Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We still have time to mess this up!

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

When we show up, we win.

You are here: Home / Politics / ‘Breathtakingly Careless and Utterly Calculated’ (Fintan O’Toole)

‘Breathtakingly Careless and Utterly Calculated’ (Fintan O’Toole)

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This post is in: ,

In case you missed it in the comments, this is a great article (h/t MattF) in the NY Review of Books.

Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction—sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. He kept intelligence documents because, at some point, those secrets could be used in a transaction. What he was stockpiling were the materials of treason. He may not have known how and when he would cash in this currency, but there can be little doubt that he was determined to retain the ability to do just that.

Before the publication of the grand jury’s indictment, it was possible to believe that Trump’s retention of classified documents was reckless and stupid. The indictment reveals that recklessness and stupidity are the least of his sins. With Trump, it’s always a mistake to equate anarchy with purposelessness or to think that the farce is not deadly serious.

Trump’s hoarding of official secrets is both breathtakingly careless and utterly calculated. At the heart of that calculation is a cold resolve to not give up the power that access to highly restricted information had given him.

We still do have some real journalism happening in this country, but these days it seldom comes from the papers of record.

Oh, and he’s still at it.  Brazen lies.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Moscow, Riyadh and Pyongyang submitting competing bids for the right to be the location of any future Dolt 45 library?
    //

  9. 9.

    patrick II

    I haven’t heard this level of brazenness before — when is he (jack smith) going to apologize to me and return everything that was illegally taken.

    It is consistent with his storyline though and the MAGAs will buy it.

  10. 10.

    Mike in Pasadena

    After reading this morning that focus group Repub woman who asserted that the FBI set up trump in the documents case becuase  “we dont know what they (FBI) did” even after trump’s admission on CNN and other places he took them cuz they were his, I  worry we are truly down the drain. Color  me discouraged. trump said it himself, and yet Rethuglicans cannot admit he’s  a thief, a crook, and a kook.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    It was deliberate and calculated.  I have yet to see any evidence that his motivation was money rather than ego.

    EDIT – And calculated it may have been, but in a breathtakingly stupid way.  I’m not sure he COULD have done this worse if he were trying to get thrown in jail.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    You may be surprised–I am–when legislation is introduced to the California legislature raising the minimum age for agricultural work by two years. The proposed new age? Fourteen.

    A son of California farm workers introduced legislation this week to ensure that children working in agriculture have the same the same rights and protections as those working in mining and manufacturing.

    The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety (CARE) Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Raul Ruiz, would raise from 12 to 14 the minimum age at which children can be farmworkers. In the agricultural sector, children as young as 12 can work in the fields during non-school hours with few restrictions, according to federal and California labor laws. In other industries, the minimum age is 14.

    Extreme heat, toxic pesticide exposure, dangerous machinery and long hours of physically-demanding labor make farmwork one of the most dangerous professions. Rising global temperatures and drought have made working — and finding work — harder. Nohemi Ramirez works part-time in a Huron thrift shop to make ends meet while the drought has kept her from finding work in the fields around southwestern Fresno County.

    In the Central Valley, California’s farming hub that provides a third of the nation’s produce, it’s relatively common for the children of farmers and farmworkers to work in the fields. Most California farmworkers are Latino, many of them immigrants. Some farmers, lobbyists and Republicans fear amending agriculture labor laws would hurt family farming. Ruiz, an emergency physician raised by Coachella Valley farmworkers, said in introducing the bill Monday that farm labor has “one of the highest occupational injury rates in our nation.”

    “In fact, every three days, a child employee dies while working in agriculture,” Ruiz, D-Indio, said. “Despite these dangerous conditions, agriculture is the only industry with little to no protections for the 400,000 young children who work in this industry every day.”

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article276411491.html#storylink=cpy

  13. 13.

    JPL

    @dnfree: I’m not exactly sure, but it has something to do with private tapes of interviews Clinton gave.   The presidental records act actually does allow this.   It’s allowed under the personal diaries provision, or so I think.

