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Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Holy Shit, What Did I Miss?

Holy Shit, What Did I Miss?

by | 262 Comments

This post is in: 

I turned off the computer early yesterday, and this morning I have been doing the usual Saturday morning errands.

What is this about?

Holy cow-ski, Batman!

Open thread.

Updated:

Trump Aide Unwittingly Copies Classified Pages to Laptop, Report Says

How can they assume unwittingly???

The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done.

I scared the cat laughing at the “may not be done” part.

Reader Interactions

262Comments

  7. 7.

    cmorenc

    If this classified-document copying classified docs onto a thumb drive thing proves out,  right there is such an enormous, obvious distinction from the Biden and Pence instances (not that there aren’t plenty already to reasonable folks) – that even the loudest howler-monkeys and media lackeys of the GOP aren’t going to be able to deflect, distract, or obfuscate this cataclysmic distinction.

  11. 11.

    Gin & Tonic

    @cmorenc:

    even the loudest howler-monkeys and media lackeys of the GOP aren’t going to be able to deflect, distract, or obfuscate this cataclysmic distinction.

    Wanna bet?

  12. 12.

    Ohio Mom

    I get that everything has to be methodically and thoroughly documented, every I dotted, every T crossed. I am glad those things are being accomplished, however slowly because that’s how long these things take and it is absolutely necessary that everything is laid out.

    But we all already knew Trump stole and sold our secrets. I’m happy and thrilled the process continues to move along but this finding isn’t exactly shocking to me.

  13. 13.

    eclare

    @Tom Levenson:   Yes.  Baboons, like most primates, can be very aggressive and violent.  They were everywhere in Kenya, and we were repeatedly told not to feed them.

  14. 14.

    Geminid

    @eclare: I think the Democratic minority has the stronger hand to play in these Oversight Committee hearings. They are making the most of it, too.

  15. 15.

    Barbara

    @WaterGirl: ​No! Trailers are frequently the only affordable housing for lots of people, often but not always in rural areas. It drives a wedge between working class people that is based on factors usually out of their control.

  19. 19.

    smith

    1. What possible justification could there be for an employee of a supposedly private political entity like a PAC being in possession of classified documents?
    2. Foreign donors? Is that even legal?
    3. Could this be the glimmer of hard evidence of a quid pro quo, trading our secrets for foreign political donations?
  22. 22.

    Glidwrith

    @Ohio Mom: Yep, pretty obvious from the start. Even if Shitgibbon didn’t, unattended documents were guaranteed to be copied and out in the wild.

  23. 23.

    Ohio Mom

    @Barbara: Yes, I always hear “trailer trash” as meaning white people and the implication being, white people ought to behave than that, “that” meaning non-white, after all, what can you expect from non-whites. A very subtle racist dig as much as a put down of the trailer inhabitants.

  25. 25.

    Barbara

    @eclare: Sorry WG! Obviously have not had the requisite level of caffeine!​

    As strange as it may be, after reading the live tweets of the Proud Boys trial for seditious conspiracy, they wouldn’t know what the term “traitor trash” meant or would spin it in their favor.  They are utterly convinced of their “true” patriotism. Basically, a lost cause.

  28. 28.

    narya

    Raskin is so interesting. When his son died, the number of fks left to give dropped precipitously, and his current cancer treatment has eliminated any remaining fks. He sounds like someone who is not concerned about “normal” politics at this point in his life, but only in directing his energies and time to  truth, justice, and democracy.

  29. 29.

    cmorenc

    So far, not so much as a peep in the MSM about this thumb drive/classified docs thing.  As of 11:30 am EST.

  35. 35.

    Miss Bianca

    @cmorenc:

    even the loudest howler-monkeys and media lackeys of the GOP aren’t going to be able to deflect, distract, or obfuscate this cataclysmic distinction.

    Methinks you may be underestimating them. However, I do hope you’re right.

  37. 37.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @cmorenc: I’ve seen it reported, not sure where, possibly MSNBC. Haven’t seen it on ABC/NBC/CBS/Fux, or any of major birdcage liners.

  40. 40.

    tobie

    I divide my time between urban and rural America so I have a somewhat different take on the term “white trash” than others here. I don’t think of it as describing “poor white people.” If anything, I associate the term with independent contractors and small business folks, especially in the home trades. These folks tend to be wealthy and they’ve managed to make a good living with a hs diploma. Good on them. It’s their smug self-satisfaction, their conviction that they’ve never received a handout, their vanity in thinking they drive the economy, their disdain for black and brown people and eggheads that bother me. I have never met a group less capable of self-reflection. I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought to myself, “Hey, your business rises and falls with the economy. You do well when the  country does well and for that we need smart govt policy and innovation.”

    That said, I’m happy to adopt the term traitor trash as a replacement.

  47. 47.

    Scout211

    I read the CNN story yesterday that was referenced in the Rolling Stone article linked above.

    “Not realizing” that they were classified documents? Really?

     

    A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.

  53. 53.

    bbleh

    “Da, was totally unvittink!  Did nyet mean to get caught … I mean, to have documents found … I mean, to copy documents!”

    @cmorenc: hahaha yes they are just wait

  55. 55.

    delphinium

    @WaterGirl: Yes! Have been so impressed with Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman during these hearings and for calling out Jim Jordan as the stupid, loud-mouthed, scumbucket he is.

    While I doubt Ohio voters will dispense with him next election, I think the more people who view these hearings and the Republican idiocy  (see also Marge Greene), they less they will like them. Such a contrast to our wonderful representatives!

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    I think that this development is a big deal. I have thought from the start that the (seeming) focus on the “documents” as unique pieces of paper was naïve and almost criminally shortsighted. But maybe that’s just the way the FBI framed the issue for public consumption. I’m sure Trump liked the actual documents, so that he could fondle his love notes from Kim Jong-un, etc., but for any meaningful document the value is in the information it contains—which can be copied in any number of ways and which any number of people at Mar-a-Lago seem to have had access to. So how many classified “documents” are floating around in the ether?

