro
My guess is that the Afghanistan story is mostly Bolton, while the phone calls story is stitched together more from multiple sources
who cares?
Resign, trumpov!
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Collective action for what? Is she trying to crowdsource the funds for some new kitchen gadget?
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Levenson: Yes they do.
MisterForkbeard
@Gvg: I don’t think either of the things that have been leaked rise to the level of legal wrongdoing, which is an important threshold for triggering whistleblowing laws.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: I do. But I am surprised it took this long for significant damaging leaks, so what do I know?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: The leakers are smart, they’re leaking when it will be most effective.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep.
Captain C
@dmsilev: In the words of record store owner Rob Gordon, I’m starting to think his gut has shit for brains.
Mai naem mobile
I know I should apply Occams Razor to this but because its OrangeDbag I always put my foil hat on. One of my thoughts was a GOP Senator(s?) leaking this stuff because they see the polls pointing to a blowout with the Dems winning the federal trifecta along with some state legislatures and governorships . Maybe trying to get OrangeDbag to resign and salvage some stuff with Pence.
Cheryl Rofer
@Tom Levenson: This
got me thinking.
It’s also a story that, while urgent, has little downside in being exposed. In fact, exposing it can be a form of telling Russia to fuck off.
The sources to the intel agencies seem not to be sensitive – from interrogation of prisoners, NBD, could be any of them, and if they go back to where they came from, they will be suspect no matter what they may have done. There was something about NSA being a dissenting agency, but that may or may not be true, and the latest revelation included some signals information which may or may not be damaging to our capabilities. It’s my belief that signals intelligence in particular tends to be too highly classified, except for the bugs in Volodya’s office. And they’re eventually going to be found too.
So the case was well-chosen. Or pissed off enough people who could figure out what I just said and more. Are the others that would be more damaging to reveal?
Edited for clarity
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
Carl Bernstein wrote the phone calls story for CNN. He said that he and his staff held repeated conversations with more than a dozen current and former high-level officials (most of whom requested anonymity) over a four-month period that extended into June.
James E Powell
This is my concern. Because that is what has happened with the story of every act of corruption, incompetence, or just plain evil.
Republicans learned that if they all stick together, deny everything, tell the same lie over and over, and refuse to acknowledge the story, the press/media moves on and Trump’s support stays where it is has been the whole time.
James E Powell
@SiubhanDuinne:
As long as they remain anonymous, their statements have no value.
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: That makes sense to me. Something this off-the-chart bad was known for a year or more to people in Afghanistan, to intelligence people there and here, to staff in the White House, the Pentagon, etc., etc. It should be easy to find dozens of people who know about it. And be willing to talk about it now.
Something this big and bad doesn’t stay secret.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
@Adam L Silverman: Most of us over the age of 50 need reading glasses due to presbyopia, but he’s a basket case in a special category what with the shoe lifts and spray tan and fake “hair” and girdle, etc.
frosty
@NotMax: I was warned in the last thread that I can’t tell you I thought that was funny. Looks like they were right, it just encouraged you, LOL.
dmsilev
@Mai naem mobile: Seems kind of unlikely to me. I mean, sure, most of the GOP Senators would probably be happy to see Trump vanish into a puff of smoke, but they’d have to be remarkably delusional even by Republican standards to think that Trump would willingly step aside from his reelection campaign. Any political attack which so completely and blatantly wounded him to make that plausible is also going to splash back on the rest of the party, most notably onto Pence.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: But the question is: which specific one fed him the story and which of the rest provided confirmation once they realized that he had the goods?
Mai naem mobile
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You mean they have a high level of Intelligence?
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: No…apparently the key to solving the pandemic is that the ‘blue states’ and ‘red states’ need to “quit shaming each other and work together” (pretty much to an actual quote there)
Yes really.
It’s just…it’s the ultimate in both ‘can’t we all just get along’, ‘both sides’, and ‘I forgot my supposed core values’.
