I’ve made plans several times to go see Black Panther and they all fell through, but I am going to the 12:15 showing today and I am super stoked. My friend and neighbor Gerald (the guy who helped build my house and if a general fixit guy) had shoulder surgery on Thursday, so I am taking his kids Dom and Taylor out to lunch and then to the movies (Taylor is the one who had the bad infection earlier this spring and was in the hospital for a month and almost died). I think I am more excited than they are.
Puppy Pictures Open Thread
As promised. Scout at 5 months with her favorite guy.
Don’t let that face fool you – she’s all mischief and trouble.
There are a ton more photos here. I got kind of carried away yesterday. There were a lot of requests for ducks in the last thread I put up – even though it was literally a duck post. So here are most of the duck photos I have. I don’t take a lot of them because most of the time I just get their little fluffy butts. Most of their charm is in their daily yard duties. They take their job very seriously. I should be taking more video of them.
I suppose my cats deserve equal time…maybe next week.
Time to update us on your critters! Share your photo links in the comments.
Open thread
Russiagate “Saturday Morning Serial” Open Thread: Blackwater & Its Princes
CNN Exclusive: A Trump foreign policy adviser played key role in the pursuit of possible Hillary Clinton emails from the dark web before the 2016 election https://t.co/LFftYKeDcH w/ @JennaMC_Laugh @carlbernstein https://t.co/QuJC63lDnA
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 6, 2018
cough Blackwater exec cough https://t.co/xD6Zdmq6aX
— Zed Wood Junior (@Zeddary) April 6, 2018
… Joseph Schmitz approached the FBI and other government agencies about material a client of his had discovered that Schmitz believed might have been Clinton’s missing 30,000 emails from her private e-mail server, sources say. The material was never verified, and sources say they ultimately believed it was fake.
His push is the latest example of Trump advisers who were mixed up in efforts to find dirt on Clinton during the presidential campaign. Schmitz was one of the first people Trump named to his campaign’s national security and foreign policy team. The team, showcased in a March 2016 photo, was thrown together early in Trump’s successful run as he faced mounting pressure to prove his ability to pull in high-level advisers who could help prepare him for the White House.
Another adviser pictured in the photo, Trump’s foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, was told by a Kremlin-connected professor that the Russian government had damaging material on Clinton. Six weeks later, Donald Trump Jr. got a message from a business associate offering similar information, leading to the Trump Tower meeting that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort attended…
Schmitz met with officials at the FBI, the State Department and the Intelligence Community Inspector General — the watchdog tasked with investigating Clinton’s alleged mishandling of classified information. He claimed a source he called “PATRIOT,” an unidentified contractor he was representing, had discovered what he believed was likely material stolen from Clinton that could contain classified information. Both the client and Schmitz were afraid that going through the material without permission could jeopardize their security clearances, though there is no indication their actions were illegal.
Schmitz then took a memo outlining his claims and concerns to the House Intelligence Committee. One cybersecurity expert outside the government who also saw the material on the dark web said the emails appeared to be fake, based on his review and the forum where they were posted.
“I’m pretty sure they were posted on the (dark web) equivalent of Reddit,” the source said…
That meeting was like the legion of freaking doom of ratfuckers.
— AgentHades (@AgentHades) April 6, 2018
Maybe Schmitz can plead the political equivalent of the ‘affluenza’ defense — he had no idea how ethics work, because he was raised by professional Republicans…
Russiagate “Saturday Morning Serial” Open Thread: Blackwater & Its PrincesPost + Comments (190)
Late Night Repub Stupidity/Venality Open Thread: Folding His Tents Ducky Pajamas
— Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) April 6, 2018
Repub leadership have decided that nothing important but contentious will be coming to the floor the rest of this year. https://t.co/R29ey7NlnT
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 6, 2018
Corpus Christi Republican Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned from Congress Friday afternoon, less than four months after dropping re-election plans under siege for crude and verbally abusive office behavior…
He made no mention on Friday of any of the allegations that ended his congressional career, and made no apologies for using $84,000 in taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment suit.
He promised to repay those funds four months ago, but has not done so…
Texas is seeing enormous turnover in its congressional delegation this year.
Out of 36 House members, eight announced plans to retire in the last few months. Farenthold is the first to actually leave office…
More granular detail about the upcoming primaries at the link.
Too late to be held on May Uniform election date.
