Several people have asked me about this unpleasant news:
The NSA is ‘moving forward’ to install Michael Ellis, a former GOP operative, as its top lawyer. TRUMP DECISIONS ARE A FUNDAMENTAL THREAT TO US NATIONAL SECURITY. THIS IS A POLITICAL HACK IN A CAREER POSITION WITH 48 HOURS TO GO. https://t.co/1KmRM1U6zn
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) January 17, 2021
From The Washington Post:
The National Security Agency is “moving forward” to install Michael Ellis, a former GOP political operative and White House official, as the agency’s top lawyer, the agency said Sunday.
The announcement came a day after acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ordered the NSA director, Gen. Paul Nakasone, to immediately place Ellis in position as the agency’s general counsel.
Ellis probably will start work on Tuesday, the day before the Biden administration takes office, said several individuals.
Although Nakasone is not the hiring authority — the decision is made by the Pentagon general counsel — by tradition the NSA director weighs in on the selection.
“Mr. Ellis accepted his final job offer yesterday afternoon,” the NSA said in a statement Sunday. “NSA is moving forward with his employment.”
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Ellis was selected under pressure from the White House, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The move drew criticism from national security legal experts as an attempt to politicize a career position.
The good news for all of you is because I’ve been both a supervisory GS 15 (on civilian mobilization orders under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of Title IV) who assisted the senior leadership of my program in managing it, as well as being a supervisory contractor pay graded as a GS 15, I have a certain amount of experiential knowledge in how all of this works including Federal hiring, personnel management, and personnel management flexibilities. The bad news for all of you is you’re unlikely to be happy with my answers.
Ellis will most likely begin in-processing at NSA sometime on Tuesday, as it is the first day the government opens after the long holiday weekend. I said likely, because a whole bunch of things could delay it a couple of days. But just because he’s in-processing, does not mean he’s actually going to be doing any actual work. He’ll be filling out a lot of paperwork, getting a new common access card (CAC card), things like that. At major commands, which NSA sort of is because it is led by a dual hatted four star, they usually do the security clearance indoctrinations once a week. This is because they have lots of people rotating in on a regular basis, so they schedule one group session once or twice a week, which then frees up the security officers to do the rest of their jobs the rest of the week. Usually you cannot be scheduled for that indoctrination until after your CAC card is issued. So it is possible, if not likely, that even if he begins to in-process on Tuesday some time, he won’t be able to be read on to the NSA’s TS/SCI immediately. When I in-processed at SOCOM for my senior fellowship at JSOU it took about three week’s to get me indoctrinated because the SSO, who is actually a really good guy, was being a SSO.*
The person in charge of this – the clearance indoctrination and read on – is the Special Security Officer (SSO). They do not have a sense of humor. Nor do they like anyone telling them what to do. I missed out on a supervisory contract position at a three letter agency in 2016 because the SSO demanded that my Top Secret (TS) clearance be renewed, which it did not need to be because my Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance, which is the higher of the two, was active. We went ahead and started the renewal for the TS, a new interim TS was issued within 48 hours, which gave me an active interim TS and an active, fully adjudicated SCI. He still refused to allow me to be read on. Now the requirement was that my TS be fully adjudicated. This was contrary to the law and the regulations, but he wouldn’t budge. My TS was renewed in record time, 11 months, but by then the position had to be filled and the prime on the contract found someone less well qualified.** So the SSO will determine when Ellis gets read on. This is NOT if Ellis gets a clearance. He already has one from being the Deputy White House Counsel for National Security. It is solely about getting him indoctrinated and read on to the NSA’s clearance.
So what can be done? Well… GEN Nakasone can play hard ball, delay things on Tuesday until after President-elect Biden is sworn in on Wednesday, which means Chris Miller is no longer illegally serving as the Acting Secretary of Defense, and then just put his foot back down again and refuse to allow Ellis access to the building until the Biden team sorts everything out.
However, I think what is more likely is that Ellis will begin in-processing on Tuesday or some other time this week and then, because this is a Senior Executive Service (SES) career position, and there are questions about how the search was conducted, he’ll simply be reassigned. By reassigned it means he’ll still be an SES, we’ll still be paying his salary, but he’ll be responsible for providing legal advice to the people who restock the snack bar at the NSA building. SESes get reassigned all the time. They could reassign him to a radar intercept station in Alaska and then it is up to him to either accept the transfer or quit. The other option is they just give him nothing to do. Basically he gets an office and that’s it. They just directly bypass him until they can sort out if there were hiring irregularities and then they either are able to remove him or if they can’t they reassign him or freeze him out until he quits in frustration. This turns his hiring into waste, fraud, and abuse, but it is far better than letting one of Devin Nunes proteges serve as the general counsel for the NSA.
What is not going to happen is this:
Never fear General. Monday is a day off so he starts Tuesday 0900 for In processing briefings up at Fanx. Also there is the small matter of actually passing a REAL full spectrum lifestyle/CI polygraph first soooo they should be able to inform him he’s fired at 12:01 Wednesday. https://t.co/jyKEapphfC
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 17, 2021
Ellis already had to pass a fill spectrum lifestyle and counterintelligence (CI) investigation and polygraph when he was awarded his clearance to be the Deputy White House Counsel for National Security. Top Secret clearances are currently good for seven years. There is not, despite what people will tell you, an actual expiration date for SCI clearances, but they are functionally good as long as you are read on to an agency’s, department’s, office’s, bureau’s, and/or command’s sensitive compartmented information clearance or for two years. Why two years? Because the Joint Personnel Adjudication System (JPAS) is programmed to drop an individual’s SCI out of the system after 24 months if they are not listed as active in the system. The only clearance related delays you might see here is the SSO not jumping through his or her grommet to expedite Ellis’s indoctrination session.