I’m holding up a scorecard of 9.6, but the other judges seem to know I’m being facetious and are giving McMegs a -2.0.
dmsilev
@Jeffro: The headline of “Blue and red states should stop shaming each other on their covid-19 response. We’re in this together.” should have been a clue…
Edit: Not quite as stupid as “Trump’s rhetoric is driving away suburban swing voters. He needs them to win.”, but Stupid is Mark Thiessen’s specialty, so really we should grade on a curve here.
Jamie
Doesn’t complaining about a leak verify it?
Emma from FL
My question is how much more damage is this doing to our ability to collect info? I can’t think of a single country that we could consider allies that would trust us with a meatloaf recipe, much less important intelligence.
frosty
If, BIG IF Trump is dyslexic …. My eldest is dyslexic. His kindergarten teacher told us he wasn’t picking up his letters, we got him into tutoring and later into private school teaching the Orton-Gillingham Method. By 7th grade he was doing well enough to go to public school with an IEP, graduated, and went on to get a college degree.
If Trump can’t read this is Fred’s fault. The sonofabitch took his son who was acting out and sent him to military school instead of figuring out what the problem was and fixing it. We’re in this mess because Fred fucked Donald over.
Of course, Donald could have figured it out and worked with people to fix it himself but no.
ETA: If it’s just reading glasses and he’s too vain fuck’em.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Wasn’t she fantasizing about a civil war just a couple of years ago? Yes, yes she was:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/05/27/megan-mcardle-knows-absolutely-nothing-about-any-form-of-war-and-wouldnt-even-if-a-member-of-the-military-bit-her/
Jeffro
@SiubhanDuinne: So…I guessed right on the phone calls story without really reading too closely? Laziness and intuition win again! ;)
The only things keeping these ‘sources’ from calling a joint press conference of their own and laying it all out for the American people are a) their own shame at going along with this disaster for so long, and b) their fear that the Dems really will run away with it in November.
A’s not my or our problem – F ’em
B seems to be happening even without their help, but it sure would be nice if we could slam the door on the Russian asset in the WH and start to repair our badly listing ship of state.
gogiggs
@Mike in NC: Well, being incredibly stupid and somehow convinced you’re smart is a ‘kind’ of learning disability.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
We may never know. Unless whoeveritwas decides to write a book once Trump is out of office.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: omg I just saw the Thiessen piece too…yes, Marc, YES, trumpov is just about to dial it down and get all concerned about racial justice any day now…
Even adults who believe in Santa Claus are closer to reality. It’s just ridiculous. WaPo, could I just have two inches of MT’s column space once in a while? One inch? Trust me, it’ll be an upgrade even if I just use it to publish my daily ‘to do’ list, or a recipe for boiling water.
Lyrebird
@Mike in NC: Einstein was dyslexic and the founder of an airline, Jet Blue maybe?, has attention deficit.
Not trying to argue with you, just hypersensitive generally.
Glad that BJ is here in the chaos!
sdhays
@James E Powell: I think there are two main differences with this scandal:
It’s easy to enforce discipline when things are otherwise going well. But the catastrophuck of the COVID-19 non-response has popped the bubble that Dump is cruising to reelection. Every day that goes by, more people are no longer afraid of him. Even Dump himself believes Biden is going to beat him, if you believe his Freudian slip.
We could be looking at the start of an avalanche.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Well sure, you’re using, like, accurate terms and subject matter expertise and stuff here, Adam. She was just lazily lazing her way through a column about stuff she has no idea about. How fair is that?
Ever heard of grading on a curve? McMegs sure has ;)
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: The way this administration is going, that’s all of them, Katie.
SiubhanDuinne
@James E Powell:
I understand and to a great extent sympathize with that POV. But I’ve been reading Carl Bernstein on and off since 1974, and I’m as confident as one can realistically be that his sources are solid. And several of them (all retired/resigned/fired) went on the record.
Adam L Silverman
Jeffro
I saw something today about how even GOP voters’ perceptions of the country, progress, their prospects, etc have taken a serious nosedive in just the past week or two.
(Gee, GOP voters…ya THINK?)
Tomorrow is the 1st of July. By every metric, the US (as a country, meaning trumpov & Co) has royally fucked up our response to the virus. We are worse off than we were back in early March!!