Either @GovAbbott declares it an emergency or #TX27 will remain unrepresented until end of the year. But based on my conversations with #CD27 residents, having no Rep. wouldn't be much different from the past 7 yrs. #txlege https://t.co/4FPIG7NCO8— Mark P. Jones (@MarkPJonesTX) April 6, 2018
Before he leaves DC, can someone please settle his $84k harassment tab https://t.co/6YZsYRDRz7
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) April 6, 2018
Life doesn't always go as planned I guess. https://t.co/Y5EXblkGSM
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 6, 2018
ETA: Title reference, from (Republican) Charlie Sykes…
What is remarkable is that someplace voters looked at this guy and said, yes, I'd like him to be my congressman. pic.twitter.com/pNGLiSLasA
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) April 6, 2018
These Friday night news dumps are getting lamer and lamer https://t.co/Qo30z8MDU8
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) April 6, 2018
The Trump Doctrine and Syria: “I, And By Extension The US, Will Be Treated Fairly Or Else” Runs Into The Ambiguity Of A Wicked National Security Problem
The President appears to have decided that the US needs to leave Syria as soon as possible. This decision caught his national security and foreign policy team flatfooted. It really isn’t a change in US policy as I’m not sure anyone could actually articulate this administration’s policy in regard to Syria. When the President gave his campaign speech on foreign and national security policy in 2016, I wrote that he had articulated the Trump Doctrine, which is: “America will be treated fairly or else…”.
The President’s meandering remarks in his April 2016 speech touched on a number of his long standing national security and foreign policy beliefs: America’s allies are taking advantage of our treaty and other obligations in the national security space; America’s allies and peer competitors are ripping the US off through our trade agreements; the US should go it alone if it can’t renegotiate better deals; and only a President Trump could guarantee that the US would be treated fairly – or else. That only a President Trump could guarantee that the US would be treated fairly, whether in national security arrangements or global trade, was simply an extension of one of the major, if not the major theme of his campaign: Donald Trump would be treated fairly or else and only Donald Trump could guarantee that Americans, especially the forgotten men and women as he phrased it, would be treated fairly or else.
That the US will be treated fairly or else, and that only a President Trump could guarantee that happening became the central, unifying them of his national security and foreign policy approach was actually a stroke of strategic communication genius. A significant amount of the President’s initial strategic communication approach was through tying his primary opponents, the Republican National Committee, and the broadcast and cable news networks in knots about treating him fairly. This included trying to get Megyn Kelly removed from debate moderation after he felt she treated him badly, as well as actually dropping out of a GOP primary debate on Fox News and holding a competing charity event for veterans because he did not like that Fox wouldn’t comply with his demands. And if they failed to do so he’d deal with them harshly. Then candidate Trump threatened his fellow primary opponents and the RNC by making it clear that if he didn’t feel he was being treated fairly by them, then the or else would be his running as an independent candidate, thereby splitting the Republican vote for president, and handing the election to the then presumed Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.
By making this the dominant theme of his national security and foreign policy approach, he was able to make a singular through line for his campaign – “I, Donald Trump, will be treated fairly or else by the GOP, the RNC, and the news media; only I, Donald Trump, can guarantee that you the forgotten men and women of America are treated fairly in regards to both domestic politics and foreign policy; and only I, Donald Trump, can guarantee that the US will be treated fairly or else there will be serious and severe repercussions for the GOP, the RNC, the news media, elected and appointed officials, and America’s allies, partners, and peer competitors”. Here was the simple through line to connect Make America Great Again both domestically and internationally by placing America first. It is also the essence of the real Trump Doctrine: President Trump and by extension the forgotten men and women of America, as well as America itself, will be treated fairly or else.
The President, and his preferences as enumerated in the Trump Doctrine, are now in conflict with the reality of the wicked problem that is the Syrian Civil War and the US led coalition fight against ISIS.
The Washington Post reports that:
Trump’s words, both in public and private, describe a view that wars should be brutal and swift, waged with overwhelming firepower and, in some cases, with little regard for civilian casualties. Victory over America’s enemies for the president is often a matter of bombing “the s— out of them,” as he said on the campaign trail.
For America’s generals, more than 17 years of combat have served as a lesson in the limits of overwhelming force to end wars fueled by sectarian feuds, unreliable allies and persistent government corruption. “Victory is sort [of] an elusive concept in that part of the world,” said Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, who led troops over five tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. “Anyone who goes in and tries to achieve a decisive victory is going to come away disappointed.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis echoed that point in late November when he outlined an expanded role for U.S. forces in preventing the return of the Islamic State or a group like it in Syria. “You need to do something about this mess now,” he told reporters. “Not just, you know, fight the military part of it and then say, ‘Good luck on the rest of it.’ ”
His remarks reflected a broader Pentagon consensus: In the absence of a clear outcome, winning for much of the U.S. military’s top brass has come to be synonymous with staying put. These days, senior officers talk about “infinite war.”