    There was nothing about selling information to the Saudis.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    trump cares about two things and one of those is protecting his ego.   The other is $$$$$$$

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: That’s why you never see a focus groups of proud and excited Dems.

    They could, if the focus group demo were all cat-fanciers.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    Simon Rosenberg
    @SimonWDC

    Of all the polling data I’ve seen in recent weeks this DeSantis tracking poll from

    @Civiqs
    showing him cratering nationally is the most important. It suggests the GOP’s alternative is already badly damaged from his rightward lurch, and will struggle in the general next year.

    36% favorable
    It’s been such a pleasure watching him decline.

    I’d like to think it’s a referendum on Christopher Rufo – DeSantis’ agenda is Rufo’s agenda- but DeSantis may just be horrible, personally and individually, and perhaps a less loathsome person could sell it.

  18. 18.

    MattF

    @JPL: Right. The tapes were Clinton’s property, not government documents. The Archives tried claim them, a judge said ‘Nope’, they belong to Clinton. The ‘socks’ bit is that Clinton kept them in his sock drawer.

  19. 19.

    dm

    @dnfree: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/verify-clinton-socks-case-trump-indictment/65-9aac1094-fca6-4647-bed4-4d773c4faaae

    While Bill Clinton was president, he and an historian created audio tapes about his presidency. Those tapes were turned into a book in 2009, but before that, CBS and others reported that the former president kept the recordings in his sock drawer.

    After the book’s release, Judicial Watch, a conservative, nonprofit organization, sued to have the tapes publicly released. It argued that the tapes recorded the president’s phone calls, not just recollections of those calls. That would make them presidential records and not personal records.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    “Rightward lurch” is nonsense though. DeSantis has been far Right all along. He started his campaign saying he intended to bring his far Right governing of Florida national. He announced it.

  23. 23.

    Scout211

    Re-posted from downstairs:

    Loose Cannon has issued her first order.
    Link

    CNN — 
    US District Judge Aileen Cannon issued her first order since former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly mishandling classified information, instructing the parties to get the ball rolling to obtain security clearances for the lawyers who will need them.

    In a Thursday order, Cannon gave “all attorneys of record and forthcoming attorneys of record” a Friday deadline for getting in touch with the Justice Department’s litigation security group so that they can expedite “the necessary clearance process.”

    By June 20, she wants the lawyers to file a notice confirming they have complied with her instructions.
    . . .
    How long the proceedings stretch out, and whether the trial takes place before or after the 2024 election, will depend in part on how efficiently Cannon manages her docket. Thursday’s move by Cannon suggests an interest, at least for now, in moving the proceedings along without delay.

    The new order also puts additional pressure on the Trump effort to expand the legal team representing him in the case. The local rules for the Florida court where the case was filed require that Trump have counsel barred in the state.

  24. 24.

    randy khan

    @dm:

    It argued that the tapes recorded the president’s phone calls, not just recollections of those calls.

     

    That was Richard Nixon, not Bill Clinton.  How quickly they forget

    (I mean actually it wasn’t Richard Nixon either, except that I suppose the Nixon tapes did include Nixon’s side of a bunch of phone calls, since they recorded whatever was said in the Oval Office.)

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I recall Betty C saying he didn’t act so right at the beginning of his first campaign. But over that timeframe, I wouldn’t call it a lurch.

  27. 27.

    smith

    @JPL: And it certainly has nothing to do with hanging on to highly classified documents containing our military secrets. There is no earthly way those could be considered personal.

    His reference to the Socks case also highlights how isolating it is to live in the RW bubble. Only the Goobers recognize the reference; the rest of us just go, “Huh?” This seems to be true of most of what the major contenders for the GQP nomination say. I wonder if the eventual nominee will be able to emerge, blinking and confused, into the actual world the rest of us live in in time to learn how to speak the language here.

  29. 29.

    randy khan

    @smith:

    I recognized the Clinton socks reference because of my pet social media troll.  She keeps me up to date on all of the RW lunacy.  It’s her most useful function.