So let the call go out: house-bound seniors, parents of K-12 schoolkids, small business owners, people who love to travel, college barhoppers: what do y’all think about the trumpov maladministration’s utter lack of doing ANYTHING to ‘flatten the curve’ here and get your life back to semi-normal?
What? Not all that thrilled? Well then have I got an idea for you…how about before you get back on Facebook to ‘share’ and ‘like’ more wacko anti-Antifa shit, or bitch that your state has cut K-12 budgets, or bitch that your local school district is only going to have your kid in school one day a week, or that your business can’t open in any reasonable way, or that you aren’t. even. ALLOWED. to travel into the EU…
…maybe figure out who screwed this up, did nothing, called it a ‘hoax’, tried to talk the country into poisoning itself with hydroxywhatever, tried to talk the country into injecting bleach, took care of big corporations with massive bailouts, took care of the stock market with massive bailouts…
…maybe those people need to GO AWAY.
Martin
As I said yesterday, be careful of who you lie about, lots of people keep receipts. I don’t hold the IC as some paragon of moral virtue, they are an institution like any other, but at least recognize that collecting, organizing, and manipulating information is their goddamn job and they can almost certainly easily outplay you.
Martin
@Jeffro:
That thing like taxes, and universal healthcare?
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Wouldn’t shitforbrains have to be able to foresee a need for a plan and create a plan (or at least have someone else do those) before a plan could be executed?
Or is shitforbrains just completely out of the loop until he hears it on faux news? This seems the most plausible.
Steeplejack
Good post, Adam. “Not exactly the sharpest knife in the plastic chop stick drawer” is great.
jonas
Forget Trump at this point. Fuck him. These GOP Senators. Fucking dog-ass traitors doesn’t even begin to describe the level of villainy these shitstains are guilty of.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Thank you. That’s an original creation of mine.
Steeplejack
@Gvg:
Can’t find the link now, but a respectable source on Twitter said today that the Republicans basically broke, or at least damaged, the whistlebroker program/process by the way they fouled the waters during the Ukraine/impeachment fiasco.
jonas
@Adam L Silverman: Maybe he’s dyslexic. Who knows? At this point, 70 odd years on into his pointless life, it doesn’t matter. He’s so psychopathically narcissistic that he decided a long time ago that no knowledge outside his own brilliant mind was worth absorbing or considering, so he just blows it off as a matter of habit. “PSB? State Department memo? Bah! Flimshaw! *I* should be briefing the DNI! I know more than he does!”
Martin
The process is compromised as evidenced by the replacement of IGs. And yes they could go to jail.
Alternatively, they could go to Congress and ask for immunity in return for testimony. Mind you, that’s the end of their career, but then so is jail.
jonas
Also, any word on Pence supposedly not being briefed on any of this? Biden just confidently stated today that he sat in on every one of Obama’s PDBs. So either Pence has been out of the loop for six months — and if so, WTF? — or he’s also full of shit.
So many rhetorical questions…
Adam L Silverman
@jonas: If it was in the PDB, then VP Pence was officially briefed. Now whether Pence read the PDBs with this information in it or his national security advisor made sure it was told to him is something I cannot answer. The advantage that VP Pence has in playing dumb is that he actually is dumb.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jeffro: Here’s the poll
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: The problem is that some of the polling isn’t really lining up with other polling.
jonas
Wow, so the best the GOP has to go on at this point is “Both the President and Vice President were so intellectually debilitated that neither was able to fully take cognizance of the fact that Russians were offering bounties on the lives of American soldiers and basically forgot to act on it…”?
I got nothing…
Adam L Silverman
I’m racking out.
Catch everyone on the flip.
I’ll have a Sophie update!
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Trump’s approval and “the way things are going in the country” are two different things. I can see how they could diverge.
kindness
I hope the intel folk who finally have had enough keep dropping info. We all know there is some pretty horrible stuff out there on Trump and his hangers on. I figure Trump is compromised so compromising a little intel to save the country is worth it.
Adam L Silverman
@jonas: No, I mean that when he was in Congress, as the #3 Republican in the House GOP caucus, his nickname was Mike Dense.
