;)
The Commentariat -- November 4, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile writes in a new book that she seriously contemplated replacing Hillary Clinton as the party's 2016 presidential nominee with then-Vice President Biden in the aftermath of Clinton's fainting spell, in part because Clinton's campaign was 'anemic' and had taken on 'the odor of failure.' In an explosive new memoir, Brazile details widespread dysfunction and dissension throughout the Democratic Party, including secret deliberations over using her powers as interim DNC chair to initiate the removal of Clinton and running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) from the ticket after Clinton's Sept. 11, 2016, collapse in New York City. Brazile writes that she considered a dozen combinations to replace the nominees and settled on Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), the duo she felt most certain would win over enough working-class voters to defeat Republican Donald Trump. But then, she writes, 'I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her....'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Well, surely that would have gone smoothly.
Avi Selk of the Washington Post: "The White House on Saturday disparaged the legacies of ;the only two living Republican presidents to precede Donald Trump, after reports that both men castigated Trump in interviews last year and refused to vote for him. Former president George H.W. Bush mocked then-candidate Trump as a 'blowhard' and voted for a Democratic president, while the younger Bush worried aloud that Trump would destroy the idea of a Republican president in all but name, according to 'The Last Republicans,' which is scheduled to go on sale later this month. The White House response followed a CNN report about the new book in an extraordinary war of words involving three presidents from the same party. 'If one Presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had,' the White House wrote to CNN. It called the younger Bush's decision to wage war on Iraq 'one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history.'"
Ashley Parker & Courtney Teague of the Washington Post: "Stopping in Hawaii en route to his five-country, 12-day trip in Asia -- his longest foreign trip since assuming office -- the president appeared energetic and enthusiastic, from almost the moment Air Force One climbed into the sky."
Leigh Caldwell & Frank Thorp of NBC News: "The Trump administration has downplayed the role of foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential campaign. But the public record shows that Papadopoulos, who attempted to set up a meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was a more prominent figure than previously understood." The story goes on to cite several instances in which Papadopoulos represented the campaign over a period of several months.
Adam Vary of BuzzFeed: Kevin "Spacey is alleged to have consistently used his sexuality in a way that was unwanted and unwarranted, and often unrelenting. In Spacey's case, these stories also demonstrate the complex effect the closet can have for men of any sexual orientation when talking about sexual misconduct by another man. Spacey appears to have discovered how to weaponize the closet, shielding his own behavior from scrutiny under the guise of merely protecting his privacy." ...
... Brent Lang & Daniel Holloway of Variety: "Producers are exploring several options for getting 'House of Cards' back on track in the wake of sexual assault and harassment allegations against star Kevin Spacey. One scenario being discussed is to kill off Spacey's character, the villainous Frank Underwood, and have the show's sixth and final season concentrate on his equally manipulative wife Claire, played by Robin Wright, according to insiders."
*****
I'm the only one that matters. -- Donald Trump
I don't know. I'm really not involved with the Justice Department. I'd like to let it run itself. But honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty.... And a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me. -- Donald Trump, to reporters on the White House South Lawn, Friday, when asked if he would fire Jeff Sessions if DOJ doesn't take action against Hillary Clinton ...
... ** Dumb Guy Surprised by -- & Ignores -- Job Requirements. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "One of President Trump's biggest disappointments in office, by his own account, was discovering that he is not supposed to personally direct law enforcement decisions by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. So, instead, he has made himself into perhaps the most vocal critic of America's system of justice ever to occupy the Oval Office. Just this week, he denounced the criminal justice system as 'a joke' and 'a laughingstock.' He demanded that the suspect in the New York terrorist attack be executed. He spent Friday berating the Justice Department and F.B.I. for not investigating his political opponents. He then turned to the military justice system and called a court-martial decision [of Bowe Bergdahl] 'a complete and total disgrace.' The repeated assaults on law enforcement cross lines that presidents have largely observed since the Watergate era, raising questions about the separation of politics and the law." ...