    This also makes the excuse that “we only had a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, not anywhere else” look quaint in retrospect.

  60. 60.

    eclare

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:   I think we’ll see good things from Maxwell Frost, too.  He got Chrissy Teigen’s obscene but totally accurate tweet read into the Congressional record.

    Not as dignified as the others, but maybe that will fire up some yoots.

  63. 63.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Debbie Wasserman Schultz did a nice job there of pointing out the ridiculousness of Jonathan Turley, who cited reading the Twitter files, a sorry compendium of cherry picked “evidence” woven into a badly written narrative by has been Matt Taibbi, as evidence of his expertise.

  71. 71.

    zhena gogolia

    @CliosFanBoy: I thought smartphone and iPhone were synonymous. Good thing I’m not testifying before Congress!

    ETA: My understanding was that Goldman was referring to widespread use, such as would be part of FBI investigations.

  72. 72.

    Steeplejack

    @CliosFanBoy:

    A smartphone is much more than a mobile phone.

    ETA: “State of the art” in 1999 was something like one of those Nokia brick phones. Not a smartphone.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @CliosFanBoy: huh, I had no idea, I have no recollection of the Simon, but I’ve always been a late adopter and a bit of a luddite. I think I broke down and got my first cell phone in 2000. Now, of course, I get jittery if I leave it in the next room

  74. 74.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: There’s something they’re calling a smartphone that came out in 1994. But I don’t think those were in wide use. The point was that this guy had no experience investigating cases involving commonly used smartphones.

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    I understood that classified documents all said “CLASSIFIED” up at the top of every page?

    How on earth could anyone not see that and know that the given piece of paper was not just a memo?

    Good luck on the stand being examined by a prepared prosecutor, dude!! That’s a conservative volunteer going away for a very long time, with no job prospects when he gets out in the distant future.

    “I dinnt know!!!” he whimpered… really?​
    ​
    ​ETA: I’ve tried several times to make “CLASSIFIED” bright red as when I first typed this comment, and it won’t stick. But in bright red, no way someone doesn’t see that!!

  77. 77.

    Scout211

    @zhena gogolia: Google search finds this. 

    I’m not sure if this is accurate since it’s a random website I’ve never heard of.

     

    The first version of what we’d consider a smartphone was invented in 1992 by IBM. Called the Simon Personal Communicator (or just IBM Simon), it was made available for purchase in 1994 and sold by the tens of thousands.
    IBM Simon distinguished itself from previous generations of cell phones with features like the ability to send and receive emails, and a touch screen. It also came with built-in programs including:

    • Calendar
    • Address book
    • Appointment scheduler
    • Standard and predictive stylus input keyboards
    • Electronic note pad
    • Handwritten annotations

    The design, tools, and performance capabilities of smartphones have evolved massively over the years, however, many of the same features found in the IBM Simon and other early models are now standard in today’s smartphones. 

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Agreed. You can always find some nitpicky edge case to make your point, but we’re talking about a dunderhead layman who wouldn’t have known about, much less had access to, the exotic early stuff.

  81. 81.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Steeplejack: That’s 1980s phones.  There were devices such as SIMON that were considered smartphones in the 90s.    That retired-FBI witness was still clueless though.

  83. 83.

    J R in WV

    Our first cell phone was the size of a paving brick, larger than a common construction brick, with an antenna that connected with a coax cable that you stuck on the roof of the car with its magnetic base, and a battery you could jump start the car with (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration!) and probably cost hundreds of dollars. All it did was make a phone call, if you were close to a tower. The AP bought it for Wife.

  85. 85.

    kalakal

    @Steeplejack: The IBM Simon came out in 1994. By around 2000 there were phones with web browsers. I did quite nicely financially programming web apps for Blackberries. That FBI chap was a dolt.

    ETA I see I’m late to the party with this. All you fast fingered people!

  86. 86.

    bbleh

    @J R in WV: in my experience, every page of every document was stamped top and bottom with a classification (Confidential, Secret or Top Secret), and every paragraph began with an indication of the classification of the information in that paragraph — (U), (C), (S), (TS) — AND there were other markings for other types of classification (restriction to US nationals, compartmentalization, etc.)  And systems with classified information on them did not have functioning ports for things like thumb drives.

    But I don’t know what kinds of systems they were using, or what indications there are/were on the filenames.  And of course if classified information were (improperly) copied from a document without then classifying the copy, markings would not be present.

    At best it demonstrates a whole new level of carelessness: not merely removing documents and not securing them properly, but COPYING them from system to system, including to easily portable memory, without proper safeguards.

    But Republicans won’t care.  Trump is above rules, and by extension so is anybody working for him.

  87. 87.

    tobie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Debbie Wasserman Schultz was raked over the coals by Bernie and his supporters and then by Donna Brazile. She had a promising career before her which was burned to the ground in 2016. Since she’s never shown any love, I thought I’d link to the video of her questioning Turley. Yes, she exposed him with an economy of words.

  90. 90.

    BR

    @tobie: ​
    Exactly right. I heard the term “one truck contractor” as the perfect embodiment of this attitude. A ten truck contractor actually has to run a legit business, understand how laws work, and all the rest. A carpenter feels loyalty to other carpenters and maybe to a union. But a one truck contractor thinks they are the greatest gift to the world and owe nothing to anyone else.

  93. 93.

    tobie

    @BR: Word. I’ve seen this bumper sticker on pick-up trucks: “I’m a Republican because someone [in this country] needs to work.” That encapsulates the smarmy attitude, doesn’t it?

  95. 95.

    BR

    @tobie: ​
    And by “work” they mean go to the ballgame while they overwork their undocumented construction workers who are doing backbreaking work, who they will of course stiff on the next paycheck.

  96. 96.

    RSA

    @WaterGirl:  TRAITOR not trailer.

    By analogy, think of the expression “wigger,” which many people find offensive by the association with an offensive word.