Pence isn’t going to let any daylight get between him and the President. He is scared to death that the President will replace him on the ticket because he thinks, incorrectly, that his unwavering, unflinching loyalty means that he will inherit the President’s base and be his successor. Thereby fulfilling his belief that G-d wants him to be president. What Pence doesn’t understand is that Cotton, Hawley, Hayley, Rick Scott, DeSantis, Pompeo, and Cruz all think they’re going to get to be the President’s successor. As do Don Jr and Ivanka. Some have speculated that Tucker Carlson is positioning himself to try to be that successor, which is why he’s gone all in on open white supremacy over the past two years. Regardless, it won’t be Pence.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, but the latter should drive the former down.
danielx
@Ruckus:
See, there’s your problem right there – putting It and the word “plan” in the same sentence. He doesn’t plan, not past the next twelve hours.
Whoever is leaking this material has the plan, and he/she/they are executing it. There’s a machine working and it will not stop until its purpose has been fulfilled.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: Taking both polls at face value, the majority of Republicans seem to believe ‘things suck, and I trust Trump to make things better’.
Which is impressive, in its own way.
James E Powell
@SiubhanDuinne:
I should have been clearer when I said anonymous statements had no value. I share your confidence in Bernstein’s story, but what I meant was that as long as they are anonymous, the story can be dismissed and the needle doesn’t move.
surfk9
@Adam L Silverman: When do our NATO allies join the party. They have to hate Trump. They surely have the receipts. Will it be one big dump or a trickle?
Citizen Alan
If there is anything about the Trump Administration that drives me to suicide, it will be having to face the fact that I am 50 years old and I live in a society ruled by the same sort of witless clods who would shove me into lockers when I was in junior high because “reading is for fags.”
Viva BrisVegas
It worked in Iran-Contra.
By the way, it was Barr that buried all the bodies from that fracas. He’s been very good for the mentally incompetent but criminally culpable.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: His approval ratings have been dropping steadily. Check out the average at 538; over the last three months, the spread between approve and disapprove has been widening at a very steady four percent per month, and is now a bit over sixteen percentage points. How long that trend will continue, who knows, but he’s not far off from his all-time nadir of around twenty.
cliosfanboy
@Adam L Silverman: we knew him as Mike Dense back in college too
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
It should, yes. But political affiliation is not always rational; for some it is in fact anti-rational.
Morzer
@dmsilev: Trump has 4 guts, which is probably the result of over-consumption of cheaply produced cow offal.
Ruckus
@Lyrebird:
I have lesdyxia myself. (I feel allowed to make fun of me. And me alone.) There are degrees of dyslexia and shades as well. I’ve learned to recognize my issues and am able to correct them most of the time. But it requires me to actually see the mistake, just listening to it often doesn’t help. Typing, and a computer have allowed me to become much better. This was an issue for me in premed in college, too much of the chemistry work has very similar words and they rarely mean anywhere near the same thing. For some it is a reading problem, in that letters get scrambled up between the eyes and the brain. For some it’s hearing as well. For others, like me it’s output from the brain. Most can be overcome but it has to be recognized and worked on. I don’t believe that shitforbrains is smart enough to have worked out a solution, partial or otherwise, on his own. I’m not sure that he could find a solution if it was handed to him on a golden platter. He’d get distracted by his reflection.
jonas
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, I agree that Pence is as dumb as rock, no doubt. I guess I’m still just stunned that at this point — in the United Fucking States of America — that the party line is, literally, “they were just too stupid to realize what the briefing was saying.” And I do also agree that Pence will have absolutely zero legacy in the future Trumpist GOP. The only consolation will be having to watch Cotton and Haley battle Ivanka and Jared for the crown.
Kent
I think technically that could be one source that leaks the story and two sources who basically just confirm in so many words the original source without actually leaking out any new information.
If someone in government is read a story about this topic and simply says something guarded like: “I have no information that would refute your story” [wink wink] or something to that effect, is that really a leak?
Morzer
@Ruckus:
“Dr. Birx, the president has … umm er ahem… swallowed… the golden platter with your prescription on it.”
Ruckus
@jonas:
He did hear stuff on faux news and that’s super reliable…… isn’t it?