... Philip Rucker & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Friday repeatedly called on the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate his Democratic political opponents, a breach of the traditional executive branch boundaries designed to prevent the criminal justice system from becoming politicized. Trump urged federal law enforcement to 'do what is right and proper' by launching criminal probes of former presidential rival Hillary Clinton and her party -- a surprising use of his bully pulpit considering he acknowledged a day earlier that presidents are not supposed to intervene in such decisions. In a flurry of accusatory morning tweets, Trump claimed there was mounting public pressure for new Clinton probes, including over her campaign's joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee that effectively gave her some control over the party's finances, strategy and staffing before the primaries began. Trump invoked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who had said that she believed the Democratic primaries were rigged in Clinton's favor based on details of the arrangement in a new book by former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile. Using his pejorative nickname for Warren, Trump tweeted: 'Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead [sic] by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets [sic] go FBI & Justice Dept.' Trump also called for probing the deleted emails from Clinton's private server while she was secretary of state, as well as the sale of a uranium company to Russia and the international business of Democratic super-lobbyist Tony Podesta, the brother of John D. Podesta, who served as Clinton's campaign chairman." ...
... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Trump's calls for both the Justice Department and the FBI to dig into a series of purported Democratic scandals have been widely dismissed as a way to deflect attention from special counsel Robert Mueller and the criminal charges he filed earlier this week against three of the president's former campaign aides. But Trump is still the president of the United States, and his public statements encouraging investigations into his current and former opponents have drawn widespread criticism across the ranks of current and former law enforcement officials. Trump's statements also leave his political appointees at the Justice Department in a bind: Do they follow the orders of the president who put them in their jobs, or do they follow the historical norms and rules of their department that mandate they stay clear of politics when they open, investigate and close any criminal cases?" ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is firing back at President Trump over his push for the Justice Department to investigate Democrats and Hillary Clinton. 'President Trump's pressuring of the Justice Department and FBI to pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place are totally inappropriate,' Corker said in a statement. He added that the president's remarks 'not only undermine our justice system but erode the American people's confidence in our institutions.'" ...
... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said Friday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions 'absolutely' committed perjury in his Senate testimony regarding contacts between President Trump's campaign and Russian officials. 'He lied under oath at least twice and most recently, both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, based on their testimony and their statements, they show that Jeff Sessions contradicted himself when he said he was not aware of any campaign official talking to the Russians,' Lieu said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Lieu said Sessions should resign from his post because 'the top law enforcement official in the United States can not have committed a crime and still be there.'"...
... Carol Leonnig & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The House Intelligence Committee has called former longtime [Trump] bodyguard Keith Schiller to appear for an interview Tuesday as part of its probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Investigators plan to press Schiller about allegations in the 35-page dossier that Russian officials obtained compromising information about Trump's personal behavior when he visited Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, according to people familiar with the investigation.... The president has indicated that Schiller will say that the Moscow allegations are false. 'Keith was there,' the president told the New York Times in July. 'He said, "What kind of crap is this?" I went there for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back.'... The House panel also plans to ask Schiller about another episode that is a central focus in the investigations by congressional committees and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III: the firing of former FBI Director James B. Comey. Trump tasked Schiller with hand-delivering to the FBI the president's letter terminating Comey." ...
... Mark Mazzetti & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee. Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow.... The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony. The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign. In multiple interviews with The New York Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with 'mostly scholars.' Mr. Page confirmed the meetings in an interview on Friday evening, but played down their significance."
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Candidate Trump announced his "foreign policy team" of six members in late March 2016. Of the six, one-third -- George Papadopoulos & Carter Page -- had, or claimed to have, Russian connections. Leading the campaign was Paul Manafort, who had extensive financial dealings with Vladimir Putin's oligarch buddies & political puppets. Later, Trump began taking foreign policy advice from Mike Flynn, who was friendly with the Kremlin and whom Trump liked so much he named Flynn his top national security advisor. As president, Trump chose as his number one diplomat Rex Tillerson, who also was known to be friendly with Putin. In other words, Trump chose a group of advisors who had connections to Putin. To me, this outsized pro-Russia crew in itself is a big red flag -- one that sports a hammer & sickle. If, as he frequently claims,Trump is not "under investigation," he should be, and not just because of his odd but well-known support for Putin or Junior & Jared's meeting with Russian operatives. ...