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    Ahem, WaterGirl: That’s the New York Review of Books, shorthand NYRB — a biweekly literary journal that has nothing to do with the Grey Lady.

  32. 32.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay: No, I don’t think anyone could sell it. The country as a whole is better than that.

    I firmly believe it.

  36. 36.

    jonas

    @Scout211:  The local rules for the Florida court where the case was filed require that Trump have counsel barred in the state.

    I read that for a second as “barred from the state,” but in Trump’s case, that would probably make more sense.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @jonas:

    FYI: that’s a pretty universal requirement in every court, although some courts are stricter than others.

  39. 39.

    patrick II

    @dm:

    After the book’s release, Judicial Watch, a conservative, nonprofit organization, sued to have the tapes publicly released.

    Ironically, Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial watch, advised Trump he could keep the classified documents, and Trump listened to him.

  40. 40.

    jonas

    @zhena gogolia: I don’t think so — and the implication that she’s intending to move things along as quickly as possible is a good sign, at least for now. And likely to make Trump *really* mad. His lifelong strategy when faced with legal action is to get his lawyers to just delay everything with endless procedural nonsense and appeals and he desperately wants this to drag on so that he can use it as a campaign issue.

  43. 43.

    Scout211

    @zhena gogolia: IANAL, but it doesn’t seem wrong to me.  Commentary in the article states that it actually puts pressure on Trump since he needs to get his new lawyers by June 20.  It also states that it looks like she is not looking to delay proceedings, at least so far.

  44. 44.

    jonas

    @patrick II:Ironically, Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial watch, advised Trump he could keep the classified documents, and Trump listened to him.

    OMG, that is so deliciously hilarious. What a gaggle of dipshits.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @Anne Laurie: Thanks for catching that!  My fingers are apparently used to adding the T for FTFNYT.

    My fingers almost always add an R at the end of the word “serve”. That’s because of all my years in IT, typing the word server. :-)

  51. 51.

    smith

    @jonas: It’s also telling that he accepted legal advice from Fitton, who is not a lawyer, and rejected advice from his own lawyers, who apparently urged him all along to just give the documents back.

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Scout211

    Thursday’s move by Cannon suggests an interest, at least for now, in moving the proceedings along without delay.

    So, not Cannon plodder?
    //

  54. 54.

    jonas

    Speaking of other felonious leakers of classified material, just came across this great line in a CNN story on our ANG friend Jack Teixeira’s indictment on six counts of violating the Espionage Act and subsequent denial of bail:

    Defense lawyers for Teixeira have argued he didn’t expect classified information that he posted on Discord to be further spread around the internet.

    How humiliating does it have to be for a grown-ass lawyer to have to make that argument on behalf of his client? “Your honor, he only showed these highly-sensitive, highly-classified documents to people who were, like, *really* good friends. C’mon!” JFC.

  57. 57.

    patrick II

    This is so obvious it hurts, but if I was the type of president who considered the classified documents so important and had a sense of rightful ownership when I took them I would have built a steel vault and twenty different types of burglar alarms before you could even approach the vault to store them in.  So, part of his reason for not doing so is his callous disregard of the lives of people and the life of the country a release would have caused.  And yet another reason is that he could not have built that vault surreptitiously, so he did not, which also demonstrates that he knew he sholdn’t have them.

  58. 58.

    jonas

    @smith: Well, of course. Fitton told him what he wanted to hear. Those pointy-headed lawyer guys were insinuating that he wasn’t the master of the universe any longer. Losers.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @smith

    his own lawyers, who apparently urged him all along to just give the documents back.

    “Cut me a break, guys, what am I not paying you for?”

  62. 62.

    jonas

    @Baud: Oh, I know. And don’t get them started on these new-fangled remotes with 50 buttons and everything. And phones with cameras?