Morzer
@jonas: In that scenario, I’d bet that Haley goes exactly nowhere, while Cotton ends up as VP/Chief Eunuch to Presidential Co-Brand iVan-Ka
SiubhanDuinne
@James E Powell:
Ah! Gotcha, thanks.
mrmoshpotato
I hear you loud and clear there!
Raoul
@sdhays: That wheezing old fossil Chuck Grassley issued at least two very panicked tweets late last week about how Trump *should* be campaigning. As if The Donald would ever deign to take advice. From anyone. Much less Chuck.
I just enjoyed the frisson of seeing an experienced (if well past his best days) GOP politician suddenly sit bolt upright and say “my God, he’s gonna loose and take Joni with him”.
Hahahaha, good.
JWR
Still trying to catch up with today’s sh*tshow, (as reported on this here fine establishment), but I just heard the WH SPOXBOT say: “This president is the most informed person on the planet“. Hell, might just as well say “in all universe(s)“.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
He did earn the moniker of Mike Dense from his constituents when he was governor.
West of the Rockies
@sdhays:
I’m very interested in seeing the next round of polls. I can’t imagine he won’t lose support from veterans and active-duty personnel.
Morzer
@JWR: Crayley McInanely is even less convincing than Hide-in-the-Bushes Spicer, which is an achievement of some sort.
SiubhanDuinne
@JWR:
Would that be WH “I will never lie to you” SPOXBOT?
jonas
@Ruckus: My graduate adviser — easily the smartest person I have ever known in my life, a true genius — was severely dyslexic. He told me his solution was, from an early age, to literally memorize the unique *shape* of every word in the English language and that’s how he read. And again in multiple foreign and dead languages.
Ruckus
@danielx:
I don’t think he plans anything other than how to cheat on his next golf game. Everything else is an out his ass response to the last minute, and never any farther back than that. Ahead? I don’t believe his brain has that gear. It may have at one time but it fell into disrepair from lack of use.
West of the Rockies
@Steeplejack:
Not to quibble, but I would have gone with “spork drawer.”
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
“I will never lie to you” was the first lie she told the media.
West of the Rockies
@Steeplejack:
Not to quibble, but I would have gone with “spork drawer.” But Adam knocked this post out of the park.
Raoul
@Citizen Alan: “a society ruled by the same sort of witless clods who would shove me into lockers when I was in junior high because ‘reading is for fags.’” I can totally relate.
But to the larger point, I think maybe part of the plunge in GOP satisfaction with the country, but near constant ‘approval’ of Trump, may be a realization that the (good lord teh stoopid) Deep State is going to pull off defeating Trump and they’ll not be able to stuff us in lockers come January. And that makes them soooo sad.
mrmoshpotato
I know who I’m rooting for – MASSIVE INJURIES ALL AROUND!
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
I can’t see Pence without imagining him shouting Fredo’s line from Godfather II “I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!“
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
Volumes of different stories from different sources changes that dynamic. Huge volumes of horrible stories changes it a lot, anonymous or not. We aren’t talking a courtroom or rule of law, we are talking voting booth or your front room and a mail in ballot.
jonas
@Morzer: Cotton’s gunning for top or nothing. How else to realize his dream of turning America into the Republic of Gilead, but with more nuclear war?
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
Holy crime dogs! And that 39% approval was probably before the bounty story hit.
Morzer
@jonas: I am sure that’s what he believes – but I strongly suspect that iVan-Ka would beat him due to the eternal gilded glory of the name of T-rump and its magical appeal to the racist lemmings of the GOP.
Raoul
One more quick, OT note before I head to bed. This here change election is continuing apace. CO-03 five term incumbent Scott Tipton (endorsed by tweet by the Orange Duffer) is out on his ass.
So we’ll have a Q-lovin’ gun nut who owns a restaurant in Rifle, CO cleverly called Shooters Grill, where the wait staff open carry, will be the GOP person on the ballot. It’s an R+8 seat, I gather, but even the western slope is changing … a little bit.
Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush is the challenger. I’d imagine we’ll have a chance to talk about all of the CO and other June 30 primary results tomorrow.
Morzer
@West of the Rockies: Am I the only one to foresee a stream of references to Trump being “Putiny on the Bounty”?