... Easy Marks. Alex Finley, in Politico Magazine: "By now, it should be clear to anyone following the news that Russian intelligence made a formidable effort to approach the Trump campaign and assess the potential to manipulate its members. As a former officer of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, I can tell you that Russian security services would have been derelict not to evaluate the possibility of turning someone close to Trump. While the question of collusion remains open, it's beyond dispute that Russia tried to get people around the president to cooperate. The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower is indication enough, but other encounters bolster the argument.... From an intelligence point of view, the people surrounding Trump, and Trump himself, make easy targets for recruitment." Finley lays out the methods the Kremlin likely used to compromise key campaign figures, including Trump. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "Former Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo went on MSNBC [Friday] afternoon and said George Papadopoulos was 'stupid' and 'had no business' being at that March 2016 foreign policy advisor meeting.... This is all 100%, unquestionably true.... But none of this is a defense. It's irrelevant. He had no business being there and yet he was there.... The Trumpers have long pushed this argument that they were too inexperienced, disorganized or simply too stupid to have conspired with Russians to subvert the election. That's not how it works. As we've noted in recent days, intelligence operatives (of any country) are looking precisely for people who are desperate, stupid, inexperienced, crooked.... That is when you have something to work with.... Which brings us back to Paul Manafort." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Marshall argues that Manafort was the one guy on the Trump campaign who was not an idiot & that Bob Mueller seems to know that, too. ...
... Raphael Satter, et al., of the AP: "... the AP drew on forensic data to report Thursday that the hackers known as Fancy Bear were closely aligned with the interests of the Russian government. The AP's reconstruction -- based on a database of 19,000 malicious links recently shared by cybersecurity firm Secureworks -- shows how the hackers worked their way around the Clinton campaign's top-of-the-line digital security to steal chairman John Podesta's emails in March 2016. It also helps explain how a Russian-linked intermediary could boast to a Trump policy adviser, a month later, that the Kremlin had 'thousands of emails' worth of dirt on Clinton." Mrs. McC: I'm not exactly a technical junkie, but the methodology here is interesting. Combine Russia's successful hacking with their methods of compromising Trump's staff (a child could do it), as Alex Finley & Josh Marshall lay out, & it's impossible to think Russia did not insert itself into Trump's campaign. ...
... Because They're Blinded by the Stupid. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Three conservative House Republicans are expected to file a resolution Friday calling on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to recuse himself from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, accusing him of conflicts of interest. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who wrote the resolution, accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he was serving as FBI chief when the Obama administration approved a deal allowing a Russian company to purchase a Canada-based mining group with uranium operations in the United States, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Update. They did it.
Terrence Suzplat in a Washington Post op-ed: "As if on cue, Trump has broken out the authoritarian's playbook and delivered his own shameful performance, chapter and verse, [in response to the terrorist attack in New York City].... Like any good demagogue, Trump moved quickly to find a villain: Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.).... Most alarming, Trump resorted to the oldest trick in the demagogue's book -- dehumanizing the enemy. The perpetrator is not simply a terrorist, he is, Trump said, an 'animal.'... Such language is particularly ominous given Trump's habit of conflating terrorists with the broader Muslim American community.... Trump has once again succumbed to his worst impulses. The question for the rest of us is, which is stronger -- the demagogue or our democracy?"
Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday slammed a military judge's decision for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to not serve any prison time after pleading guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, calling the ruling 'a complete and total disgrace to our country and to our military.'" ...
... Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was dishonorably discharged from the Army on Friday by a military judge, but received no prison time, for desertion and endangering troops, ending a drama that began more than eight years ago in war-torn Afghanistan." (Also linked yesterday.)
So we don't need all the people they want. I'm a businessman, and I tell my people, 'When you don't need to fill slots, don't fill them.' But we have some people that I'm not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. I'm the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that's what the policy is going to be. -- Donald Trump, Thursday, on the many unfilled vital State Department positions ...
... Benjamin Hart of New York: "Trump then blamed Chuck Schumer and Democrats for obstructing nominees (which is definitely not what's happening) and defended 'cost saving' as a diplomatic strategy. The autocratic egoism on display echoed several previous Trump moments, from his campaign ad released earlier in the week ('President Trump will fix it') to his frightening speech at the Republican National Convention speech in 2016."