“It’s not losing,” explained Air Force Gen. Mike Holmes in a speech earlier this year. “It’s staying in the game and . . . pursuing your objectives.”
The Army recently rewrote its primary warfighting doctrine to account for the long stretch of fighting without victory since 9/11. “The win was too absolute,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Lundy of the old document. “We concluded winning is more of a continuum.”
LTG Lundy is the Commanding General of the US Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) at FT Leavenworth. As the CAC Commander he oversees doctrine for the US Army. Unfortunately US Army doctrine is pretty silent on what winning or victory means. So is joint doctrine. I spent all morning going through the DOD Dictionary, Joint Publication 3-0/Joint Operations, TRADOC Pamphlet (PAM) 525-3-6/The US Army Functional Concept for Movement and Maneuver, TRADOC Pamphlet (PAM) 525-3-1/The US Army Operational Concept: Win in a Complex World, and the 2015 National Military Strategy in an attempt to find a definition of win, winning, and/or victory. The only two documents that included a definition, or something close, where in the endnotes of PAM 525-3-1/The US Army Operational Concept: Win in a Complex World and in the body of the previous administration’s National Military Strategy.
PAM 525-3-1 defines win in endnote 2 as:
The dictionary defines “win” as: to be successful or victorious in (a contest or conflict). Winning in this concept is meeting the policy objectives of the Commander in Chief. It refers to more than simply defeating threat forces; it means meeting national goals and objectives that are unique for each operation. The joint commander must define success for each operation (or campaign) based upon the national goals and objectives, which may change, based on conditions during the operation
The 2015 National Military Strategy defines win as:
We are prepared to project power across all domains to stop aggression and win our Nation’s wars by decisively defeating adversaries.
The President’s senior military and national security advisors don’t have much to work with in trying to help the President, or any president, define successful termination of hostilities, especially for the ambiguous low intensity, irregular, asymmetric, and unconventional wars that the US has been involved in over the past seventeen years or so. We’re not talking about an interstate war, with two or more state combatants fighting in identifiable uniforms, where victory is achieved when one side in the conflict has either been rendered incapable of continuing to fight or has made the decision that it cannot endure any more pain as a result of a continuation of hostilities. Whether the US and its allies ever participate in that type of war again is an interesting question that is discussed in military and civilian classrooms, as well as in other forums, but it is not the reality we are in and expect to be in any time soon.
This ambiguity regarding what successful combat operations, let alone victory, looks like in the early 21st Century Operating Environment (OE), and the US military’s acceptance of it, is running head first into the President’s preferences, specifically the Trump Doctrine. The President has made it clear he wants the US out as soon as we finish reducing ISIS’s physical foot print. And he wants the Saudis and the Gulf states to pay for reconstruction and reconciliation efforts in the US led Coalition liberated areas within Syria.
Unfortunately, ISIS’s actual center of gravity isn’t the amount of physical terrain it holds. Rather, it is its extreme theology and doctrine of tawheed – the radical unity of the Deity. The US, its coalition partners and allies, including the Syrian Kurdish militias we are training, equipping, and assisting in our by, with, and through strategy against ISIS, aren’t really fighting for terrain. Or to kill or capture as many ISIS fighters and officials and supporters as possible. What they are really fighting is ISIS’s theology and doctrine. This is the strategic target. Trying to decisively measure success in combatting the spread and acceptance of ideas is very, very difficult. As is killing them. It is very hard to stop the signal. This creates a very unpleasant reality: the inability to create actual strategic measures of effectiveness in the fight against ISIS, which is really the fight against ISIS’s doctrine.