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
How the hell did I never get stuffed in a locker? OK not gay, but otherwise? I read, a lot. I did the homework for the last class in the current one, while listening. I got good/great grades. I didn’t grow between 6th and 10th grade. Hell I grew 3 inches, after HS. Freshman year I was picked to go up on stage in an all student assembly to be made fun of for being short. Maybe it’s because I told them to fuck off, inside the auditorium/chapel. Anyway I never even got threatened with locker stuffing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
So Trump’s a helpless victim. Again. And everybody around him, that he has hired, is an incompetent awful person.
They honestly think this is a winning play. Jesus Christ.
scav
You can lead a leader to information but you can’t make him think.
Being informed — being in the immediate presence of even all the information on the planet! constantly even! — doesn’t mean it breaks past the blood-brain barrier.
Ruckus
@jonas:
Yep. I’m good with numbers. If I see them. You tell me your phone number and I’d just as easy call Istanbul rather than Kansas. Words are harder. But spell correct – with the auto part turned off – has been a revelation. I get immediate feedback on my fuck up and have to look up the spelling. That has helped dramatically. But I’ve only had that for the last what, 15-20 yrs?
JWR
@SiubhanDuinne:
;) That be the one.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I fear his only reaction is/was along the lines of “You mean I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get paid for it?”
//
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
Nah. He’s too dense to get the concept and too dense to learn how to make that work as a joke. You notice that he never looks like he’s joking, no matter what comes out his mouth? Either there is a serious issue with the connection of the brain/voice box or the brain is sufficiently lead filled that nothing happens in there. And he knows it no matter which it is.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
Dorothy Parker said it perfectly: “You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think.”
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Well bags of manure are not really very intelligent. And they aren’t even full of decent manure, it’s all decayed and moldy.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Dorthy really was ahead of her time.
Although, there has always been a level of stupid among the populations. We’ve just collected them in a conservative political group.
jonas
@Ruckus: Yeah, writing was tough for him. He’s widely published, but until the 90’s, he had to hire an assistant to help him type and proofread everything. Spellcheck was a godsend.
lumpkin
@Emma from FL:
Nothing was leaked that was damaging to any other nation. And trump is by far the biggest conduit of secret information to Russia and the rest of the world with his personal phone calls, Mar a Lago spy-free-for-alls and general lack of self discipline. Every ally we formerly had has been well aware for a long time that the US is totally untrustworthy due to our out of control president.
I’m certain that he’s been cut out of the loop for a while and is too stupid to know it.
jonas
The Best People. Only The Best.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: The reason I got my first IBM PC back in 1983 was spell check, I’m a horrible speller.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
I watched her utter those words in real time, and knew beyond any doubt that she was lying like a shag carpet.m
jonas
@Ruckus: Both Trump and Pence seem incapable of either making, or getting, humor. It’s a testament to both their lack of intelligence and empathy. Trump can only joke in the form of a put-down, the lowest, unfunniest form of humor, except to fellow bullies and assholes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ruckus:
That’s a good metaphor for the GOP in general
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Ugh. Wouldn’t surprise me
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jonas:
Like Jarvanka!
mrmoshpotato
Buncha shitty manure!
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Mine is somewhat forgetfulness but mostly it’s moving letters around in the word. A before E except when who the fuck knows. I know what a word means was how I could picture the actual word but as I’ve gained decades of life experience I find that now I can think of what the word means but what the picture of the word is no where. The connection is spotty. It’s always been an issue, this recall crap but it’s grown. I’ve been told that’s not dementia, it’s just freaking age. Oh well as one ages one seems to have more free time, which enables one to spend time brushing up.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
“I will never lie to you” is something you say only when you’re planning to lie.
Steeplejack
@West of the Rockies:
Hey, I am a big spork fan. I have several from REI, even a bespoke one from Crate & Barrel. Cracked me up when I saw it in the store; couldn’t resist buying one.
Misterpuff
Revenge of the Deep State
Hey America! Care to listen this time?