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @patrick II:

    classified documents so important and had a sense of rightful ownership when I took them I would have built a steel vault and twenty different types of burglar alarms before you could even approach the vault to store them in

    The proper course of action would be to file a declaratory judgment action so a court could decide. Not self help.

  64. 64.

    smith

    @zhena gogolia: It reflects TFG’s belief, which he apparently shares with most of Goober-world, that the law is whatever the president says it is (offer void when the president is not a Republican).

  65. 65.

    patrick II

    @jonas:

    The funny thing about both Trump taking Fitton’s advice and Judicial Watch itself is that Tom Fitton is not a lawyer.

  66. 66.

    Scout211

    @patrick II: I think you are giving him far too much credit. I think the simpler, more believable scenario is that he just doesn’t give a f*ck about anything or anyone other than himself. He acts impulsively and always in service of his own narcissism. He does what he wants to do and his flunkies and minions run behind him and try to fix his messes if he gets caught.

  68. 68.

    patrick II

    @Baud:

    I agree, but I was trying to put myself in Trump’s shoes. I think the second part of my comment indirectly addresses that — he couldn’t file in a court because people would know he was taking them and say no.  The surreptitiousness of his action further implies guilty knowledge.

    I should have written “Trump” instead of using first person.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    Trump’s hoarding of official secrets is both breathtakingly careless and utterly calculated. At the heart of that calculation is a cold resolve to not give up the power that access to highly restricted information had given him.

    I do not think this is right. That is, Trump has no real power here. The moment he ceased being president as Biden assumed the office, Trump was no longer Top Dog.

    The problem is, Trump is a child who doesn’t understand this. He cannot accept the idea of losing and stepping down from the presidency. And it is not that holding onto these documents means a damn thing. There are other copies. The work of national security continues without Trump. He can cause problems if secrets leak out. But aside from the lingering impact of his stupidity, he cannot affect political or military events. His stash of important documents is just a pile of papers.

    It is a little odd that Trump defenders want to make a big deal, falsely, about Trump’s power to declassify documents. They pretend that if Trump does this, it would magically neutralize any problem should information from these documents fall into the hands of people with evil intent. For these people Trump is all powerful. He is the God emperor who can overcome anything. These people are mental infants, as is the false God Trump that they worship.

  71. 71.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    She doesn’t have to concede bias. She doesn’t have to give any reason at all. But if she felt the need to give a reason, that reasonable people might question her impartiality is enough

    ETA – Like Omnes said.

  72. 72.

    sdhays

    @Baud: Yeah, I recall her saying he governed as a shitty Jeb! basically until COVID, and then he really went on his fascist rampage.

  73. 73.

    karen marie

    @patrick II:   Immediately after the FBI search Trump and his supporters insisted that all the documents were in a secure, locked storage space.

    Yet another false claim that’s gone down the media’s memory hole.

  74. 74.

    MattF

    @Brachiator: Except that assuming Trump is a basically a toddler is exactly what a real con artist would want you to think— “I’ve got this guy figured out.” I don’t know the right answer here. O’Toole takes a plausible view.

  75. 75.

    FelonyGovt

    I was going through some old documents today and I came across some papers related to my (long lapsed) security clearance. (No, I did not have any classified documents in my files, the bathroom or the garage!) It made me furious about TIFG all over again, remembering the training I received and how seriously I took my obligations and how he basically wiped his large behind with all of that.

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    @karen marie

    Yeah, right. When it was eventually suggested to limit access you just know they dispatched a flunky to hop on over to the nearest Dollar Tree and pick up the cheapest padlock.

  80. 80.

    MattF

    @Baud: Right. And the classified documents could lock themselves inside the bathroom and be perfectly secure.

  82. 82.

    Burnspbesq

    I couldn’t love Fintan any more if he were kin, but in this case I think he’s giving Trump too much credit.

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    @MattF

    As someone else pointed out, the freshly laid towels and pristine wastebasket suggest housekeeping had unfettered access.

  84. 84.

    sdhays

    @NotMax: Well, of course! That just shows how much Trump cared about the documents. He didn’t want them to get dusty!