Your Friday Night News Dump. Lisa Friedman & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration's position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization. Over the past 115 years global average temperatures have increased 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to record-breaking weather events and temperature extremes, the report says. The global, long-term warming trend is 'unambiguous,' it says, and there is 'no convincing alternative explanation' that anything other than humans -- the cars we drive, the power plants we operate, the forests we destroy -- are to blame. The report was approved for release by the White House, but ... put out a statement Friday that seemed to undercut the high level of confidence of the report's findings. 'The climate has changed and is always changing,' Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, said in the statement."
Ed Kilgore of New York: "Normally, midterm elections at least partially operate as a referendum on the performance of the president and the president's party. But there are growing signs Donald Trump will try something entirely new: making the midterms a referendum on his defeated 2016 opponent.... Republicans who want to keep the focus on Trump's vanquished foe will receive considerable assistance from Democrats who cannot seem to disentangle themselves from the controversies arising from the Clinton-Sanders nomination contest." --safari
Nick Miroff & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "More than 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians living in the United States under a form of temporary permission no longer need to be shielded from deportation, the State Department told Homeland Security officials this week, a few days ahead of a highly anticipated DHS announcement about whether to renew that protection. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke to inform her that conditions in Central America and Haiti that had been used to justify the protection no longer necessitate a reprieve for the migrants, some of whom have been allowed to live and work in the United States for 20 years under a program known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).... DHS has until Monday to announce its plans for roughly 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans whose TPS protections will expire in early January."
David Savage of the Tribune Washington Bureau: "In a highly unusual move, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday to discipline lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union because they helped a 17-year old migrant obtain an abortion two weeks ago.... On Friday, new Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed an appeal that asks the Supreme Court to set aside the lower court's rulings and to consider 'disciplinary action' against the ACLU.... Sessions said the abortion took place early in the morning, before the Justice Department could lodge an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court." --safari...
Gail Collins notices again that Rick Perry, unlike his predecessors, is not a physicist. She seems to suggest that if he were, he might not say that fossil fuels would prevent sexual assaults in Africa...
...Juan Cole:"In a news conference this week, [Secretary of Energy Rick Perry] expressed the opinion that fossil fuels would prevent sexual assault.... It should be noted that when governor of Texas Perry actively resisted Federal regulations to reduce prison rape, so he seems more interested in hydrocarbons than in do-gooding.... Lack of electricity is certainly a problem for development in Africa.... But electrification can be pursued in environmentally sustainable ways ... solar and wind are everywhere and there is no impetus to fight over control of them. As for fossil fuels, they are responsible for enormous numbers of rapes.... Take [South] Sudan ... it fell into civil war as elites of these two struggled for control of the vast oil wealth. It doesn't get the press that Syria did, but South Sudan is one of the most brutal civil wars on the planet...Then there is the violent conflict in the Niger Delta of southern Nigeria. It is also over oil and its proceeds, and their distribution...There is war rape." --safari
Jonathan Chait of New York: "It is a testament to the power of self-delusion that Republicans have convinced themselves that their political self-interest demands that they pass a deeply unpopular tax-cut plan. The House has designed a proposal that not only violates Senate budget rules but seems virtually designed to seed an endless supply of attack ads against congressional Republicans.... The bill contains three categories of political poison." --safari ...