Finally, simply taking our personnel and equipment and going home once the physical caliphate has been reduced is only going to help reset the conditions for either ISIS to make a comeback or for something new and likely equally dangerous to rise from its ashes. Defeating ISIS means defeating the conditions that led to its creation – the economic despair, the social inequality, the despotic rule of the Assads, the sectarian divisions – which can only be done through reconciliation and reconstruction. There isn’t a lot of room in here for the US to be treated well in exchange for doing this. It is largely thankless. It is not a mission to achieve decisive victory on the battlefield. These operations are much more similar to the Marshall Plan, which is how we secured the peace in Europe after World War II. It is a longer term, ambiguous mission to work by, with, and through our local partners to manage and mitigate significant social, political, economic, and religious problems and disputes in an attempt to prevent ISIS’s reemergence or the emergence of something even worse. Failure to do so will simply see the US and its Coalition allies and partners back in the Levant once again conducting kinetic operations as refugees stream out of a region that becomes more unstable leading to more loss of life on all sides. The US’s actions in Iraq from 2003 through 2011 helped to set the conditions for the rise of ISIS. Taking responsibility for that reality and working by, with, and through our local partners in Syria and Iraq to manage and mitigate it is a moral responsibility. It is not, however, a matter of being treated fairly or an opportunity for turning a profit.
Open thread.
[SingleTearPepeGIF] Open Thread: Sad Little Nazis in Disarray
TL;DR — when it comes to literal Nazis, always root for injuries.
First, there was this tragicomical story in the Daily Beast…
Prominent neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer might have to reveal its funding, thanks to a new court filing in a lawsuit against the website’s founder, Andrew Anglin.
Anglin is currently on the run from two lawsuits. One of those lawsuits, by radio host and Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah, accuses Anglin of defamation after The Daily Stormer accused Obeidallah of orchestrating a bombing at a 2017 Ariana Grande concert in England. In a new filing in the case, Obeidallah asked a judge to let him enter a discovery process for Moonbase Holdings, LLC, a shell company The Daily Stormer used to make its financial transactions look more legitimate.
If granted, the discovery process could reveal who funded Anglin’s hate site.
Anglin, who claims to be in Cambodia, has not responded to Obeidallah’s initial complaint, the Southern Poverty Law Center first reported. As a result, a clerk of court ruled declared Anglin to be in default, allowing Obeidallah to seek damages in Anglin’s absence. In his new filing, Obeidallah asks to investigate Moonbase Holdings before pursuing specific damages…
“At one point it appeared that Defendant Moonbase received approximately $3,405.70 per month in credit card donations through Hatreon,” the new filing in Obeidallah’s lawsuit reads. Hatreon is a crowdfunding platform beloved by hate groups, who are often banned from platforms like GoFundMe and Patreon.
Since February 9, 2017, the site has been down, its homepage displaying a notice that “pledging is currently disabled while we upgrade our systems.”
With Hatreon on hold, Anglin has claimed to be nearly broke…
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Aaaand… here come the Nazi Rosencrantz & Guildenstern!
Have been reliably informed that Paul Nehlen just doxxed "Ricky Vaughn" over on Gab and if that statement makes no sense whatsoever to you, gentle reader, be grateful for your unfamiliarity with alt-right/anti-semite social media.
— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) April 2, 2018
Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist congressional candidate from Wisconsin, took to https://t.co/UKYS4hYKxE yesterday to reveal one of the alt-right’s best-kept secrets: the identity of notorious Twitter troll @Ricky_Vaughn99. #OpDomesticTerrorism https://t.co/7CueRzaQF3
— Bella_ofA (@Bella_ofA) April 4, 2018
… The alleged dox appears to have grown out of a running spat between white supremacist Christopher Cantwell and infamous neo-Nazi troll Andrew “weev” Auernheimer. Weev has accused Cantwell of being a federal informant and Cantwell has responded by accusing weev of colluding with @Ricky_Vaughn99 to deliberately split the far-right movement between “vanguardists,” i.e. those who advocate for militant street action, and “mainstreamers,” embodied by Vaughn…
The dox comes at a pivotal moment for the alt-right, which has been embroiled in several publicity and legal scandals over the past few months. In February, Elliot Kline of Identity Evropa was revealed to have lied about his military service record. March saw the collapse of the Traditionalist Worker Party following Matthew Heimbach’s arrest for battery, domestic battery in the presence of a child, strangulation and intimidation during an affair with his benefactor and father-in-law’s wife…
The pseudonymous Ricky Vaughn Twitter account — named after a character from the 1989 film Major League — was highly influential in spreading the ideas of the racist alt-right in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Peaking at 62,000 followers and posting some 221,000 tweets, an MIT election study during the primaries ranked the Twitter account as more influential than the accounts of NBC News, Stephen Colbert, and the Democratic Party among many others.
[SingleTearPepeGIF] Open Thread: Sad Little Nazis in DisarrayPost + Comments (42)
Crime of the Century
Here is the fund that’s split between all eventual
Democratic nominees in House districts currently held by Republicans.