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    @NotMax: ​
     

    Moscow, Riyadh and Pyongyang submitting competing bids for the right to be the location of any future Dolt 45 library?

    They’re not going to be able to compete with Leavenworth, KS and Florence, CO.

  86. 86.

    Burnspbesq

    OT: Good day for the good guys at the Supreme Court.

    (1) Smith, the venue case we were talking about earlier in the week, came down 9-0 for the government; the proper remedy when a case is tried in the wrong district is retrial, not dismissal. Because I’m a petty asshole, I’d love to see a motion to transfer part of the Trump case to D.C., just to watch the ketchup fly.

    (2) Haaland v. Brackeen, the white folks’ challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, came down 7-2 in favor of the constitutionality of the statute. Barrett, of all people, stepped up with a solid opinion; the part that said the state of Texas didn’t have standing has potentially far-reaching effects.

  87. 87.

    TriassicSands

    “SO NOW THAT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS…”   Donald J. Trump

    Once again, for the record N-billionth time, Donald Trump has achieved unanimity. EVERYONE agrees this was a witch hunt. Well, everyone but the grand jury and the prosecutors. Oops.

  89. 89.

    RSA

    Will Trump be allowed to defame the prosecutors on social media during his trial?  Which of course he’ll do, first thing.  I’m hoping he’ll be told to STFU, but I don’t know if there are free speech issues.

  90. 90.

    Burnspbesq

    @RSA:

    There’s a fine line between protected speech and jury tampering. I expect Trump will cross it about every other day on average.

  91. 91.

    smith

    @NotMax: Bad enough that housekeeping apparently had access, but the towels suggest the bathroom was in use by somebody.

  92. 92.

    Betty

    @smith: Michael Cohen has explained that Trump keeps asking people until he finds someone who tells him what he wants to hear.

  93. 93.

    Dopey-o

    @patrick II: I would have built a steel vault and twenty different types of burglar alarms before you could even approach the vault to store them in

    Cheney knows a guy who sells man-sized safes. Ship one to Mar-a-Lago in a Wayfair carton, and who’s going to know the difference?

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in Pasadena:

    After reading this morning that focus group Repub woman who asserted that the FBI set up trump in the documents case becuase “we dont know what they (FBI) did” even after trump’s admission on CNN and other places he took them cuz they were his, I worry we are truly down the drain. Color me discouraged. trump said it himself, and yet Rethuglicans cannot admit he’s a thief, a crook, and a kook.

    He’s also a god-damned fucking traitorous fat orange fascist shitstain who sucks Kremlin asshole.

  95. 95.

    karen marie

    @patrick II:   Oh, I don’t disagree at all.  It just amazes me that as Trump and his supporters now claim that it’s perfectly fine to keep restricted documents in a public bathroom or on a ballroom stage, no one points out that this directly contradicts the original claim that the boxes were all in a secure store room.

  96. 96.

    Bill Arnold

    @RSA:

    He “Truthed” that Jack Smith is a “coward and a thug” a day or three before his arrest. That got noticed, including probably by Mr. Smith. (And Trump is no Neo.)

  97. 97.

    smith

    @karen marie: The fact that he was so amazingly careless with the documents is puzzling to me, because I am still convinced that he planned to monetize them. But why would a foreign spy bother to make a deal to buy our secrets when all he had to do was drop by the MAL document flea market and pick some up for free? It completely drains those documents of any sale value they had. It’s just so sloppy. Could it reflect Trump’s inability to think more than half a step ahead?

  98. 98.

    different-church-lady

    TRUMP: “These maps of Ukraine have gotta be worth at least a few hundred thousand!”

    PUTIN: “Nyet. We have already bought that information from Kid Rock.”

  101. 101.