... As contributor Ken W. writes, Dylan Matthews of Vox does a fine job of explaining the House's tax bill. Because of all the variables, unless you're in the top one percent, you'll just have to guess whether or not you stand to gain or lose, but most Americans -- including those of you who are financially comfortable -- are losers & as the deficit rises & more benefits for the rich kick in, more will become losers. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Zaid Jilani of The Intercept: "House Republican lawmakers are sponsoring legislation that would prohibit doctors from performing abortions after a heartbeat is detected. In fact, 169 lawmakers -- all are Republicans but one -- have co-sponsored the bill, known as the 'Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017.'... At the same time, the Republican tax proposal released Thursday would make it more difficult for American parents to turn to what many anti-abortion groups offer as an alternative: adoption. The House Republican tax reform bill would completely eliminate the adoption tax credit, which has been in the tax code since 1997." --safari
Elana Schor of Politico: "Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Friday that she is readying a proposal to strengthen Capitol Hill's system for handling sexual harassment complaints in the wake of a growing number of reports detailing past misconduct by lawmakers and aides. Gillibrand announced her legislation after Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), as well as former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and former Reps. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) and Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), shared their stories of past sexual harassment by male lawmakers with The Associated Press. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) last week divulged, while she unveiled plans for her own bill to overhaul the Hill's sexual misconduct policies, that as a young congressional aide she was forcibly kissed by the male chief of staff in her office."
Al Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "The police in New York on Friday said that they were developing a strong criminal case against the producer Harvey Weinstein after an actress's claim that he raped her seven years ago. Speaking at a news conference at Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan, officials in the Police Department said they were gathering evidence with an eye toward preparing a warrant to arrest Mr. Weinstein, whose representatives have said he is undergoing therapy outside New York. The claims of the actress, Paz de la Huerta, have been a focus of investigators in the department's Special Victims Division for several days, since Mr. Weinstein;s long history of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault of women was detailed in reports by The New York Times and The New Yorker early last month. Those reports prompted a mountain of tips to the police in New York and London about other episodes."
Marc Caputo, et al., of Politico: "Six women who work in Florida's Capitol say the state Senate's powerful budget chairman, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Latvala, has inappropriately touched them without their consent or uttered demeaning remarks about their bodies. The women, who include Senate staff and lobbyists affiliated with both major parties..., did not want to be identified for fear of losing their jobs, getting a bad reputation in the male-dominated Capitol or running afoul of an influential politician who can kill their clients' issues. The incidents, they said, occurred over a period of several years, happening in the privacy of Latvala's Senate office or in public places like the Capitol rotunda, a bar or an elevator."
How to Quit Your Job:
Beyond the Beltway
Tyler Estep of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Joe Briggs says he isn't anti-Semitic -- just anti-Israel. And the Suwanee City Council candidate finds it strange that a series of controversial tweets he wrote about Jews have come to light just a few days before next week's election. 'I'm absolutely not racist in the very least,' Briggs said.... The posts are critical of Israel's government and its role in American affairs -- and they also compare Jews to Nazis, refer to Zionists as 'cockroaches' and call American slavery 'cheap labor to big business.'... 'Get the Jews out of the White House and out of POTUS' ear,' Briggs wrote in a tweet from September that referenced the U.S. weighing a more 'aggressive' approach in Iran. Two days later, with an inspiration that was unclear: 'At least the Nazis assimilated and contributed to US society.'" --safari
Way Beyond
Cécile Allegra of the Guardian: "Male rape is being used systematically in Libya as an instrument of war and political domination by rival factions, according to multiple testimonies gathered by investigators.... The atrocity is being perpetrated to humiliate and neutralise opponents in the lawless, militia-dominated country. Male rape is such a taboo in Arab societies that the abused generally feel too damaged to rejoin political, military or civic life." --safari: Warning: graphic info.
If this card were for Marie Burns, she would never share it because she's far too modest to purposely do anything that smacks of the self-congratulatory. But Bea McCrabbie doesn't give a crap what anybody else thinks, and she really appreciates this clever, thoughtful birthday card. Many thanks to the sender.
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A former CIA chief considers the Trump team from the point of view of a foreign power looking for an in to the American presidential election. He says that experienced operatives know what to look for and how to work their targets. Some are naturally harder to turn than others. The Trumpies? Piece of cake. Here’s an interesting overview, from the inside, on what makes a good “recruitable”. Hint: two of the best, love of easy money and the need for constant ego boosting.
The author also suggests that, at least in Trump’s case, he probably didn’t know or care that it was highly illegal. As long as it helps Trump, so what?
Putin chose well.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/26/trump-team-prey-putin-215743
@Akhilleus: Thanks for the link. Finley's piece jibes nicely with the post by Josh Marshall, which safari linked.