  99. 99.

    skerry

    @bbleh: There are specific situations where a user would have access to functioning ports. I did for many years. I’m not surprised someone working with TFG documents had access. Especially given how TFG gave out clearances to un-clear-able people. I’m sure his staff just routinely had functional ports, etc.

    You are exactly right about paragraph markings. And any graphics are also individually marked. The markings at the top and bottom of pages denote the highest classification of paragraphs and graphics on that page.

  100. 100.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    “Not realizing” that they were classified documents? Really?

    Ditto. The person who made the first copy of each document and saved them electronically unquestionably knew they were classified.

    I’m sure the Special Prosecutor’s team will be interviewing people to find out just who that was, and will explain to that person what deep shit they’re in, but that the shit might be a little less deep if they turn state’s evidence.

    After that, of course, it gets trickier, because once it’s a PDF with a nondescript name, it can be easy to back up a laptop onto a thumb drive, and copy the classified docs without having any idea they’re there.

    But it all comes back to Trump, and who he allowed to have access to the documents in any form.  Can’t see how he’s not in deep shit.

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    Jesus Fucking Christ Himself!

    Another round of applause for the stupid, selfish brats who decided that Hillary Clinton could fuck herself with their votes.  Stupid, selfish brats!

  102. 102.

    James E Powell

    @cmorenc:

    even the loudest howler-monkeys and media lackeys of the GOP aren’t going to be able to deflect, distract, or obfuscate this cataclysmic distinction.

    I have to assume this is sarcasm.

  104. 104.

    James E Powell

    @Scout211:

    A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said.

    The source is probably the person who did the copying.

  106. 106.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    CLEARLY, the entire entourage at Mar-a-Dumbo should be relocated to GITMO until we can figure this whole thing out.

  107. 107.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Ohio Mom: The most obvious reason DOJ shouldn’t have rushed to indict two years ago: they wouldn’t have found/had shit like this.  Imagine if DOJ indicts fast, Trump somehow gets acquitted and then we find this stuff later but double-jeopardy protections means we can never use this against him.  Maybe, just maybe, Garland, Jack Smith and DOJ know what they’re doing…

  109. 109.

    mrmoshpotato

    @delphinium:

    Yes! Have been so impressed with Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman during these hearings and for calling out Jim Jordan as the stupid, loud-mouthed, scumbucket he is. 

    Bonasera, Bonasera, what have actual buckets of scum ever done to make you treat them so disrespectfully?

    (Apologies to Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola)

  112. 112.

    kalakal

    @tobie:

    I’m a Republican because I believe someone [in this country] needs to work for me for $6 an hour and be grateful for the privilege.   

    With the quiet bits added

  117. 117.

    Baud

    @tobie:

     I’ve seen this bumper sticker on pick-up trucks: “I’m a Republican because someone [in this country] needs to work.”

     
    I’m a Democrat because someone needs to be loyal to this country.

  118. 118.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @cmorenc: even the loudest howler-monkeys and media lackeys of the GOP aren’t going to be able to deflect, distract, or obfuscate this cataclysmic distinction.

    The media just passed me their beer for safekeeping and left with some urgency. What’s that about?

  119. 119.

    jonas

    Classified documents on a thumb drive? Isn’t that sort of like, I dunno, a small “private server”? And isn’t storing classified documents on a private storage device like a capital offense to the googleplexeth power? I recall hearing something like that back in 2016…

  121. 121.

    tobie

    We’re past the 100 mark on this thread, so it may not be time to post a question but I’ll ask it anyway…

    Is there a good charity for sending funds to earthquake victims in Turkey & Syria?

    This may have come up in another thread and apologies in advance if I missed it.

  125. 125.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @tobie: We’re past the 100 mark on this thread, so it may not be time to post a question

    Balloon Juice pros read from the bottom.  I don’t have an answer to your question, though.

  126. 126.

    Jackie

    @Geminid: The difference between the MAGA committee members and our minority committee members are very visual and verbal examples of quantity vs quality. I’m glad CNN and MSNBC are giving these exchanges a lot of airtime. I highly doubt faux news viewers have a clue.

  129. 129.

    WaterGirl

    @tobie: I think World Central Kitchen is always a good choice.  They show up, they do good work, and they help people.  If you want to donate to them, you can click on the Balloon Juice for Ukraine thermometer and just select World Central Kitchen.

  130. 130.

    Tony G

    @Gin & Tonic: Unfortunately, I’m not so confident.  There could be a video of Trump strangling babies, and most of his “base” would continue to support him.

  131. 131.

    patrick II

    @Scout211:

    Where did the aide copy them from? And why did he have access?

    This may answer a question I have had — why (aside from Trump’s general disorganization) where classified documents sitting unsorted in boxes in a room? What use could they be? The answer may be that they had been scanned in and the copies that were accomplishing whatever they were trying to accomplish were all electronic.
    It is such a mess.

  132. 132.

    dww44

    @Jackie: ​  It’s not just Fox viewers who don’t have a clue;it’s even more about the other so called conservative news outlets. NewxMax cannot get over being ditched by Direct TV. They go on and on about the unfairness of itand that “over 80 Congresspersons are calling for investigations, that AT&T has lost billions/millions since dropping NewsMax, constant charts/graphs about Direct TV’s loss of viewership.
    If ever a conservative media arm demonstrated perfectly how conservatives views themselves as wronged and victimized, it’s definitely NewsMax. It is no wonder that the GOP politicians across the board are so warped. It’s the direct result of consuming their news only from conservative outlets. They’ve all lost the plot.​

  133. 133.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: @cmorenc:

    I couldn’t find a thing on the Washington post site when I put this post up, and I finally had to google trump classified thumb drive in order to find the Rolling Stone article.

    If I hadn’t gone looking for it or hadn’t seen someone’s tweet, I would never have known about the thumb drive.

  134. 134.

    Fleeting Expletive

    I just got around to reading E. Jean Caroll’s deposition vs. Trump. It’s harrowing and entirely relateable, of course, but how come his deposition, all 158 pages and every word, is blacked out?  When will it be unredacted? Why is it fucking redacted now?

