The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[GreysonCarlisle]

@JohnT

Ex-Exxon exec, Texan Rex, next ex-Sec!

Nice!

[Sage_Rat]

As to the Tillerson ousting itself, I think the main thing to note is that all of the adults are getting the cut. If John Kelly leaves, the White House is likely going to melt down in a fashion so unbelievable that the first three months of the Trump Presidency will look tame. And I think that moment is coming on quicker than most are expecting. I think Trump fatigue has prevented the media from appreciating the quick changes that are happening in the White House and how directly that ties to Mueller’s newest publications.

[BlankSlate]

Trump should have “I have no fucking idea what I’m doing!” tattooed on his forehead.

[BobLibDem]

@GreysonCarlisle

Nice!

Agreed. Awesome, in my opinion.

Did Putin sign off on the replacement?

[JohnT]

So, will the suicide pact “cost” us Mnuchin and Mattis?

[Fiveyearlurker]

Trump’s personal assistant was fired and escorted from the White House sans jacket. That said, the unspecified security issue is not a problem for Trump, as McEntree is joining the campaign.

[Ike_Witt]

@JohnT

So, will the suicide pact “cost” us Mnuchin and Mattis?

And how much actual suicide is involved?

[GreysonCarlisle]

Awww, Trump’s got a Mini-Me!

“Tremendous energy, tremendous intellect,” Trump said of Pompeo. “We are always on the same wavelength. The relationship is very, very good, and that’s what I need as secretary of State.”

• The Hill

[wonky]

@GreysonCarlisle

Awww, Trump’s got a Mini-Me!

• The Hill

Trump: “I made decision to oust Tillerson ‘by myself’”

Trump: And I tied my shoes!

Narrator: The shoes were fastened with Velcro.

[The_Stainless_Steel_Rat]

So let me see if I got this straight; The President is planning to take the unprecedented step of meeting with the leader of North Korea in a couple of months without an Ambassador to South Korea in place and several of the top experts in the field retiring or leaving shortly, and this is the time to fire your Secretary of State?

Clusterfuck in the making, indeed.

[GreysonCarlisle]

@The_Stainless_Steel_Rat

So let me see if I got this straight; The President is planning to take the unprecedented step of meeting with the leader of North Korea in a couple of months without an Ambassador to South Korea in place and several of the top experts in the field retiring or leaving shortly, and this is the time to fire your Secretary of State?

Clusterfuck in the making, indeed.

And install a SoS who has been vocal about needing regime change in North Korea.

[voltaire]

@Sage_Rat

I’m more interested in the person that he’s appointing to head the CIA.

It sounds like she oversaw the worst of the torture sessions that Bush II approved. While I’m sure that the media will go insane over that, I suspect that there’s more to the woman than that one factoid, but that one factoid is also probably the whole reason that Trump chose her; it keeps the media fed and boosts his image as a tough guy.

In reality, she may be more the type who will jump on a grenade if her commander tells her to sort of person. That she oversaw a torture scheme that was ordered from above could, certainly, mean that she’s into that sort of thing. But it could just as well tell us that she’s gung-ho for law and order and duty to ones country.

I doubt that Trump did much vetting. On the whole, I think he’s running in crazy mode because of the latest Mueller revelations about the Internet Research Agency, Gates Flipping, the Mitt Romney issue, Van Der Zwaan, and the Seychelles meeting and is just going around everyone in his cabinet rather than listening to anyone anymore.

So that could mean that she could just become a further extension of Trump, doing whatever he orders blindly, even if it means sending an assassin after Mueller or running a money laundering scheme through the CIA. It could mean that she starts suggesting some supremely heinous activities for the CIA to start getting involved in - if she is a psychopath - which Trump would immediately jump all over.

In general, I think, the CIA doesn’t tend to have one of its own promoted to lead the organization and that’s probably because the CIA has a sufficient potential for shadiness that you really want an outside, clean, and trustworthy person to oversee it. It’s likely that, whatever sort of personality that this lady has, whatever brakes the CIA has on it are about to come off.

In thinking about what that means, probably the most likely target will be the Middle East - specifically, Iran.

Traditionally, the CIA mostly seemed to be best on destabilizing governments (often by outright giving different groups money and weapons, in a fairly non-secretive manner). In terms of intelligence gathering, they’ve always been more a collector of intel that other gleaned, rather than great at gathering intel themselves. (Though, possibly that has improved over the last few decades.)

My expectation will be that the CIA becomes the puppet force of Israel and the UAE. Both countries will want all of the intel that they have access to. Israel will probably team up to start destroying shit in Iran. The UAE will probably meander, paying Trump to give them access to all of the training and trinkets that the CIA has at its disposal, so that they can build and squander the world’s most overly trained and financed intelligence force.

And, obviously, they’ll torture some people along the way.

I suppose, overall, not the worst thing in the world. But it probably will crank up the Middle Eastern war another notch.

To quote my post from the more topically specific thread:

@voltaire

So, Pompeo’s deputy is nominated to run the CIA, which probably leaves the Tea Partier in effective control of both our foreign intel and our foreign policy. What could go wrong? I guess it’ll be easier with one guy in charge of our “diplomats” and our diplomats.

As for Pompeo and the UAE, he’s even more buddy-buddy with Saudi Arabia, so Qatar should probably be worried. He once traveled to S.A. to honor the then-Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Muhammad bin Nayef with the CIA’s “George Tenet” Medal.

