Trump's America

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wonder how much he is being paid off to not tell the real story.

(Whoops, did I say that aloud?)

[River]

They're working very hard to cover Pence.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think Pence is the one being protected.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[yovargas]

As I've said from the start, I see more danger in the reaction to Trump than in Trump himself. Woe is us.

I am .....amused.....that this is still your reaction to an article saying that Trump is leaking US intelligence to Russia.

[Frelga]

Правда... I meant, Fox is focusing on why the information about Flynn was leaked in the first place.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

So is Mr. Trump

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[Dave_LF]

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/31943 ... -beginning

GOP leaders — including Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.), House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (Utah) and House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.) — said Tuesday that they have no plans to dig deeper into Flynn's connections to Russia. Their focus, Ryan said, is repealing ObamaCare.

Hm. Investigate what smells like it could be actual treason, or take health insurance away from poor people? I cannot fathom how anyone can continue to vote for this party, at any level.

[River]

Rumor has it the RNC was also hacked but the information was never leaked. This could mean the whole party is compromised.

However, I'm more inclined to think they're just corrupt af.

[Sunsilver]

Frelga, I am guessing Правда translates as Pravda (formerly the official Communist newspaper)??

Heh. Nice one!

BTW, Pravda translates as 'truth'. It was, of course, about as truthful as Fox News.

[River]

So is Mr. Trump

I saw that. The answer to why so many leaks are coming out is because his administration is lacking the discipline and/or competence to keep things contained. He could make it stop if he wanted to.

[Frelga]

River, I believe they meant to the leaks to the press. Not the leaks to the government of a hostile authoritarian country.

Sunny, yes, that Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party. The other official newspaper was Izvestia, The News, which was the mouthpiece of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet*. Hence the joke that there was a bit of news in the Prvada and a bit of truth in Izvestia.

* Soviet means a council, in case you've ever wondered.

[River]

I know, Frelga. They could stop those too. I've heard multiple discussions on NPR on what a leaky mess the current White House is and what they can do to stop it, with examples from past administrations of both political parties. Given the clear disinterest Congress has taken in any kind of oversight, we should be grateful that the Trump Administration is so disorganized. Imagine if they were what they are AND competent.

[Frelga]

This article is not short, but it goes a long way to expose the ideological underpinnings of the current administration.

I highly recommend reading through.

Dark Essays By White House Staffer Are the Intellectual Source Code of Trumpism

The article, headlined “The Flight 93 Election,” caused a minor stir when it came out. Conservatives who didn’t like Trump were aghast at its strange endorsement of the brutish candidate, while liberals thought it showed the crackpot essence of the conservative case for the reality TV star. There was also the buzz of a guessing game: Who wrote this incredible thing? Here’s how the article began:

2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You — or the leader of your party — may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees. Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

[Cerin]

The referenced article exposes the underpinnings of the author's deranged thinking, and perhaps the underpinnings of a certain segment of 'conservative' thought. He seemed to regard Trump as a potential tool of a larger movement. To assert that the content of the essay represents the underpinnings of Trump administration thinking is a bit of a leap, imo, given that it appears to have been written before the author had any connection with Trump. However, the fact that Trump found the ideas appealing enough to make the author an advisor is damning enough.

[River]

So I asked my father the attorney how he would react if someone he were deposing stated, "The leaks are real but the news is fake." I just can't comprehend but lawyers get b.s. spewed at them as part of their job so I figured he has some actual coping skills.

His response, in his words:

I would treat it as an admission of (a) duplicity and misdirection (assuming the speaker was competent) or (b) delusional schizophrenia (assuming the speaker was not competent). It would open up two lines of questioning: first into what the speaker meant and on what basis, and second, into the speaker's mental health. I would relish being able to inquire into these matters of the speaker. If unhindered it would be a field day for me.

[Primula Baggins]

Wow.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins

This is an eye-opening article, both because of what is says, and the fact that it is published in (so far as I understand, though I could be wrong) the newspaper that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner owns and formerly was the publisher of.

You're right about the newspaper.

The author of that article does not have the most sterling reputation, however, despite his background.

Doesn't mean he's wrong, but proceed with caution.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins

This is an eye-opening article, both because of what is says, and the fact that it is published in (so far as I understand, though I could be wrong) the newspaper that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner owns and formerly was the publisher of.

You're right about the newspaper.

The author of that article does not have the most sterling reputation, however, despite his background.

Doesn't mean he's wrong, but proceed with caution.

You also should use caution in reading the cyber-security writings of Louise Mensch, but she probably should be read anyway. A lot of her stuff sounds very fringe, nearly tinfoil hat. And yet, and yet, she's been proven right multiple times, and as far as I can tell, nothing she's written about the election has been proven wrong . . . yet.

As I type, she's busy trolling Michael Flynn, Jr., who very much deserves it, but I'm more interested in her new theory about Anthony Weiner's supposedly underage correspondent, whose communications led to the October surprise that tanked Clinton's campaign. (No potential criminal case against Weiner means no excuse for the FBI to look at his laptop.)

It's pretty wild, so again, proceed with great caution. But, oh boy. It's really weird to be living in a John le Carré spy novel.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, apparently Trump’s New choice for national security adviser to replace Flynn, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, has turned down the offer.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[N.E. Brigand]

Правда... I meant, Fox is focusing on why the information about Flynn was leaked in the first place.

And this is a nice segue to something else that's been on my mind.

Does anyone else remember, gosh, probably seven or eight years ago, there was an argument in these forums between sauronsfinger and solicitr about Watergate? Specifically the discussion concerned whether Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat", had behaved honorably or treasonously in leaking to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post.