Short answer: it’s complicated, but Ellis will become a career SES this week. Whether he actually is ever given anything productive to do other than providing legal guidance to the person who restocks the straws next to the soda machine in the NSA snack bar is the real question. I guarantee that the Biden-Harris DOD and Intel transition teams are aware of this as it has been widely reported and have a plan to ensure that if Ellis does indeed start this week, he’ll be quickly sidelined until they can figure out how to either permanently reassign him were he can’t cause problems or they can vacate the hire.
The bigger problem is we don’t know exactly how many other of these Trump loyalists have been burrowed into the career civil service from political appointments. I’ve seen reporting that indicates at least/approximately five over the past six months. And the most disturbing one, other than Ellis, is a senior political appointee at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was burrowed into a career SES position there. That person was not identified in the reporting, but whomever it is, that person is going to have to be isolated, reassigned, and/or terminated.
Open thread!
* One of the issues is that the SSO shop at SOCOM demanded paperwork they were not legally entitled to in order to process me for indoctrination. This held things up by just long enough to miss the first possible date for me to be indoctrinated. Then they said it would take at least a week to process this paperwork that they were not legally entitled to, which meant the earliest I could be indoctrinated was during the third week after my arrival. What paperwork did they want? Paperwork that disclosed all relationships with foreign military and/or governmental personnel. Which the paperwork I’d already submitted clearly stated, after you check the box that yes you do have a relationship with foreign military and/or governmental personnel if said relationships are the result of your duties for the US government, then they do not have to be fully disclosed with the additional paperwork. There is then a box to check indicating if this was the result of official duties for the US government, which it was, so I checked it and I then explained this in the box provided to do that by narrative answer. I wound up having to fill out the same form 15 times to account for every foreign officer I either taught, supervised, are was assigned with at USAWC, which pretty much ate most of a day. My favorite part of these was “please provide a physical description”. Because someone from Tampa was going to fly out to Nepal or Kuwait or Israel or Germany or New Zealand or Kenya and try to find them based on my description. My Kenyan Army students are both Masai warriors. So I wrote “Traditional Masai features”. I honestly hope they actually looked these people up, because a former student was, by that time, the Director of Pakistan’s ISI, which made him one of the most powerful people in Central and Southeast Asia.
** In retrospect I probably should have hired a national security lawyer ASAP and let them kick the SSO in the butt to get this resolved in my favor, but by the time it because clear that the SSO was going to hold me up no matter what the law and the regs said, let alone what we submitted to him, the government had to have the position filled and the prime had to find someone else. Which was a real shame as the position description looked like it was written off of my CV, I’d actually done this type of work before in a supervisory capacity, and they’d spent over 6 months, at the point that the prime mentioned it to my boss and he said “I’VE GOT THE GUY WHO WROTE THE MANUAL ON THIS!!!!”, trying to find someone to fill it to no avail.
germy
C Stars
Thanks Adam. What do you think the purpose is of the Trump admin pushing this through? I mean, obviously just being assholes, but was there some ulterior motive?
Raven
Have you seen the video of the Airforce/Zip tie dude in the chambers? While he is there he is definitely trying to be a moderating influence on the other morons. They already released him and I wonder if that is why?
Woodrow/asim
Thanks for the explainer Adam. This stuff is..confusing, even after knowing people with Clearances!
All the civil service business feels built to avoid people being frozen out arbitrarily — and now that’s being abused, which is so typical of this soon-to-be-gone Administration. Hope we can get a legislative fix to avoid such actions, in future.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: This will go a long way to the SSO and GEN Nakasone basically giving him an office in a broom closet with nothing to do.
Adam L Silverman
@C Stars: It gives Nunes a spy at NSA to feed him material, which Nunes can then release or use to his own advantage as the ranking member at House Intel. It also allows Nunes to direct what the NSA can and cannot do through his protege. These types of things are intended to hamstring incoming administrations. Cheney was able to salt dozens and dozens of his people throughout the agencies and departments he cared about by burrowing them in during the last two years of the Bush 43 administration.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: They released him because he’s a retired O5 academy graduate and he’s white.
Raven
@Adam L Silverman: I had a boss they did that to once upon a time. She quit.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Ellis has to know that’s coming; why would he want to continue with this?
Raven
@Adam L Silverman: They released the Auschwitz guy too, and the shaman.
Kent
Probably a favor to Ellis for being a loyal Trumper. He gets a career SES job that is likely going to be a very easy job, if not a do-nothing job. Not sure I’d want to be a loyal Trump foot soldier looking for work right now.
Adam L Silverman
@Woodrow/asim: I’m a huge fan of civil service protections, but they need some serious reform and updating. I recently got asked by a senior civil servant in a supervisory position if I’d be interested in applying for a position where he’s at. He’s been trying to get me there for over a decade now. We talked a bit because I had some questions I just wanted clarified before I applied, but the one he can’t ask, because he’s not on the hiring committee, is whether my seniority is going to be held against me. There are two dynamics working against me. The first is that no one hires people with my level of seniority without knowing them – and while this is a rank open search across several ranks and pay grades – they don’t know me from Adam and I am Adam. I interviewed for a Federal position the day Comey sent his letter to Chafetz in OCT 2016 for a position. I’d already spoken to the recruiting officer/hiring manager about how they couldn’t match rank and he wanted to make sure I was aware of that, but they were good at getting close on equalizing salary. I was interviewed by two people who I was at least ten years older than, that I had more experience than, and I was more senior too. The last question they asked was about the seniority issue. I told them I just wanted in the door, on the team, and I was happy to work my way back up rank wise as long as they could get close salary wise as the hiring manager had explained. They obviously didn’t believe me as I didn’t get an offer. This followed almost the same thing happening at a different Federal search I applied for earlier in the year where I had been recruited to apply by one of the assistant secretaries I knew there. The hiring committee kicked me because I was too senior for the position advertised.