But the Mike Pompeo who accused Assange of “making common cause with dictators” is the very same Mike Pompeo who – just eight weeks ago – placed one of the CIA’s most cherished awards in the hands of one of the world’s most savage tyrants, who also happens to be one of the U.S. Government’s closest allies. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and literally embraced and honored the Saudi royal next-in-line to the throne.
This nauseating event – widely covered by the international press yet almost entirely ignored by the U.S. media – was celebrated by the Saudi-owned outlet Al Arabiya: “The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, received a medal on Friday from the CIA . . . . The medal, named after George Tenet, was handed to him by CIA Director Micheal Pompeo after the Crown Prince received him in Riyadh on Friday in the presence of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.”
The description of this Pompeo/Saudi award ceremony was first reported by the official Saudi Press Agency, which published the above photographs. It gushed: “In a press statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), following the reception, the Crown Prince expressed appreciation of the CIA for bestowing on him such a grace, laying assertion that this medal is a fruit of endeavors and instructions of the leaders of the kingdom, notably the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, bravery of security men and cooperation of all walks of the community to combat terrorism.”

Trump's CIA Director Pompeo, Targeting WikiLeaks, Explicitly Threatens Speech...

[D_Odds]

Stay classy, Shit-Gibbon. Trump reportedly didn’t even tell Rex Tillerson he was being fired — or why

[Chefguy]

Glad Tillerson is gone; the guy was inept and a poor leader. Unfortunately, appointing Pompeo to the post is an unsurprisingly huge mistake. Most of the world believes that the DOS is no more than a front for the CIA to spy on them (which is partially true), and this will just confirm their fears, making diplomacy all that more difficult. Additionally, the guy is a hawk, which means diplomacy is likely his weakest asset.

[wonky]

@Chefguy

Glad Tillerson is gone; the guy was inept and a poor leader.

True. And yet still one of the better Trump appointees! Ah, what a great administration.

[Sage_Rat]

@Chefguy

Glad Tillerson is gone; the guy was inept and a poor leader. Unfortunately, appointing Pompeo to the post is an unsurprisingly huge mistake. Most of the world believes that the DOS is no more than a front for the CIA to spy on them (which is partially true), and this will just confirm their fears, making diplomacy all that more difficult. Additionally, the guy is a hawk, which means diplomacy is likely his weakest asset.

Since he fired the consulting firm that he had tasked to reorganize the DOS, Tillerson seems to have become significantly better at his job - not that Trump had any use for the organization.

That said, I’m not sure that I believe that Pompeo is a bad guy. I’m actually pretty willing to believe that he’s been playing Trump as a fool this whole time. The nice thing with running the CIA is that there are (generally) no leaks and very few public speaking engagements. Tillerson had to contend with people blathering about him all of the time, and an expectation of dealing with the press regularly. One should note, after all, that most of the people who have bitten it in Trump’s White House are those involved in Press engagement. Making Trump look bad or stupid is the greatest sin in Trump-world.

While Pompeo has gone out of his way to talk about what a stable genius the President is, he has also confirmed Russian interference in the election and been friendly towards the Lawfare folks. As of yet, there have been no scandals out of the CIA nor rumors of them doing anything scary.

Pompeo’s neck is out a bit further than Mattis, because of his few public statements about Russia, but otherwise he looks a lot like a Mattis-sort, quietly doing what it takes to appease Trump while running a tight ship that does serious work.

That could be a false impression. I haven’t looked back over his history previous to taking over the CIA but, at the moment, I’m reasonably optimistic that the DOS will be in good hands.

[BeenJammin]

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Russia Investigation Summary.

After a year they find nothing but a bunch of bullshit - mostly relating to Intel and operational failures of the previous administration. Maybe it will be remembered as the most expensive, time-consuming bit of non-revelatory nonsense ever purchased by the American taxpayer.

And appropriately, let’s see if we can push this thread right along with it to a new record here. It’s up well over 17k - have at it, fuckasses!

[BobLibDem]

@BeenJammin

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Russia Investigation Summary.

After a year they find nothing but a bunch of bullshit - mostly relating to Intel and operational failures of the previous administration. Maybe it will be remembered as the most expensive, time-consuming bit of non-revelatory nonsense ever purchased by the American taxpayer.

And appropriately, let’s see if we can push this thread right along with it to a new record here. It’s up well over 17k - have at it, fuckasses!

When you gouge out your eyeballs, break your eardrums with icepicks, and put boxing gloves on your hands you won’t find anything, either. They didn’t find anything because they refused to look.

[JohnT]

@BeenJammin

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Russia Investigation Summary.

After a year they find nothing but a bunch of bullshit - mostly relating to Intel and operational failures of the previous administration. Maybe it will be remembered as the most expensive, time-consuming bit of non-revelatory nonsense ever purchased by the American taxpayer.

And appropriately, let’s see if we can push this thread right along with it to a new record here. It’s up well over 17k - have at it, fuckasses!

You misspelled “Benghazi”.

[bobot]

@The_Stainless_Steel_Rat

So let me see if I got this straight; The President is planning to take the unprecedented step of meeting with the leader of North Korea in a couple of months without an Ambassador to South Korea in place and several of the top experts in the field retiring or leaving shortly, and this is the time to fire your Secretary of State?

Clusterfuck in the making, indeed.

This is otherwise known as MAGA!