Ruckus
@jonas:
shitforbrains recognizes his limitations but is narcissistically incapable of admitting them or trying to improve on them. When he is with one of his betters, and he knows who they are by how much money they give him (or that he thinks he earns) he defers to them, in much the same way he expects people to defer to him. Especially black people. Oh they have to defer to him or he’ll pout his brains out. Think of a black man who is better than him (that list is millions of names long) has made fun of him (a shorter list) and has held the same job (OK that narrows it to one). He talked about running before, but he never had that extra internal boost of his rampant racism setting his balls on fire. I’m thinking he probably likes a bit of kink but this looks not like kink but pure racism.
Kent
I think the problem here is that the whistleblower process is for reporting actual wrong-doing. That was the case with Ukraine as the whistleblower was reporting actual extortion of a foreign leader. A violation so grave it led to impeachment.
Here we simply have a story that the president was briefed on a topic and did nothing. That isn’t really any sort of wrong doing that can be whistle-blown. You can’t just go to IG because you think the president is ignoring you. The president ignores stuff every single day.
I expect leaking this information is really the only way to do anything with it.
Kent
In any normal timeline, that admission would be tantamount to admitting that the president is actually unfit for office because he refuses to actually do his fucking job.
In this timeline they think it is a winning argument?
William Satire
@Adam L Silverman:
As the old saying goes, never start an argument with a man who buys ink by the barrel. Or with real operatives skilled in intelligence and spycraft, if all you’ve got is time-share to sell. At this point, I’d suggest the In Over His Head tour be a farewell tour.
William Satire
@Amir Khalid:
“I believe she also said, If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gives it to.”
Ladyraxterinok
@Cheryl Rofer:
Does this poll have % after SCOTUS LGBT and abortion rulings? Many Evangelicals see those as additional signs America is turning from god. They really, really believe US not on right track
So some GOP numbers not there for same reasons others might be!!
Geminid
@Ladyraxterinok: For some evangelicals the wrong track may actually be the right track, given their fascination with End Times ideology. I pick up more and more chatter like this when I listen in on the local religious station. A lot of talk about the coming world government being pushed by Goerge Soros and Bill Gates, and of course the Rapture. I suspect that some of the conservative evangelicals pushing self described “Biblical conservative” Bob Good in the local Va. 5th district congressional race believe it’s a win-win proposition. If they don’t achieve a bit of temporal power, they will demonstrate their fidelity to what they conceive of as “God’s Word” while fighting the satanic tide of secularism. It’s a debased form of Christianity, arguably non-scriptural, in which the universal message of the Sermon on the Mount is replaced by the hallucinatory nightmare of Revelations.
Geminid
@Ladyraxterinok: For some evangelicals the wrong track may actually be the right track, given their fascination with End Times ideology. I pick up more and more chatter like this when I listen in on the local religious station. A lot of talk about the coming world government being pushed by Goerge Soros and Bill Gates, and of course the Rapture. I suspect that some of the conservative evangelicals pushing self described “Biblical conservative” Bob Good in the local Va. 5th district congressional race believe it’s a win-win proposition. If they don’t achieve a bit of temporal power, they will demonstrate their fidelity to what they conceive of as “God’s Word” while fighting the satanic tide of secularism. It’s a debased form of Christianity, arguably non-scriptural, in which the universal message of the Sermon on the Mount is replaced by the hallucinatory nightmare of Revelations.
Geminid
Another double post, dammit. Sorry.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: A Sophie update?
Dupe1970
@NotMax: Yes. I think there are a lot of people that are truly angry that Trump literally stabbed the troops in the back. This will keep coming back especially if he doesn’t have a very strong response to Russia.
bluefoot
@jonas:
It’s all so obviously a lie. If neither Trump nor Pence were briefed (not likely), they certainly have been now. So where is the response to Russia? Where is the statement to the US military in general and statements to the families of the servicemen killed? Trump &co have so far done NOTHING in response to bounties being placed and collected on Americans. That’s either depraved indifference or incompetence. The media, Congress, etc should be calling for his resignation every day, even if 125,000 dead Americans from COVID-19 through criminal negligence weren’t enough.
Capri
@jonas: I’m dyslexic and I do exactly that -memorize word shapes. As a result I’m a very fast reader. But I can read an entire book and tell you what the protagonist’s name looks like but couldn’t say it.