The second issue is these hiring committees seem to be convinced that if the position is open rank and therefore the salary ranges between say $95k and $145K, if they hire at the junior level, their organization somehow gets to pocket the remaining $50k, which is not how it works. So there’s a lot of pressure to hire at lower rank and seniority to keep costs down.
I’ve applied, but I’m not holding my breath. The problem is that in order to put the protections in in the hiring process to keep them as corruption free as possible, it makes it very difficult for senior or highly qualified people to get hired because either the scorers of the applications, the hiring committees, or both don’t know what to do with them. Even when someone asks them to apply.
Kent
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t it the case that if he actually fed so much as a single classified document to Nunes he could be prosecuted and lose his job? They don’t have a sense of humor about that sort of thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: That’s the idea.
guachi
To be a nerd here, the location Malcolm Nance references in his tweet, the Fanx, is pronounced “Fan-Ex” and is short for Friendship Annex.
And every SSO I’ve ever met doesn’t play around. Just because you have your clearance you don’t get anywhere if the SSO doesn’t approve.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I think initially the plan was to ease his path. It was reported back in December that Miller had prepared an order separating CYBER Command from NSA. GEN Nakasone would then solely be the four star commander of the former and they’d create a purely civilian director for the latter with an out of synch term of service, like the FBI director, for the NSA. And the person who they were planning to name as NSA director was Ezra Cohen-Watnick. Who has been unqualified for every Trump administration position he’s held, is a protege of Flynn’s, as well as Ledeen’s and Safra Catz from Oracle. Imagine what happens with Cohen-Watnick as the NSA Director and Ellis as the general counsel?
Now realize this was all part of a scheme for Ratcliffe to selectively declassify information to make Biden and Democrats look bad, support Trump’s lies about the election, and try to ease the way to keep him in office. And if that failed, to make it impossible for the Biden administration because Trump, Nunes, and Flynn would still control the NSA.
C Stars
@Adam L Silverman: You’re right, I don’t like that answer. Ugh.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: That’s qwhite rwhite.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: Actually the QShaman had his bail revoked and he’s being held because he’d clearly expressed he would go back to DC for the inauguration and he wanted to kill Pence, Biden, Pelosi, Harris, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: He and Cohen-Watnick did this way back at the end of January/beginning of February 2017 when Nunes made his midnight run to the White House.
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: This is not Master Chief Nance’s area of expertise. The guy knows a lot, but there are things he shouldn’t touch because they’re outside of his actual experience. Frankly, if I didn’t have to do a deep dive into personnel and hiring flexibilities back in 2012, I wouldn’t touch this topic.
Adam L Silverman
@C Stars: All answers must comply with the Truth in Balloon Juice Commentary Act.
Adam L Silverman
As a martial artist and martial arts instructor, I have a question: how does one lift one’s weapon above their head for a strike without decapitating oneself with one’s shoulder armor?
raven
@Adam L Silverman: cool
Uncle Cosmo
To outnerd you, is that annex on the grounds (or near) Baltimore Washington International (BWI), which isn’t far from NoSuchAgency HQ? Because prior to the BWI designation, that airport’s name was Friendship.
Kent
Well yes, but that was in the Trump Administration. I would expect the Biden Administration to have less of a sense of humor about that sort of thing. Look at how they managed to ruin the careers of some FBI folks by putting them under the microscope.
I’m just not convinced that the Biden folks are helpless to deal with this sort of thing
In fact, doubt the statute of limitations has run out. I suspect the Biden folks could investigate him for those 2017 leaks.
Bobby Thomson
No, I’m OK with reassignment and eventual termination by bean counters.
Kent
The movie Office Space provided the model for that.
Baud
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: So is it possible to feed the guy bad intel, then nail him for passing it on?
@Adam L Silverman: No, see, if you flex your shoulders right, the pauldrons double as a full helmet.
Mary G
It’s good they can stuff him a closet, because I was imagining him spying for Russia.
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Is Rohit any relation to Deepshit Chopstick? Asking for a fiend…
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole:
Sure, that’s possible. It is also possible I will be whisked away on a magical subway car to the Rock of Eternity and gifted the power of 6 ancient deities, demi-deities, and heroes. The question is whether or not it is probable.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole:
I have an 18 inch neck. That would not work.
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo:
Not as far as I know.
Another Scott
While Tuesday is not a holiday, it’s not a normal workday either.
FederalNewsNetwork:
Will it affect this NSA lawyer thing? Dunno. But it could easily if someone wanted it to.
Cheers,
Scott.
Subsole
@Kent: Huuuuuge grains of salt!
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: When you wear T3 Dreadnaught armor, physics bends to your will and you stop worrying about silly issues like this. Plus this is 15 year old tech/animation physics, so we don’t worry about that. Also fuck John Cole, and based on this pic, he knows why!
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, yes. A neck. Common weak point. S’why real warriors replace their neck with solid muscle.
surfk9
@Another Scott: MY wife is a supervising attorney for a federal agency out here in the central valley of CA. All of the offices of her agency are closed this week. She works in an unmarked office building. If they are shutting down her agency like that, I assume there might be some impediments to Mr Ellis’s prompt installation
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: That’s basically what I’ve done. I can lift over 200 lbs with my neck.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: @surfk9: There are a number of ways to slow walk this.
guachi
@Uncle Cosmo: it’s near BWI. And I did not know that about the name of the airport. Makes sense now.