  135. 135.

    Jackie

    @Steeplejack: I really, really want to know WHAT classified document(s) were copied onto that laptop and thumb drive. Anything that could compromise or endanger American assets or national security if shared or sold???

  136. 136.

    WaterGirl

    @patrick II: This is very clearly not a matter of someone boxing up a bunch of papers from a desktop in the rush of moving.

    I think this one is going to be a big problem for Trump, and a big piece of evidence in the Special Counsel case against Trump.  Maybe not a problem with his base, though.

  137. 137.

    RSA

    @eclare: As do I. It doesn’t make a difference if I say, “I used a W, not an N.” In the same way, it doesn’t make a difference if someone says, “I said TRAITOR, not TRAILER.”

  140. 140.

    geg6

    @tobie:

    My experience exactly.  Exactly.  Can’t say it enough.  It doesn’t mean rural or poor to me.  It means fairly wealthy small business owners, contractors, tradespeople and some professionals like dentists and lawyers.  They are just trash people and they are 99.9% white.  Thus, white trash.

  141. 141.

    artem1s

    The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.
    Good argument to overturn Citizen’s United IMO.

  145. 145.

    jonas

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    he accidentally basically admitted that he did it, but it wasn’t rape.

    IIRC, he took Carrol’s remark (in her book?) about how she prefers not to call sexual assault “rape” because some people think the word is sexy or kinky completely out of context and claimed that she was essentially admitting that she secretly liked it. (Haven’t read the transcript, but I presume there’s a note about people in the interview room, except Trump, throwing up in their mouths at that point.)

    The other kicker was after calling her a liar and claiming she wasn’t “his type”, when shown a photo of Carrol standing near Trump in a photo, he mistook her for his ex-wife Marla Maples.

    The hammer cannot be brought down on this guy too fast or too soon…

  146. 146.

    tobie

    @geg6: BJ frontposter Anne Laurie had an excellent name for this–Poujadistes based on the movement Pierre Poujade spawned in France. This small town, small biz, anti-govt, proud provincialism, the conviction that they are the true nationals (“real America”), not folks in cities.

  148. 148.

    JoyceH

    @geg6: ​
     

    It doesn’t mean rural or poor to me. It means fairly wealthy small business owners, contractors, tradespeople and some professionals like dentists and lawyers. They are just trash people and they are 99.9% white. Thus, white trash.

    Fairly wealthy? Huh. I grew up in small town Midwest, and the term ‘white trash’ to me always meant a sort of behavior, nothing to do with money or the lack of it, though they were often poor. White Trash were the girls who got into hair pulling fights in the ladies room. Had a lot of fights, caused a lot of scenes, just a general lack of control, often in trouble with the police. “Low count, no account”. Lauren Boebert definitely qualifies, and so does Empty Gee, despite her privileged background. She just behaves… trashy.

  149. 149.

    delphinium

    @WaterGirl:

    There was a whole discussion of what Trump said in his deposition, and it sounded like he accidentally basically admitted that he did it, but it wasn’t rape.

    Yeah, he must have just ‘unwittingly’ pushed his dick in.

  151. 151.

    patrick II

    @WaterGirl:

    I agree that it is not just a case of boxing up, but having them remain sitting in boxes in an unorganized manner seemed of little use to me. It wasn’t clear, except for the psychological (I am president and these are mine!!!) purposes how he was making use of them.  If there was significant scanning and organizing into useful (saleable) parts, that makes a difference.

    Post edit.

    And also — he wouldn’t/couldn’t do that by himself.

  155. 155.

    jonas

    @tobie: ​  “Poor white trash” has always referred to poor, rural whites who despite their poverty and lack of education could still hold their racial privilege over their Black neighbors and coworkers.
    What you’re describing is the so-called “petit bourgeoisie” — not wealthy, asset-owning capitalists, but the middle and lower-middle class of tradespeople, shopkeepers, and other small business owners (like MTG, who ran a Crossfit gym, iirc) who have always formed a bulwark of reactionary conservatism against social reform or government regulation. In Marxian analysis, they’re useful idiots for the capitalist class, defending the privilege of the wealthy because they desire and admire it, while also resenting what they see as the laziness of the working poor (and imagining themselves as virtuous bootstrappers who never asked for any “handouts” or benefited from government largess).​

    ETA: and what security they did feel in their lives usually came from a sense of cultural/racial/religious privilege which they now see as under threat from the progressive left, “Hollywood elites,” “globalists”, etc.

  156. 156.

    WaterGirl

    @patrick II:

    If there was significant scanning and organizing into useful (saleable) parts, that makes a difference.

    When you say that makes a difference, I can’t tell which direction you mean.  Does that make it more acceptable, or less?

    In either base, no one gets to scan classified documents, even for convenience, so I hope this helps put him in a vise.

  157. 157.

    ian

    @Baud: I still get Jonathan Turley and Jeffery Toobin confused when I see their names.  So this image you have conjured up has an extra element to it in my head.

  159. 159.

    artem1s

    a Trump aide (who works for Save America PAC) had previously copied those same pages onto a laptop and thumb drive

    Here’s my question, how in the holy hell can a WH aide also work for a political action committee?

  160. 160.

    WaterGirl

    @jonas: I have never heard the phrase “poor white trash.”

    White trash is what was used around Chicago, and it had nothing to do with where you lived or what kind of money you had.

    But I am not taking a side on whether that phrase should be used.  I was just suggesting that people who didn’t like “white trash” for racial reasons my be happier with the phrase “traitor trash”.  Especially since it’s currently being to describe some of these republicans who really are traitors to their country.

    Traitor is a descriptive modifier to go with the value judgment of being considered trash.

  163. 163.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: @artem1s: Here’s my question, how in the holy hell can a WH aide also work for a political action committee?

    We may learn more in the next few weeks, but the original story on CNN called the person a “Trump aide,” not a “White House aide.”