    Gvg

    @smith: I do think he is sliding into a kind of dementia hoarding mania. Remember how people compared his speech of the 80’s with the campaign of the 2015 and showed how his intellect had deteriorated? And the keeping of boxes of documents with him preceded his leaving office. It wasn’t illegal while he was President but it was almost as careless and dangerous to keeping those secrets secure. It was nuts. Now he knew it was illegal and was trying to make something of them, probably did sell copies, but I do also think he hoarding syndrome. Freeing of my parents did, very rich woman. Disposing of her estate was a nightmare and it was sad visiting her. Mom said they could barely move in the house and the guest house was almost as bad, filled with expensive dolls and other stuff. It started with collecting much smaller and normal,seeming.

  103. 103.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @Baud: Good point. I was also too lazy to determine the date of the focus group statement.  Maybe she made her statement before TFG made one of his many admissions against self interest.

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Burnspbesq:

    (1) Smith, the venue case we were talking about earlier in the week, came down 9-0 for the government; the proper remedy when a case is tried in the wrong district is retrial, not dismissal.

    Oh, thank god!  If they had come down a week ago, I wonder if Jack Smith might have chosen DC for the venue.  Though he probably still wouldn’t have wanted the delays over a venue fight.

  112. 112.

    Lehrjet

    @Baud: But they would say no, and he’s psychologicaly unable to accept that. Thus he rationalized the theft.

    Res ipsa loquitur

    PS Jack is going to nail his ass to the wall!

  115. 115.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus: I still say it is an obvious and egregious conflict for a district court judge to her a case against the president who nominated her to sit in the district and division where he was domiciled at a time when the filing of a federal civil and/or criminal case against him post-presidency was at a minimum likely.

  116. 116.

    Citizen Alan

    @Mike in Pasadena: I fear so much for the future of this nation that there so many people, millions in fact, who are utterly deranged cultists devoted to a contemptible monster. I really do worry what’s going to happen when Shitgibbon finally reaches the “Kill them all! God knows his own!” stage.

  117. 117.

    kalakal

    @Baud: That’s true. He was more std Repub Gov at first with a slightly enlightened environmental streak. He passed some legislation about marine & coastal protection zones early on. Then once in his second term he went ultra

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @MattF:

    Except that assuming Trump is a basically a toddler is exactly what a real con artist would want you to think— “I’ve got this guy figured out.”

    Trump ain’t that smart. Neither are most con artists. Trump keeps losing. He is totally dependent on suckers to keep him free.

    O’Toole takes a plausible view.

    Except that he is dead wrong when he says that Trump is trying to hang on to power.

  119. 119.

    hitchhiker

    I picture trump dealing with everything that crossed his desk the same way. He liked to clip stories about himself from magazines and newspapers long before he got his ugly self installed in the White House.

    But, because he’s lazy, he never organized them — just tossed them into boxes that other people would have to carry around.

    That’s what he did as president* too, picking up things that he thought he could use to impress people and/or to mess with his critics.

    When he was doing that taped interview, it was on his mind that Milley had said it was a concern that trump might randomly invade Iran, and he remembered that, HEY! I’ve got this thing Milley WROTE about invading Iran! I’m gonna nail that jerk for lying about me! It’s right here, see? 

    That’s trump in a fucking nutshell. Doesn’t understand any issue, but knows when he’s been insulted and will burn the world down to get revenge.

  121. 121.

    phein64

    On the lifespan of information:  It is a commonplace among military officers that full colonels, based on their experience and current knowledge, have value for about one year after retirement.   After that, their lobbying value diminishes sharply.   General officers’ worth lasts a little longer, but mostly because of their networking, not their current knowledge.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @kalakal:

    The Twitter comment is about his national profile though, not first term to second term in Florida.

    The “Rightward lurch” would have occurred after he started running nationally.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    Amusing to listen to JD Vance pining away for the Ohio of his youth. That would have been about 1994, when Ohio was much less Republican than it is now. JD Vance actually grew up in the better, more liberal Ohio. He can have what he wants- we just have to replace all the Republicans running the place now.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    This. He believes he is head man the world, or at least the western world. And yet I’d bet he has zero idea how to clean one.

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