CaseyL
As I understand it, the NSA has been a problem agency for quite some time – I vaguely remember some issues back during the W Administration, when NSA was part of Cheney’s stovepipe operation to justify the Iraq war. Or was that NSC? I can’t for the life of me distinguish those two.
My point is, if my recollections are correct, wouldn’t it make sense to simply dissolve the agency altogether, re-assign its duties to one of the other myriad intelligence agencies that exist, and use the dissolution as a way to get rid of superfluous personnel; like, e.g., Ellis?
dm
Adam, I was under the impression (and my impression is a few decades stale) that NSA sort-of has the attitude, “Your clearance may be good enough for those amateurs, but we take security seriously here. Go to the end of the line and start filling out the paperwork”. Almost as though the entire Agency was a compartment.
Like, there was TS, and then there was TS with COMSEC sprinkles.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
But does anybody know what the “official” reasons are for Trump not getting the traditional Armed Forces Farewell ceremony every president at the end of their administration has gotten since Reagan in 1989? Is it for security reasons? Surely Trump’s flunkies at the Pentagon could’ve gotten him one if they wanted to, right? I can’t find anything on Google that gives an actual explanation
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: And you’re worried about the pauldrons??
Another Scott
@CaseyL: As I understand it, the NSA’s job is to listen to everything outside the US border. Given that Donnie had lots of, er, entanglements outside the US border, he might think it was in his interest to have a loyalist as the top lawyer at the agency.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@CaseyL: The National Security Agency (NSA) is the primary electronic and signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. The National Security Council (NSC), which is comprised of the National Security Staff (NSS) and the Principles and Deputies from the various Federal agencies dealing with nat-sec, defense, and foreign policy issues, is located at the White House complex. The National Security Staff is made up of a combination of political appointees, career civil service on detail from their home agencies and departments, and uniformed military personnel on assignment from their Services. The council part of the National Security Council are the principles and their deputies from the various nat-sec, intel, defense, and foreign policy agencies.
Mike in NC
We’re watching a bunch of old comedy DVDs, and tonight we chose “Hot Shots! Part Deux” which features Lloyd Bridges as President Tugg Benson, seriously demented yet still a vast improvement over Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@dm: As a political appointee first in the White House Counsel’s Office and then on the National Security Staff itself his clearance would have been done by the FBI with CIA input and adjudication. The NSA isn’t going to require that be redone.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The official reason is that GEN Milley issued guidance that he wasn’t getting it. He’s pissed the Joint Chiefs off. That’s why.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: I like my head attached.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman: I think the technical answer is that the armor is just a skin, so isn’t included in the physical model for object interactions.
Sister Golden Bear
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Big strong men, military men, came to Trump with tears in their eyes, laughed again even harder, and said: “Sir, no farewell ceremony for you!”
gene108
The company I used to work for had a few small DoD contracts and subcontracts that required a Secret clearance. I was made the company’s FSO (Facility Security Officer, the civilian equivalent of an SSO).
If he has an active clearance at the level he needs, there should not need to be anything much to do regarding indoctrinating him into the NSA JPAS. He’s already been assigned the appropriate clearance level.
He’s not due for a reinvestigation, so there’s no SF-86 to refill, which it sounds like you had to do, and the subsequent wait for the investigation to be completed.
The paperwork and security briefing will take a few days, because I’m sure the government has processes they must follow, before allowing him access to their system.
The transfer of ownership in JPAS does not even require any actual paperwork. The previous agency out processes him in JPAS, and the new agency in processes him. It’s a matter of filling out some information on a few screens.
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: based on your background, you’re looking for the monk class. Based on Cole’s, he went warrior. Their shoulder animations mean you’ll keep your head.
Adam L Silverman
@gene108: The indoctrination is the term for the security briefing necessary to authorize him access to the classified material. It’s the technical term of art, which is why I used it.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
He did not acquit himself very well on the video from New Yorker.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
CGI?
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: I don’t play video games.
Matt
Hot take: first thing on Biden’s desk should be a one-sentence memo, “All employees hired by the Trump administration are hereby immediately terminated.”
Sure it’s wildly illegal. But every one of them got the job for either graft or sabotage, so fuck em
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: No he did not.
Ilieitz
Ot but in a earlier thread I live in Gainesville so far away from the cockroaches moving to South Florida. We are the blue county in the middle of the state even though the district we are in keeps sending maga types to congress
Adam L Silverman
@debbie:
Leto
@Ken: It is. Every time my toon jumps, with that armor set/similar, it clips through the head. If standard human was the only character model they needed to work around, they would’ve fixed it. As is, there’s 19 different character models that they have to design current/previous animations around. And then male/female, so 38? The community has simply given up that Blizzard will fix some of their animations.
Adam L Silverman
@Ilieitz: This is because you are surrounded by Alachua County.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
???
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The Marine Band doesn’t know how to play “YacketyYack”.
Raven
@Leto: Man you make me feel old!
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman:
Ok. What about a smaller set of pauldrons that fit on the neck…
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: I saw someone tweet that and stole it.
Patricia Kayden
I’m pretty sure that Ellis will do something stupid and get fired and contrary to Conservative talking points, federal employees can be fired.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: My motto is pauldrons are for poltroons.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: My guess is there’s also at least a six month probationary period for the position, which will make it easy for him to be terminated. But since I don’t know, I left it out of the post.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I have yet to see any version of that meme that doesn’t crack me up. That, and the one where the bikers are screaming at each other.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: With the bikers, I’m just rooting for injuries.
Ilieitz
@Adam L Silverman: the only place in FL. to live
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Calling them “suckers and losers” would piss them off, who would have thunk it?