I proposed a middle reading, based on the plot of Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny (and the 1954 film adapted from it). I think it may apply again. Spoilers follow.

The story is set in the Pacific during World War II. The protagonist is a hapless ensign, Willie Keith, on a ramshackle ship, the U.S.S. Caine, who is initially pleased when the ship gets a new captain, Phillip Francis Queeg, a career officer who seems likely to bring some order to the crew. But Queeg is a bully, somewhat cowardly, and out of his depth, never before having had a command this important. When he makes mistakes, he never admits to them, and he rarely asks for help. Tom Keefer, the ship's communication officer, a writer in civilian life, suggests to the executive officer, Steve Maryk, that Queeg may be mentally unstable. However, when Maryk has an opportunity to report Queeg's mistakes to an admiral, Keefer talks him out of it, worried that Maryk's comments will be interpreted as mutinous. Unfortunately, a real crisis soon erupts when the Caine is caught in a typhoon, and Maryk, with Keith's backing as officer of the deck, relieves the dithering Queeg of his duty in order to save the ship. Maryk and Keith are court-martialed, and Keefer vacillates on the stand, but their appointed attorney, Barnie Greenwald is able to save them by ferociously baiting Queeg into revealing his unfitness.

I first encountered the story in its movie version, which I found somewhat ham-fisted until I was won over the very last scene, following the court proceedings, a corker that nicely upends the audience's perspective of the preceding events. The book is more complicated and subtle, but the gist of that crucial scene is the same. I transcribe the film scene below with a link to video on Youtube. (Wow. Wikipedia just stunned me twice. First with the fact that Wouk, who served in WWII, had studied several years earlier under the cultural historian Jacques Barzun at Columbia--Barzun, who was later an adviser to one of my favorite film critics, died five years ago at the age of 104. Second to learn that Wouk himself is still alive! He's 101.) I've put one hilarious detail, in light of our current situation, in boldface.

What I proposed to solicitr and sauronsfinger is that Nixon could be read as Queeg and Felt as Keefer, which would, as solicitr observed, put Woodward and Bernstein in the roles of Keith and Maryk. The point being that maybe Felt should have done more to help Nixon and less to undermine him.

Maybe.

One big difference for our current situation is this: Queeg had spent his life serving his country. You may or may not feel the the same could be fairly said about Nixon. But it's certainly not true of Donald Trump.

(David Frum, a conservative who served in the second Bush administration, lately has been regularly quoting what are sometimes said to be Warren Harding's last words: "I am unfit for this place and never should have come here.")

We never did settle on an identity for the final main character. Are we all the Greenwald we've been waiting for?

GREENWALD: Well, well, well, the officers Of the Caine in happy celebration.

MARYK: What are you Barney, kind of tight?

GREENWALD: Sure, I--I've got a guilty conscience. I defended you, Steve, because I found the wrong man was on trial. So I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him, and I feel sick about it.

MARYK: OK, Barney, take it easy.

GREENWALD: You know something? When I was studying law, and Mr. Keefer here was writing his stories, and you, Willy, were tearing up the playing fields of dear old Princeton, who was standing guard over this fat, dumb, happy country of ours, eh? Not us. Oh, no, we knew you couldn't make any money in the service. So who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did, and a lot of other guys. Tough, sharp guys who didn't crack up like Queeg.

KEITH: But no matter what, Captain Queeg endangered the ship and the lives of the men.

GREENWALD: He didn't endanger anybody's life. You did, all of you. You're a fine bunch of officers.

PAINTER: You said yourself he cracked.

GREENWALD: I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Painter, because that's a very pretty point. You know, I left out one detail in the court-martial. It wouldn't have helped our case any. Tell me, Steve, after the "yellow stain" businesses, Queeg came to you guys for help, and you turned him down, didn't you?

[beat]

MARYK: Yes, we did.

GREENWALD: You didn't approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn't worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him; you ragged him; you made up songs about him. If you'd given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon? You're an honest man, Steve. I'm asking you: do you think it would have been necessary for you to take over?

[beat]

MARYK: It probably wouldn't have been necessary.

GREENWALD: Yeah.

KEITH: If that's true, then we were guilty.

GREENWALD: Ah, you're learning, Willie. You're learning that you don't work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair. You work with him because he's got the job or you're no good.

[beat]

Well, the case is over. You're all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

[beat]

And now we come to the man who should have stood trial. The Caine's favorite author. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell him, Keefer.

KEEFER: No, you go ahead. You're telling it better.

GREENWALD: You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg.

MARYK: Let's forget it, Barney.

GREENWALD: Queeg was sick; he couldn't help himself. But you, you're real healthy--only you didn't have one-tenth the guts that he had.

KEEFER: Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.

GREENWALD: I want to drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer. From the beginning, you hated the Navy, and then you thought up this whole idea, and you managed to keep your skirts nice and starched and clean even in the court-martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer, but you, you'll publish your novel, you'll make a million bucks, you'll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you'll live with your conscience, if you have any. Now here's to the real author of the Caine mutiny. Here's to you, Mr. Keefer.

[He throws his drink in Keefer's face.]

GREENWALD: If you want to do anything about it, I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight.

And what are our "strawberries"? For a moment today, I thought maybe uranium (did you read that bizarre comment?*), but the real answer seems still to be: the popular vote.


*Edited to add: "You know what uranium is, right? It's a thing called nuclear weapons and other things. It's like lots of things are done with uranium, including some bad things."