Finley's & Marshall's articles remind me that I have often wondered if I could be – or could have been – compromised into doing something treasonous. I think the answer is yes. Finley lays out the common methodology operatives use under the acronym MICE – money, ideology, coercion, ego. Oddly, I don't think any of those methods, or not any of those methods alone or even in combination, would do it for me. What would be required to suck me in would be “authority.” This is doubly weird because I essentially rebel against authority & the status quo.
When I was in college the CIA offered me a clerical job because, unbeknownst to me, I had CIA connections (a close relative was a CIA informant). So suppose I had taken that job & my boss at the CIA was a double agent working for some foreign entity. This guy was pleasant and kindly. He told me I was really smart (ego) &, with his help, would very likely advance out of the secretarial pool (really, for me, ego again). I thought he could do no wrong.
One day he told me it was important for me to secretly get some particular documents & smuggle them out of HQ. He provided some rationale. Would I have done it? I think so.
Would I have done this for some charmer I met outside of work? Nope – unless the charmer convinced me over time that he too had authority. Maybe he pretended to be the top staffer to the Democratic head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (ideology) & claimed the CIA was stonewalling Senator Righteous.
In other words, the deciding factor for me was that an authority figure – my boss or (supposedly) a U.S. senator. I'm not certain I would have been this stupid, but I have to admit my character was such that these scenarios are not inconceivable. We all make errors in judgment, & as Finley points out, these errors flow from different aspects of our characters. I doubt I could be so easily conned today. But I think when I was younger, I was susceptible, not entirely because of the usual human flaws Finley lays out, but because I was too pliable, too willing to accept authority.
I know there are millions of people who were never as foolish as I suspect I might have been. But – by definition – none of these wise people ever hooked up with the Trump campaign.
Marie
Marie,
A big difference is that your hypothetical treasonous actions would have had to have taken place when you were much younger. I once had a boss ask me to keep an eye on a co-worker and report back to him if I saw anything funny. Even though I liked the boss and didn’t particularly care for the co-worker, I declined. I told him if this guy was doing underhanded things, he’d find out on his own eventually. I wasn’t going to abet some kind of internal surveillance scheme. When he tried to cajole me into it, saying he thought he could rely on me, I was sure the whole thing stunk. I told him I had thought he was better than that and that was that.
Never found out what he was looking for or why, but fuck that. I don’t know if I could have been enticed into snitching when I was 21, but I sure as hell wasnt going to do it when I was 35. We both share that suspicion of authority. But here’s the thing. The Trumpies are not kids. Far from it. But they had no problem turning. Maybe they didn’t think of it like that, but the promises of riches and power and personal glory were/are just too much for them to withstand.
In a way, we all have to maintain vigilance and stick to our guns. I used to be so incensed at all the people who voted for Reagan against their best interest. Same with Bush and Trump voters. They were conned and turned by a process no different than what Putin used on the Trumpies. Traitors against themselves.
Oh, and by the way, if it is your birthday (or your alter ego’s) congrats. I hope it’s a Trumpless one for...you both. Watch a few episodes of the West Wing and relax.
As the ignorant, blathering Trump monster continues tweeting about how “Justice” should be dispensed, in accordance with his whims, of course, he seriously undermines his own positions. In the military, there are restraints on “command interference” of a prosecution. Since military personnel, including the attorneys and the jurors, are all under the command of higher ups, for a commanding officer to let it be known how he or she wishes a case to turn out, those individuals could be placed under enormous strain to deliver a verdict in concordance with those expressed desires. In the case of Bowe Bergdahl, the highest military commander of all ignored all restraint. So the judge ignored his wishes. Someone needs to pull little Donnie aside and tell him is not really the king.
Here on RC we keep trying to come up with a name or acronym that is apropos for the current occupant in the White House.
(Seems to me) he's been a big help here by giving us these six glorious, self-serving words:
I'm the Only One That Matters.
For consideration: ImTOOTM, or we could just call him Toots for short, as in always blowing his own horn?
...or, maybe POTOOTUS sounds more official?
@MAG: As long as you don't call him Tootie. (I had a little
horn as a wee youngster). The nickname stuck until I repelled,
as a lot of us do when we grow up, in my case, at 10 years old.