LeftCoastYankee
I somehow envision Biden has a “Special Assistant for Undoing Bullshit”, and this has been added to their tracking list.
Adam L Silverman
@Ilieitz: I’ve lived there. Six years.
Raven
@Ilieitz: I’ll take 30a but I’m a Dawg.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: for me it’s trump yelling at the kid with the lawn mower
and the various uses of this one.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Eez a puzzlement!
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman: Internet service is spotty or non existent in jail.
Now that he’s been arrested and released, I’m sure he’ll want to share his story with all his “contacts”.
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: Which shows when your first question is, won’t this go through my head/neck? :P 7 years ago World of Warcraft introduced the Panderan race (Panda’s) and you could play the monk class. Heavy, heavy Chinese influence, including the animations for the character movements. You’d enjoy the artwork if you looked it up. It’s one of my personal favorite areas in the game because the entire ethos behind it is: slow down. Enjoy the experience.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: I will take your word for it.
Raven
@Doug R: I read part of the conditions of his release was “limited” internet access.
Adam L Silverman
Time to walk the four foots.
Geminid
Have guns, will travel: Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson have been hired by renegade Likud leader Gideon Saar to assist his “New Hope” party in the Israeli election campaign. No need to guess who they will be gunning for this time. Election day is late March. From The Jerusalem Post.
Mary G
O/T, but this is an interesting choice.
I love it. The right will be all “we told you so, RADICALS!!!”
This verse:
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman:
Obligatory…
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Raven: Just remember to plug in your rascal scooter tonight!
Raven
@Leto: I hope it’s not as close as it seems. I go back. To the neuro the 25th.
frosty
@Uncle Cosmo: The airport being named after the long gone town that was in the way of construction. IIRC.
Yutsano
@Leto: Physics in game design works exactly as the game designer intends them to and more often than not have zero basis in reality. I’ll have to look it up, but someone did a video where a real life physicist examined Portal physics. She wasn’t exactly impressed.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep, those too.
Leto
@Raven: me too, although with the battery/motor tech we have now I’m pretty sure you would be in Tesla territory! Zip zip! :)
Raven
@Leto: We have a Kia Niro!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: that both made me feel old (22 years!) and struck me as kind of odd. The article says it was Doug Emhoff’s walk on music, which still seemed kind of minor hook, RS kind of buried what I suspect is the real reason (quote from Biden’s book about Beau):
also, sounds like the band’s break up was not amicable
Makes The Police sound positively chummy….
Mary G
Maybe this should have been done earlier?
Leto
@Yutsano: True. Most of the time they go for “COOL!” vs how it’d actually respond irl. There have been plenty of games that worked on that latter system, and that’s also why they’re referred to in the past tense. Also the animation requirements for 38 unique models means that sometimes you don’t render things in the most realistic way possible because at some point you have to get the game out of the door. I’m not even mentioning all the NPC models that also need animating. While many of them share the same animation frame, most of them don’t. Despite using a 15 year old engine, it’s still a good looking game.
Princess Leia
Don’t know if I linked right, but love this!
twitter.com/i/status/1350940531518533636
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
@Sister Golden Bear:
Ah. But couldn’t the civilian leadership at the DOD, Trump flunkies now, simply overrule the Joint Chiefs? Trump himself being the CIC, could do it, surely? It’s just Trump is the type that will dig in his heels when he really wants something
jl
” They could reassign him to a radar intercept station in Alaska ”
How about reassign him to Little Diomede Island and give him a pair of binoculars? He can see Russia from there, and watch that sucker easy peasy. If he’s obnoxious, the residents can give him a spare boat and tell him to get his ass back to Teller, and then hitch a ride back to Nome. Should be somebody out to Teller every couple of days.
NYCMT
What is this about?
Ilieitz
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve lived here for for 35 years. Been married to black women( Jamaican and Dominican) and never really had a problem. Just dirty looks etc. Now GaiNeville is pretty multi racial. Worked for the USDA-ARS for 35 yrs. Good times
Mary G
I think Uncle Joe’s talking unity and healing while giving Republicans the middle finger behind the country’s back:
Raven
@NYCMT: See Anwar Sadat.
Ilieitz
Need to pay attention to my typing
Raven
@Ilieitz: You must know folks in Athens?
Ken
@jl: Well, if we’re fantasizing, how about he wakes up in a plane and is told “You’re the only one we can trust to get the truth about Iran” just before being pushed out the door over Dasht-e-Lut? With parachute, of course.
jl
@Mary G: I see it as good policy on several fronts, and if I were Biden and his crew, that’s how I’d talk about it.
I don’t think unity means you have to keep the other side happy by going along with all of their positions, or even most of them.
Leto
@jl: if it was still operational, I’d suggest Shemya Air Force Station – Shemya Island, AK. Had a former supervisor who was stationed there and I can’t really think of a more remote place in the world
Edit: I looked it up. It was renamed in 1994 and it’s still operational. Good, good…
dww44
@Raven: does this mean they will not face any charges?
Another Scott
@Mary G: Given what happened on 1/6, I’m sure they have been trying to game-plan all sorts of improbable things.
Relatedly, MilitaryTimes:
Here’s hoping this week doesn’t turn into yet another superspreader event.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
Pardon the off-topic, but CNN reports that Parler is back on the Intertoobs.
tom
wtf is a tactical wallet? (ad at the top)
Raven
@dww44: No, just bail.
jl
@Ken:
I am merciful and gracious, not vindictive. I’m for win-wins. He can make himself useful, and experience an awesome and majestic part of the world, full of natural wonders, and wonderful cheerful, friendly people who know how to keep twerps like that in line.
Edit: good chance he’ll end up in jail sooner or later, why not give him a chance to enjoy some really and truly brisk and bracing air?