    The person could be a former White House aide, but I don’t think that would be a conflict at this point if they now work for one of Trump’s PACs.  But again, more information may come out later

    ETA: corrections

  164. 164.

    patrick II

    @WaterGirl:

    Absolutely less acceptable.  If he has electronic copies that have been organized (of more use to potential buyers) and are easily transferrable and we don’t know where they all are, he should be arrested yesterday.

  166. 166.

    Dangerman

    @jonas:

    The hammer cannot be brought down on this guy too fast or too soon…

    Random target for the hammer or are there options?

  168. 168.

    Cameron

    I don’t know if this has already been beaten to death here,but I just saw that the President wasn’t going to do the Fox interview. I think that’s an excellent decision. I can’t imagine that he’d be asked anything honest,intelligent,or relevant.

  169. 169.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    I have never heard the phrase “poor white trash.”

    Difficult to conceive you’ve never come across that. Common parlance which has been around forever.

  170. 170.

    Suzanne

    @JoyceH:

    I grew up in small town Midwest, and the term ‘white trash’ to me always meant a sort of behavior, nothing to do with money or the lack of it, though they were often poor. White Trash were the girls who got into hair pulling fights in the ladies room. Had a lot of fights, caused a lot of scenes, just a general lack of control, often in trouble with the police. “Low count, no account”. Lauren Boebert definitely qualifies, and so does Empty Gee, despite her privileged background. She just behaves… trashy. 

    Yes this.
    And the things I associate with WT behavior in dudes are opiates, “hold my beer” kind of stunts, playing speakers at obnoxious volume, speeding and generally driving (and parking) like a douchebag, wearing visible logos.

  172. 172.

    artem1s

    @Scout211:  

    “Trump aide,” not a “White House aide.”

    I think the question is still a valid one either way. It could fall under FEC regs about coordinated communications between PACs and campaigns and what TFG was skimming off the top for his own personal use. But there is also the national security question about gross lack seeking clearance for the whole swamp bucket of deplorables who had free rein to run around the WH and apparently had access to who knows what.

  177. 177.

    Scout211

    @artem1s: I agree.

    I’m sure the FEC will get right on that.  They’ve been especially tough on Trump in the past few years.  🙄 

    Speaking of paying himself out one of his PACs:

    Trump has already funneled nearly $1 million in donor cash to himself since leaving office

    Former President Donald Trump did not spend most of the donor money he received in the past two years to help his own presidential bid — or the GOP as a whole — while putting nearly $1 million into his own properties.

    Since leaving office through the end of last year, Trump’s various political action committees (PACs) spent $905,570 at his properties, according to an analysis of new Federal Election Commission filings by HuffPost.

    The analysis showed that the former president’s Save America leadership PAC spent $94,462 on a Trump hotel on Central Park West in Manhattan on Dec. 10, 2021, and $1,122 on his West Palm Beach golf course on Dec. 12, 2022. His campaign also paid $48 tabs at his Mar-a-Lago social club on Nov. 18, 2022.

    The fund allocation shows a pattern where donor money is converted into revenue at the former president’s businesses, with the final profits lining Trump’s pockets. Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions regarding the matter from HuffPost, however, this is not the first time he has used large amounts of money from PACs to benefit himself.

  178. 178.

    NotMax

    @WereBear

    “‘Yes, but not in the South,’ with slight adjustments, will do for any argument about any place, if not about any person.”
    – Richard Usborne
    (Phraseology suggested for debates quipped by its coiner as “a formula that lets me off the boredom of finding out facts and retaining knowledge.”)

  180. 180.

    dmsilev

    @JoyceH: One wonders whether that research firm had their invoices paid.

    Edit: Seems from the story that the researchers were honest and reported back the truth that we all know.

  183. 183.

    cckids

    @WaterGirl: I think World Central Kitchen is always a good choice.  They show up, they do good work, and they help people.

    Something I didn’t realize until I read Andres’ book is that they also look for local suppliers , farms, restaurants, etc, so the $$ rebuilds and grows the local economy. So smart!

  184. 184.

    Kent

    @artem1s:Here’s my question, how in the holy hell can a WH aide also work for a political action committee?

    They absolutely cannot.  Under US Law (The Hatch Act) you can only have one master.  You either work for the American people as a White House employee, or you work for a political campaign.  You cannot do both.

    All previous administrations understood and obeyed this bright line.  I saw it with both the Clinton and Bush Administrations when I was in government.  And I’m sure Obama followed it strictly as well.  It is yet one more rule that Trump and his sycophants willfully and carelessly discarded when they moved into the White House.  And as it turns out, when you fire everyone in a position of authority at the DOJ and Office of Special Counsel and OMB who’s job it is to monitor and enforce such laws, and appoint your own lackeys if you even bother.  Then it turns out that no one is really watching the henhouse.

  187. 187.

    Kent

    @jonas:@tobie: ​  “Poor white trash” has always referred to poor, rural whites who despite their poverty and lack of education could still hold their racial privilege over their Black neighbors and coworkers.

    It is also an attitude.  Out here in the Pacific Northwest we had two initial waves of settlers.  We had the industrious New Englanders and Scandinavians who settled in the cities like Portland and Seattle (who came by ship) and who made those cities tidy and prosperous.  And who quickly gobbled up the best farmland.

    But we also had waves of Scotts-Irish type poor white southerners who fled from Appalachia and the south in the wake of the civil war and who set up as miners and loggers and stump farmers out in the rural fringes.  And that is why much of rural OR  looks more like rural Arkansas than rural New England.  And why you can still see Confederate flags (and all their other MAGA variants) flying from double-wide trailers scattered about the broken down logging and mill towns of rural Oregon.  They haven’t lived next door to a black person in 125 years, but they kept the mindset and passed it on down, nonetheless.

  188. 188.

    Zelma

    @tobie:

    I’m late to respond about a charity, but Lutheran Disaster Relief is already on the ground in northern Syria and 100% of donations go to relief.  The church covers the overhead.

