“We are not amused.”
Nice security clearance you have there; be a shame if you said anything to make me yank it: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/23/politics/trump-security-clearances/index.html
I was so disappointed she didn’t slap him.
I’m disappointed every time someone within arm’s reach of him doesn’t slap him.
Yeah, but if it comes from the Queen of England it’s special.
Let’s have a short Shakespearean interlude. Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and author of the book, Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, 2018: [INDENT] Shakespeare’s Richard III brilliantly develops the personality features of the aspiring tyrant already sketched in the Henry VI trilogy: the limitless self-regard, the lawbreaking, the pleasure in inflicting pain, the compulsive desire to dominate. He is pathologically narcissistic and supremely arrogant. He has a grotesque sense of entitlement, never doubting that he can do whatever he chooses. He loves to bark orders and to watch underlings scurry to carry them out. He expects absolute loyalty, but he is incapable of gratitude. The feelings of others mean nothing to him. He has no natural grace, no sense of shared humanity, no decency.
He is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it and takes pleasure in breaking it. He hates it because it gets in his way and because it stands for a notion of the public good that he holds in contempt. He divides the world into winners and losers. The winners arouse his regard insofar as he can use them for his own ends; the losers arouse only his scorn. The public good is something only losers like to talk about. What he likes to talk about is winning.
He has always had wealth; he was born into it and makes ample use of it. But though he enjoys having what money can get him, it is not what most excites him. What excites him is the joy of domination. He is a bully. Easily enraged, he strikes out at anyone who stands in his way. He enjoys seeing others cringe, tremble, or wince with pain. He is gifted at detecting weakness and deft at mockery and insult. These skills attract followers who are drawn to the same cruel delight, even if they cannot have it to his unmatched degree. Though they know that he is dangerous, the followers help him advance to his goal, which is the possession of supreme power.
His possession of power includes the domination of women, but he despises them far more than desires them. Sexual conquest excites him, but only for the endlessly reiterated proof that he can have anything he likes. He knows that those he grabs hate him. [/INDENT] That’s some quality trolling Steve. A+
No joke. When I first read this line:
I thought it was Bernie Sanders responding to the plan by condemning the Trump administration. It was only when I read on that I realized it was Sarah Sanders and she was attacking people the administration doesn’t like.
He’s still on Twitter.
@LOLGOP: “His compound is in flames, but David Koresh’s approval with the Branch Davidians is still surprisingly high!”
This is one of the most amazing things I have ever read.
I doubt that this has any actual consequences, as I doubt that anyone in the Trump administration has contacted Brennan or Hayden for any meaningful work since their departure. However, revoking security clearance could bar them from doing private consulting work, so it’s not without consequence.
But the symbolism of this move, and the message it sends cannot be overstated. What’s next? Is he going to start revoking security clearances of people currently employed in the government? Is he going to start revoking press passes? What’s truly disturbing isn’t that Trump would consider such a move, but that a sitting US Senator is actively encouraging this behavior.
I think we’ve seen over the past week or so that the rot in the Republican party is widespread. The only Republicans who have the courage to stand up to Trump are the ones who have retired or are about to. The Republicans who matter are all in on handing the country over to authoritarians.
Before Trump took office, I put the odds on the US becoming ‘something other than a democracy’ at less than 25%. I’d say now those odds are approaching 50% and might have gone even a little north of that. We’re in serious trouble.
Yes.
At this point y’all really only have two options. One is to actively vote for ANY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE WHATSOEVER. No ifs ands or buts. Choose this if you want to state that “yeah, no, democracy might be a shitty system, but it’s the least shitty of them all”. Or you could vote for Trump OR ANY OTHER REPUBLICAN and send the message that “yanno, maybe that Mobutu guy had a point”. Or that Idi Amin. Or that Caesar Augustus. Or that Hitler. It really, but really doesn’t matter beyond the point you say “democracy could be improved upon if only the guy had the top had more power and didn’t take any guff from the opposition”. You’re just fucked forever. At which point everybody else is probably also fucked forever.
So please don’t do that second thing.
Didn’t he already call for that?
No heart
No brain
No courage
Donald Trump is the anti-Oz
Further on my last post.
Remember when he refused to take a question from a reporter because that reporter was from CNN (IIRC)? The entire press room had two good options and they took neither:
a. They could have just all gotten up and walked out, giving Trump a lack of attention.
b. Ask the CNN reporter what her question was and, regardless of whom Trump decided to recognize, ask that very same question.
But, nope, they chickened out because, for some odd reason, they think that the SOB will somehow start behaving like a responsible adult. That’s just not going to happen. Remember the wonderful line a real president, Lincoln, penned?
Trump just doesn’t get that. He is a sociopath. He does not care about people. He cares only about himself. His supporters also don’t get it. He threw them bones (mind you, he already chewed all the meat and fat off and sucked all the marrow out of those bones) but not because of any great love for them or the country; it was all for his own aggrandizement.
It doesn’t work like that. If they need a security clearance for whatever job they are going to be doing, they will need to apply for clearance related to their work. Holding an inactive security clearance makes it easier. Having a security clearance does not mean one is cleared for all classified material. One still has to have a “need-to-know” that information. For my work in the USAF (Cryptologic Linguist) I had Top Secret Codeword clearance, but it didn’t mean I could share what I knew with the guys in the adjacent windowless room with the same level clearance or vice versa unless we were working on the same assignment…and then only information related to that assignment.
As true as this is, it makes me more sad.
It means Trump will hold on to power because his adversaries are too cautious and don’t want to sacrifice their way of life to oppose him.
It also means that Trump won’t fade into obscurity. He’ll be remembered in infamy for thousands of years, like Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, etc and that’s exactly what he wants. Whoever becomes the future Shakespeare after the inevitable Apocalypse will write about Trump and actors will portray him as a boisterous yet conflicted leader of man.
At least I won’t be around to see it, unless I somehow get cursed with immortality.
Jeez, I hope not. Those guys actually did stuff and effectively led their people.
Sooooo $12 billion of our tax dollars will be going to help out farmers who’ve been hurt… by the trade war that the guy in the White House is starting: Administration announces $12 billion in aid to farmers hurt by Trump's trade war
It’s OK because it’s making the right people mad (liberals and Chinese).