Mary G
Party of law n order:
tom
@Amir Khalid: having a registrar is very different from having a host. Getting the whole thing working again is going to be a lot of work.
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: oh man. Don’t ever look at anything from 40k…
jl
@Leto: BJ will find a place for the guy. Adam can pass on our expert advice.
sdhays
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have to assume that deciding that he was leaving after all, just a week or so ago, and making a very, very last minute request for a big send-off is also a factor. Typically, planning for the send-off would have at least begun preliminary planning days after the election, I would expect. Making it all happen at this late date may be possible, but people would probably have to work weekends and move heaven and earth to make it happen.
And when you treat people like shit and make then ashamed to be associated with you, they don’t tend to be up for working weekends and moving heaven and earth for your whims when they’re days away from being rid of you for good. And their new boss hates your guts, so he’s not going to have your back.
jl
@NYCMT: That’s about one damn fine mess the country’s gotten itself into. I heard some TV pundit talking about a possible threat from inside the military ranks. I hoped that it was just TV pundit talk to fill up air time, but looks like not.
Ilieitz
@Raven: i’m fromfromDenver
Achrachno
@jl: If he can’t be sent out of the country for some reason, I imagine the Bur. Land Mgmt. District Office in Battle Mountain, NV could probably use some support from a new NSA branch.
MobiusKlein
At some point with hires like the post, can we just fire folks, refuse to comply with discovery, and pardon the people that did the firing if push comes to shove?
Mr Ellis won’t be the last burrowed hack
gwangung
@Leto: Oh, Kyril Island, then. Camp Permafrost.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: As a WOW player and gamer, the answer is that you just elt the shoulder clip through your head.
It’s cool. happens all the time
ETA: and clearly this should work on real life, too. Why not? :)
Jay
cryptobriefing.com/unmasking-deceased-programmer-donated-bitcoin-capitol-hill-rioters/
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Raven:
My guess is that he thought he was going in with a higher quality group of co-conspirators, but found himself stuck with a pack of people who either flunked the ASVAB or got separated just short of a Big Chicken Dinner as E-4s.
Martin
Biden will fire him on Wed. Let him sue.
Jay
Ken
@Jay: Sends half a million in bitcoin to the white supremacists, and commits suicide the day after. Interesting timing.
Kelly
Gold I tell you, Pure Gold
Kent
I used to fish out there on commercial fishing boats. All those Aleutian Island military stations have closed long ago and been turned over to the native Aleut community. Adak was the big one. Shemya was closed as an active base decades ago but I think they still maintain it as an emergency landing and refueling site. So there must be a few staff out there to keep the place up. Infrequently commercial and private planes have landed there in emergencies.
Jay
Redshift
@sdhays: So I’m other words, he doesn’t get the big send-off in part because he wouldn’t concede. Can’t ask anytime to plan for your departure of you won’t admit you’re leaving. Hoist by his own petard.
Leto
@Kent: Here you go. You can update your files on what we do out there. Eareckson Air Station (Hint: we’re still out there)
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman: Principals, Mr. Silverman. Principals, not principles. Principles are what you have (I hope), principals are who you are (technically an adjective, but an abbreviated form of “principal person”). /pedant
Jay
@Kent:
there’s a CFB Signals Base at Alert. Maybe he could be stationed there as Liaison. They have a Cold Storage facility there that probably needs monitoring.
Woodrow/asim
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As a huge fan of that song (I’m a dancer, it’s about loving music, SUE ME), The New Radicals have a Whole Thing Going On.
True Fact: ALL IN THE FAMILY/ARCHIE BUNKER’S PLACE child star Danielle Brisebois was/is a member of the band. She still works with Gregg…and in fact, I don’t think there’s any actual animosity among the band members, Gregg, just decided he didn’t want to keep going, and shut the whole thing down.
It happens — I lost two dance troupes due to similar, so I’ve seen it happen from inside.
Anyway, there’s a great video on this song if you want or care to know more: youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ3FdAFXR_U&t=908s
opiejeanne
@Raven: My uncle owned a potato chip company in San Diego. Golden Tulip. Granny Goose bought him out and made him a VP, but they only let him take investors and other VIPs out on the town.
He took early retirement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Important point(s) on the national guard story and the (possible) danger of internal threat:
Woodrow/asim
@tom: 100% Agreed. We’ve known for some days that the assholes at Epik had picked up Parler’s DNS. This sounds a lot like those “landing pages” people put up; but getting a static single page on the ‘net is far and away different from even getting a basic Single Page Application online…
…much less all the coding and server infrastructure you need to pay for, out of pocket, to stand up what AWS and the other services that ran for the hills provides at (relatively) cheap scale. Much less ensuring they are actually no-joke secure this time — another service many outsource, because coding for users is hard as hell.
They deserve every bit of pain and agony they will go through, to actually get even a basic social media site online.
And no, even all the money the Mercers have, can only make up for so much raw talent and tech know-how.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Woodrow/asim: Didn’t mean to knock the song, just 1) can’t believe it came out so long ago and 2) the connection to Biden and politics wasn’t as clear as for Springsteen and John Legend. I saw the name Danielle Brisebois in that article and I knew it was familiar. Took a minute for that penny to drop
Ken
Though you can probably get a working “Click to fund Returning Free Speech to the Internet!” button pretty fast, if that’s all you’re really aiming at.
Yutsano
For the love of Pete, do not read Gary Abernathy columns on a full stomach. Or an empty stomach. Or any iteration in between. No I’m not linking because I care.
Woodrow/asim
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh! I promise I didn’t take your comments as hostile — I’m just used to defending this love, so I get Extra.