  189. 189.

    Martin

    @JoyceH: I think there are two broad concept for white trash. One is ‘overt racist’. Which is a common movie trope – or at least was.

    The other is ‘cultural outlier’. Basically people who are unable or unwilling to engage in the kind of decision making process that culture says they should engage in. So they could be profoundly uneducated, they could just be rebels – moonshiners or whatever. Deliverance leans into this trope.

    White trash only exists as it does because black people were not expected to conform to the same cultural decision making (for racist reasons – they got an exemption because they were inherently too dumb, or savage or whatever) and also not welcome to. Every black person who didn’t conform to those cultural standards could be pointed to as evidence that black people deserve to be discriminated against.

    But white trash was white people not holding up their end of the deal. That was a betrayal where a poor black person was an expectation.

    Poverty among white people was in and of itself enough to label them as white trash because poverty is culturally a failure to make good decisions. But you could be rich white trash (Ricky Bobby from Talledega Nights) who made different kinds of bad decisions.

    These two things work hand in hand. White trash are labeled as such to allow middle class whites to be casually racist by taking the behavior they use to justify their racism (poverty, law breaking, etc.) and labelling and removing those members from the club of whiteness. They are defects and not counted toward what proper culture should be. Then, by casting them out, media can attach the most overt racism to this group so that any accusation of ‘white people are racist’ can be countered by all of the middle class immediately pointing to that group of outcasts and blaming them, absolving themselves of responsibility.

    It’s very effective. White trash are Nazis, middle class whites are just conservatives. The latter does *vastly* more harm than the former because Nazis can at most harm minorities one at a time, but conservatives can harm them all in one policy action, but conservatives don’t have to take the blame for any of it because there’s this white trash population they can always point to. “Look at what that Nazi did. That’s terrible. We should do something.”

  190. 190.

    StringOnAStick

    @WaterGirl: I heard “poor white trash” all the time as a kid, and I grew up in Boebert’s district.

    I think Martin has it down cold.  The way I perceived it when it was used around me as a kid was these are white people who drag down the norms of whiteness, and this are a cultural violation.

  192. 192.

    Kent

    @Martin: Fabulous description Martin.  Is this your own analysis or based on some larger reference work?  Because I’m going to file this away and use your framing in the future.

  193. 193.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jackie:

    I really, really want to know WHAT classified document(s) were copied onto that laptop and thumb drive. Anything that could compromise or endanger American assets or national security if shared or sold???

    I would hope it’s legally a BFD that any of them were copied onto an electronic medium.

    As long as they’re just on paper, they can only be in one place.  Once they’re copied, the copies can be everywhere in the blink of an eye.

    I would assume anyone with custody of classified documents would have an affirmative responsibility to protect them from being copied.

    So (with pronouns appropriately changed) I recall a phrase that was popular with TFG and his supporters:

    LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    The most obvious reason DOJ shouldn’t have rushed to indict two years ago: they wouldn’t have found/had shit like this.  Imagine if DOJ indicts fast, Trump somehow gets acquitted and then we find this stuff later but double-jeopardy protections means we can never use this against him.

    I think you’re confused here.  Double jeopardy protections only apply to charges for which you’ve been tried and acquitted.

    I agree that they shouldn’t have rushed to indict him two years ago. But if they had, they wouldn’t have charged him for anything related to the documents: at that point, NARA was still (at most) at the point of sending him a gentle letter reminding him that he might have taken a few things with him that he needed to return.  There was no evidence yet of intent on his part to hang onto them illegally.

  195. 195.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    not true in BDSM. Subs can have many Masters, Masters can have many Subs, and then there are Switches, whom, dependent on a variety of factors, alternate between the Master and Sub roles.

  197. 197.

    Barbara

    @lowtechcyclist: Jackie’s point stands. Failure to convict would be held up as evidence that new charges were a witch hunt. DOJ, at least, cannot assume it will get more than one shot at Trump.

  199. 199.

    Kent

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I would hope it’s legally a BFD that any of them were copied onto an electronic medium.

    As long as they’re just on paper, they can only be in one place.  Once they’re copied, the copies can be everywhere in the blink of an eye.

    I would assume anyone with custody of classified documents would have an affirmative responsibility to protect them from being copied.

    Exactly.  Scanning classified documents and saving them into .pdf format is no doubt a crime in and of itself.

    That is different from say what Hillary Clinton was accused of where in a few instances she or her aids touched on classified subjects in emails but were not taking existing classified documents and digitizing them.

  201. 201.

    Martin

    @jonas: rural whites who despite their poverty and lack of education could still hold their racial privilege over their Black neighbors and coworkers.

    There’s a change in the term at some point such that your definition doesn’t really apply. I think there was a shift in the use of the term where during and just post reconstruction it just applied to any poor white person, but as coalition building got underway, the South started rebuilding their offensive against black people and getting poor white people on board involved convincing them of your definition. That held until Jim Crow ended. Post Jim Crow I think that same message continued to be sold to poor whites, but with each year it was true less and less. Maybe a poor white feels of higher privilege than a poor black person, but certainly not a middle class black person. Before they got social capital to make up for their lack of actual capital, but no longer.

    So while they might have been sold that idea, I don’t think anyone has actually seen it that way in quite a long time. I don’t think that definition has applied since the 70s or so.

  202. 202.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RSA:

    It doesn’t make a difference if I say, “I used a W, not an N.” In the same way, it doesn’t make a difference if someone says, “I said TRAITOR, not TRAILER.

    WTF???

    Calling people trash because they’re betraying their country is completely different from calling people trash because they live in a trailer.

  203. 203.

    narya

    @WaterGirl: @cckids: That was one of the things that drew me to his organization early on–after Hurricane Maria, maybe? I love that they use local resources to feed local people, and take advantage of/utilize the existing talents. It probably helps bring back infrastructure destroyed by whatever disaster is occurring, and it probably is more sustainable, because they’re not bringing in a ton of outside folks.