Sorry! :)
Adam L Silverman
@Geminid: Saar is actually more extreme than Bibi.
Omnes Omnibus
@dww44: No. It does not mean that.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I stole that a couple of days ago too.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: The ranking general in the MS National Guard is a member of Congress. Republican. Met with the insurrectionists before the rally. Was one of the 140 or so that voted to overturn the election.
This is a problem.
Another Scott
[snif!] They grow up so fast!!
Yup.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Ilieitz: I enjoyed living there. Did my PhD at UF and then spent two years on the faculty as a post-doc.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: That idiot’s wearing his Stetson backwards.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: So he’s saying that he never wants to see the outside of a jail/prison cell again? I’m good with that.
Woodrow/asim
Still dealing with backend services — unless they are going full-bore cryptocurrency (and even then…), they have to either write a whole middleware layer to talk to Visa/Mastercard, or take a chance with Paypal/Stripe/etc.. The latter is highly unlikely, given Parler’s toxicity right now, and the former, I’d not lay bets on Visa/Mastercard allowing Parler to play with them, either (keep in mind they just dumped Pornhub on the side of the road!)
Hell, I suspect even WinRed might avoid them, just so they don’t have to deal with the wrath of Visa/Mastercard on behalf of these entitled asshats. But if not, that would likely be their best bet, albeit tying their “free speech” directly to a single Political Party.
In general: Parler has hit a brick wall very, very few “legitimate” services ever have to work around.
Kattails
I am going to have to re-read this tomorrow, exhausted (dealing w/old friends’ life crises all day). Thanks for the post. Took a quick peek around the internet before bedtime and ran across this from Gary Kasparov on CNN, do you have a take on it?
catclub
especially during probation period.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: Link?
Jay
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Sounds awfully seditious
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
They should lower his pay as well. The fact that he’s getting a fat salary and then doing nothing makes me feel irritated.
Gravenstone
Softy…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
….Then why is Steve Schmidt helping him? To create a rift in Likud?
@Adam L Silverman:
Sounds awfully seditious (I love that joke)
Suzanne
@Mary G: This is weird. “You Get What You Give” is not, like, a very good song.
Kattails
@Kattails: OH FFS link Im so tired
Ken
@Woodrow/asim: I was thinking more in terms of a simple HTML form with a PHP backend script that saved the credit card information to a file, returning a page saying “Thank you for your support of Freedom!”
Methods of monetizing that file are left to the reader.
Kelly
With apologies to the late great Steve Goodman I wrote this today:
Banana Republicans
Down to the District of Columbia,
Down to state capitols too
Come the ex patriotic Americans,
Expecting to have some fun
Some of them fight for aparthied,
Drawn by the lies of the past
To cure the spirit that’s ailing,
from losing white supremacy
Some are running from prosecutors
Leaving no forward address
Some of them are just grifting
Some are running from the IRS
And late at night you will see them
In Trump’s hotels and bars
Hustling the gun bunnies
As they dance beneath the stars
Spending embezzled dollars
On a bottle of rum and a lime
Singing “Give me some words I can dance to
And a melody that rhymes”
You learn the Fox News customs
A word of QAnon or two
But you know you can’t trust them
Because they know they can’t trust you
Down with banana republicans
There’s not as many as it seems
When no real patriots are buying
Any second-hand Fascist dreams
Ex patriotic Americans are feeling so all alone
Telling themselves the same lies
that they told themselves at home
And late at night you will see them
In Trump’s hotels and bars
Hustling the gun bunnies
As they dance beneath the stars
Spending embezzled dollars
On a bottle of rum and a lime
Singing “Give me some words I can dance to
And a melody that rhymes”
Down to District of Columbia,
Down to state capitols too
Come the ex patriotic Americans,
Expecting to have some fun
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: @Kattails: He’s right.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Who do you think helped Bibi get elected initially? Here’s the dirty secret of the Republican and conservative campaign professionals. When they’re not working on campaigns here in the US, they’re working on them in Canada, Britain, Australia, and other places. There’s two reasons that most conservative movements and parties in these places look alike. The first is the same conservative and Republican campaign professionals that shepherded the Republican Party and conservative movement so far to the right that Trump was able to walk up and take it away from them. The second is that the US, Britain, and Australia all allow Murdoch to dominate the news space. Israel allows Adelson to fill the Murdoch role. Canada is a bit better insulated because they don’t allow Murdoch to own any news properties, but it can’t completely keep his influence out because of proximity to the US.
Another Scott
Recalling Donnie’s favorables falling to 29% in a recent poll…
… gradually, and then suddenly.
(via NotLarrySabato)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: Perhaps you should get some sleep?
Kattails
Re: Kasparov, Thought so. thx Adam I’m off to bed (jaw-cracking yawn it’s not the company @Adam L Silverman:
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Lots of solutions to the problem, if we’re serious enough to use them.
Another Scott
This is my shocked, shocked face.
(via TheRealHoarse)
Cheers,
Scott.
2liberal
OT: what do you expect for Tuesday pardons? Can he pardon all those who participated and might be charged in the assaults and murders?
TriassicSands
@Jay:
Officer Whitehead doesn’t need a mask. He has a gun. If he sees a virus, he’ll shoot the damn thing. Many people expend more effort rationalizing their irresponsible and risky behavior than it would take to simply do the responsible thing. Many others seem to have substituted “What would Donald do?” for ” What would Jesus do? ”
It’s not hard to figure why we’ve been so unsuccessful in dealing with COVID-19
Martin
@Jay: It worked. They’re all over the news now. Can’t buy that kind of publicity.
Punchy
Wasnt today supposed to be Q Day or some such shit?