  204. 204.

    jonas

    @Martin: ​
      Fair point. The overt racial angle possibly isn’t quite there in the same way. I think these days, most people use “redneck” and “white trash” sort of interchangeably. It’s a Venn diagram that certainly overlaps, but not completely.

  205. 205.

    piratedan

    for me:

    1. how did a non-governmental staffer get a hold of classified docs
    2. how in the hell did they think making copies would be legal
    3. how many times has this media been shared and with whom
    4. where the hell is the FBI, because afaik, this is a felony, is it not?
  206. 206.

    Ruckus

    @narya:

    Cancer and cancer treatment has a way of removing all of your fucks to give. And depending upon where and what cancer it can result in removing all of your current fucks. My sister died of cancer. My cancer didn’t kill me – of course, but I’ve had cancer and it was a complete life changing event, being told, being treated, living with the after. So I basically have zero fucks left to give. I give Raskin an A+ for not going all asshole, after being told he had to remove the cover for his cancer treatment location by some lunatic who had to kiss every ass in DC to be elected as house leader.

  207. 207.

    Martin

    @Kent: There might be a little bit of it that’s mine, but it’s mostly bringing other works into focus. I’ve been hawking a variety of other people’s work and it’s really just an aggregate of them.

    One that touches on a lot of it is the Alt Right Playbook series on Youtube. Some comes from various media critics. I think my efforts to consciously consume more non-white, non-male originating content has helped to find some of these ideas and stitch them together.

  208. 208.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Some of you have put an awful lot of thought into the definitions of white trash, redneck, etc.

  210. 210.

    bbleh

    @WaterGirl: “Oh that money.  Well, I can’t really say whether I’m responsible for putting it in my duffel bag at all.  And there’s so much stuff in my duffel bag that I can’t be expected to know everything that’s in it.  And really, what’s a little money?  I mean, everyone carries money, especially everyone who’s just been to a bank, and I was just coming out of a bank.  So.”

  211. 211.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Barbara:

    Uncle Ebeneezer’s point, actually. But like treason, double jeopardy is in the Constitution and has a particular meaning as a result: you can’t be tried twice for the same offense.

    It’s actually one of my axes to grind that words used in courtrooms don’t have to mean the exact same thing in colloquial speech, and when lawyers insist they must, they need to STFU.  But I’ve honestly never heard ‘double jeopardy’ used in any other way in popular speech besides what the Fifth Amendment says it means.

  213. 213.

    WaterGirl

    @lowtechcyclist: Right.  Let’s say i am on trial because I robbed a bank.  Double jeopardy does not mean that you can’t put me on trial if I rob another bank.

    As I understand it from the movie, though… if you put me on trial because I killed my husband, and it turns out that he wasn’t really dead, you cannot put me on trial for killing my husband if I actually do kill him after I find out he’s not dead and he left me in prison for all those years.

  214. 214.

    jonas

    @Kent: ​
     

    That is different from say what Hillary Clinton was accused of where in a few instances she or her aids touched on classified subjects in emails but were not taking existing classified documents and digitizing them.

    Thank you for highlighting this. I think the vast majority of the public, with a big lift from piss-poor reporting by the shitheads at the FTFNYT and of course the Wingnut Wurlitzer/Fox ecosystem more generally, is under the impression that she had literally scanned thousands of highly classified documents and attached them to emails stored on her private server or something. That’s not what happened, of course.

  215. 215.

    Martin

    @MagdaInBlack: But we don’t treat them the same. And there are important dynamics behind why that is. It doesn’t benefit us to wave away the mechanisms that white supremacy uses to sustain itself.

    At also doesn’t benefit us to *help* in that process by treating poor people as ‘defects’ and not people deserving of help. You waved away the ‘white’ part but not the ‘trash’ part. You are still othering them as defective.

  217. 217.

    Scout211

    NORAD detects another high altitude object.

    The North American Aerospace Defense Command said Saturday it is monitoring “a high altitude airborne object” over northern Canada, and military aircraft are currently operating in the area from Alaska and Canada, according to a news release from the agency.

    Now China is just trolling . . .

  218. 218.

    WaterGirl

    One thing I think is intersting about this, is that they turned the laptop and the flash drive over to the DOJ.

    I can’t keep all of Trump’s lawyers straight.  Seems like that guy’s name may have started with a K?  So maybe Trusty is one of the lame attorneys who was still smart enough to get the $3 million retainer up front?  Or is Trusty just smart enough to know that once he knew there were classified documents still in Trump’s hands, he was totally screwed if he didn’t notify someone?

  220. 220.

    brantl

    Watergirl : ” I scared the cat laughing at the “may not be done” part.”

    My laugh would have scared elephants.

  223. 223.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @WaterGirl:

    I can’t keep all of Trump’s lawyers straight.

    Neither can Trump.  Given his track record of ignoring legal advice and unwillingness to pay his bills, any lawyer who accepts him as a client is a fucking moron.

  225. 225.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Justin Trudeau @JustinTrudeau 13m

    Officiel du gouvernement – Canada
    I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace.
    @NORADCommand shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object.

  227. 227.

    davecb

    “Trailer Trash” and “White Trash” are still popular descriptions of people who are either poor, dumb, annoying or combination of the three. Mike Clattenburg did a multi-year series on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) called “Trailer Park Boys” that was absolutely hilarious, by having individual characters epitomizing each combination of those three factors. I’m a little surprised it hasn’t been mentioned here before. See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290988/ (No traitors, though)

  229. 229.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Baud: Eh. People often find it’s hard to follow two BDSM masters. Contradicting orders can become a problem.

  231. 231.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @davecb: Dolly Parton has a stock story for interviews about being a little girl at the store with her mother and seeing a lady with big blonde hair, lots of make-up and short, tight, red dress. Little Dolly was staring at what she thought must be the most beautiful woman in the world and her mother said, Dolly, you stop staring at her, she’s nothing but trash! And little Dolly thought, well when I grow up, I’m gonna be trash!