JoyceH
@Mary G: I saw that and was surprised. I thought the pipeline was green-lit past all hope of reversing, thought it was a lost cause and done deal.
But that explains those commercials I keep seeing on TV. Keystone XL puff piece PR things, all tree-huggy and crunchy granola and using the phrase “Build back better” over and over. Nice try, guys.
TriassicSands
@Uncle Cosmo:
If you are going to get pedantic over interchanged homonyms, you could at least explain to Adam how and when to use “whom/whomever” and “who/whoever.”
Another Scott
@Punchy: Yup.
There was a Tweet somewhere that showed a single sign left against some fencing around one of the state capitols. The guy holding it left it because there was nobody else there…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
A great respite thread,
Wildlife photographers interrupted by wild life.
mobile.twitter.com/JoaquimCampa/status/1350843546471952387
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
that’s why so many of us watch ReThug politics and shitweaseling like hawks. What ever the ReThugs do this election, the Con’s will try next election.
Fair Economist
@Mary G:
Biden cracked the code!
Fair Economist
@JoyceH:
The Keystone pipeline plan has multiple sections. The section that dumps oil in sacred Indian ground is built and not reversible (spit) but there’s a further connection to the main processing centers in OK and TX. If that’s not built the existing pipeline is less useful and will carry less oil than it would otherwise.
Jay
Aleta
@Kattails:
Don Winslow @donwinslow
·9h
I think resting the mind is part of continuing to fight. Were that it not be so hard.
Roger Moore
My question is whether this is true, or if Ellis got the special “we’re giving you the clearance whether it’s justified or not” treatment Kushner received. I find it very hard to believe Trump limited the clearances he dished out that way once he realized he could just override what the security people said. I would take a very close look at the clearance of anyone in Trump’s immediate orbit before letting them anywhere close to classified information.
Brachiator
So, what’s wrong with Trump? What’s the play here?
I can understand hiring loyalists when you are the Orange Beast. But Trump will be gone soon, and so will this appointment.
Eunicecycle
@Jay: I love that thread! It’s so amazing how comfortable the animals feel with the photographers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: It’s a dick move.
debbie
@Another Scott:
About two to three dozen showed up at the Ohio State House, but things were so dull, it broke up by 2pm. This was an interesting twist: the gun’s for First, not Second, Amendments freedoms:
Plenty of photos of milling about aimlessly.
leeleeFL
@Ilieitz: Now you tell me?!
Another Scott
Bilal: The man behind the meme
p.dw.com/p/3o0Vn
Excellent.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
Except mostly NOT with Republicans. They are a cult.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Sorry if that link doesn’t work directly – it came from the DW app.
If that doesn’t work, try this one:
dw.com/en/bilal-the-man-behind-the-meme/av-56247379
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@debbie: Only 15 showed up at the Oregon capitol. Which was locked down and not in session. More reporters there than protestors I think. But they are definitely going for the scary armed-to-the-teeth militia look.
oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2021/01/oregon-capitol-draws-small-group-of-armed-protesters.h…
jl
@Kent: Big mistake to ditch the ninja turtle look. That home made tactical guerilla looking stuff scares people away.
Edit: scares sane people away.
sdhays
@Kent: What those numbers continue to fail to capture are people leaving the Republican Party. I think I saw something about thousands changing their registration in droves just in Georgia after 1/6. I’d really like to see some quantification of this phenomenon over the next several months.
It doesn’t really matter how popular politicians are in their own party if it’s collapsing in on itself. That’s at least part of the story of the Democrats wins over the past several years.
Yutsano
@sdhays: You, I, and the electrons know that most of those registration changes are Republicans embarrassed by the name. I bet there will only be a very few who actually change their voting patterns from the past. They just don’t want the stench of the name on their registration. I am more than welcome to be proved wrong here.
Chetan Murthy
@Yutsano:
“We’re not Republicans; we’re Independents.”
Feathers
@Adam L Silverman: When I worked at Harvard, I had a friend whose job included supporting the people who couldn’t be fired, but nobody wanted in their department. So they got an office and a shared support person. The unofficial name for this hidden, tucked away outfit? The Corridor of Misfit Toys.
Kent
I think the New York Public Schools calls it “The Rubber Room”
Uncle Cosmo
@Feathers: When I worked for the MD state gummint, there were (in our division of crazed economists and data weenies) a couple of Misfit Toys. One was a pleasant old guy who’d been banished, for no reason I ever divined, to the “library” – a storage room filled with shelves of reports no one ever read – as far away from the division director as geographically possible in our single-floor outbuilding. The other had an office right next to mine & was probably certifiably paranoid (& the living embodiment of Henry the K’s observation that “even paranoids have real enemies”). That was one kwaaaazy place to work…
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Someone needs to make a cheat sheet we can post here on BJ, kind of like the list of characters that used to be at the beginning of Agatha Christie books.
Lauren Boebert – crazy gun bunny Rep CO-3
Robert Gleswein –
zip tie guy #1 –
zip tie Guy #2 –
lecture guy –
beat the cop with the baseball bat guy –
etc.
I’m finding it hard to keep all these insurrectionists straight
Nobody in particular
@WaterGirl:
The data dump from the proximate cell tower has it all. All those pinging smartphones, circumstantial evidence that has been as effective as DNA. If you can’t count to 5, as in the 5th Amendment, the confusion these perps have wrt to the 1st and 2nd Amendments is a problem. Some GOP clown will try invoking the 3rd Amendment, arguing housing NG troops in “The People’s House” violates the 3rd.
CWZ
@Adam L Silverman: Hi Adam, if you can see my email, could you contact me through that? I was wanting to chat with you about our old friends at another blog site we used to frequent a few years back. Cheers. Cold War Zoomie