  232. 232.

    karen marie

    @Tom Levenson:  I did 7th and 8th grades at the International School of Ibadan, Nigeria.  For some reason the school had a large freestanding cage with about a dozen baboons.  They would occasionally let themselves out and tear around the campus, attacking anyone they could catch.

    Between them and the occasional mob of army ants taking a route through the campus, school could be very exciting.

    You definitely do not want to mess with baboons or army ants.

  235. 235.

    zhena gogolia

    @Ruckus:

    after being told he had to remove the cover for his cancer treatment location by some lunatic who had to kiss every ass in DC to be elected as house leader.

    Apparently this isn’t true — it came from a joke Raskin made behind closed doors. He has debunked the rumor.

  236. 236.

    Amir Khalid

    @Martin:

    I have a lingering suspicion that if the F-22 and its fifth-generation peer the Russian Su-57 ever go to war, we might find out they really ain’t all that.

  237. 237.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl:

    Right.  Let’s say i am on trial because I robbed a bank.  Double jeopardy does not mean that you can’t put me on trial if I rob another bank.

    That’s right, two different crimes, no double jeopardy.

    As I understand it from the movie, though… if you put me on trial because I killed my husband, and it turns out that he wasn’t really dead, you cannot put me on trial for killing my husband if I actually do kill him after I find out he’s not dead and he left me in prison for all those years.

    I’ll let the legal eagles here wrestle with this one.  Same crime? Two different crimes?  Can be convicted the second time, but sentenced to time served? ;-)

    Hell if I know.  This one’s waaaay beyond my modest legal knowledge!

  239. 239.

    Aussie Sheila

    @jonas: This exactly. Squeezed from above by Banks and financial institutions, while feeling threatened from below by people who demand to be treated with respect. This layer has always been the bulwark of reactionary politics and they need to be corralled by a large and well organised working class.
    They are politically unstable, dangerous and a rigid, unfair  electoral system gives them an outside influence in politics, especially where that system favours rural and ex urban areas.

  240. 240.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Martin: Who exactly am I “othering.” Trash is a behavior that cuts across all lines. I “waved” away white because of that.

  242. 242.

    Anne Laurie

    @tobie: I associate the term with independent contractors and small business folks, especially in the home trades. These folks tend to be wealthy and they’ve managed to make a good living with a hs diploma. Good on them. It’s their smug self-satisfaction, their conviction that they’ve never received a handout, their vanity in thinking they drive the economy, their disdain for black and brown people and eggheads that bother me. I have never met a group less capable of self-reflection.

    We need an American term equivalent to poujadist — ‘common man populism’ , as exemplified by the petit bourgeois small tradesmen.

  249. 249.

    Eyeroller

    I’m sure this thread is dead, but I grew up in the South (not the genteel northern South where I now live–my relatives considered my current location the “North”) and there’s absolutely no ambiguity about the meaning of “white trash.” The “poor” is usually understood.  They are whites with low education, sporadic or low-paying employment, usually drug and/or alcohol abuse, unstable relationships, cohabiting rather than marrying (this was very much frowned on in the South), and so forth.  Since many such people lived in mobile homes, “trailer trash” was a subset.

  250. 250.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kent: No.  That completely misses the point.  If it helps, Le Pen père et fille got their beginnings out of that movement.  Actually, the closest term we have to it is MAGA.

  251. 251.

    Citizen Alan

    @JoyceH: My current Congressman is a wealthy attorney on the side, and if I didn’t think it would mean the end of any chance of me getting a government job, I would call him white trash to his face.

  253. 253.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: I saw an analysis of that once, that concluded you most certainly could be tried for the second killing, because they would be two different crimes. At the very least, there’s the date:  “Did murder Mr. WaterGirl on June 1, 2015” versus “Did murder Mr. WaterGirl on August 15, 2022”.  There would also be different allegations about the location, method, motive, and so forth.

  254. 254.

    Martin

    @Amir Khalid: Pretty confident the 157 F-22s can take the 11 Su-57s.

    More notably, modern air doctrine is that the planes should never even get in visible range of each other. Given that the radar cross section of the Su-57 is 1000 times larger than the F-35, which itself is 10x larger than the F-22 and given comparable missile tech, both should be able to standoff against the Su at greater range.

  255. 255.

    Martin

    @MagdaInBlack: A lot of that ‘trash’ are just people who got fucked over hard by an economy that makes sure anyone who is poor stay poor. Their only offense is they were born poor.

  257. 257.

    Gvg

    @artem1s: first thing I thought of. Those pacs are nothing but bribery and allow foreign money to slip in. It was obvious from the get go, and the cout was already corrupt to rule that way.

    I didnt bother to think about Trump treason because I dont consider that news just more confirmation I expected.

  258. 258.

    WaterGirl

    Just mentioning this here…

    We had planned for tomorrow’s Medium Cool to be the discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but since tomorrow is the Super Bowl, we will talk about the book the following week instead.

    h/t to Steeplejack for alerting me to the conflict with the superbowl.

  260. 260.

    eddie blake

    @Martin: if there’s one thing the ukraine war is teaching us it’s that scale is the thing. when they’re going through WWI numbers of shells in a day, there’s NO way that the sparse count of f-22’s is gonna cut it no matter HOW advanced they are. we need thousands, not less than two hundred.

  262. 262.

    Gvg

    @Martin: no. Trash is behavior. I know poor people from trash families who for some fluke reason aren’t trash. There are poor trailer park people who aren’t trash, who don’t treat each other like trash who probably aren’t going to stay there with just a bit of luck. Trump is trash by the way. Treats people like shit, thinks everyone is just as crooked as he is and that is fine, cheats on wives and everyone else, admires other cheats and bully’s. Really not smart or wise. Wasteful of opportunities. Greedy and often unsuccessful because of their greed, it makes them easy to con over and over, while they are trying to be the con man.

    Subset, most of them are tacky too. It is not as important, but sometimes more obvious.

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