Couldn't Ajax just assign it to his willingness to believe crap stuff?
I think some people just need to believe in a grand war of good vs evil, and they’re on the right side of it. Most people I’ve ever known, to include my own father, who believe(d) in these sort of things are essentially powerless and unhappy with their station in life. Larping at gnostic knowledge and ‘discovering’ nefarious schemes gives them a sense of control they otherwise lack. I’d recommend Buddhism for these people, but the concept of true ownership over one’s feelings is as foreign to them as speaking Gynese.
- Doc
So much truth and insight in this post.
Meanwhile, Karl Rove goes on FOX News, knowing full well that their intended audience is semi-retarded, so decided he had to literally spell it out for them on a white board why the Biden document case is very different from and far less serious than Trump's willful deception, intentional theft, and attempted coverup. You really can't make this stuff up.
Now that classified docs were found in Pence's home, I'm thinking our system and guidelines regarding how classified documents are handled and tracked by politicians is deeply broken.
Stay tuned for classified document's turning up in the gardening shed of Dan Quayle's Arizona home, and Dick Cheney's secret torture dungeon.
You beat me to the post by about 30 seconds, Steuss (are we on the same bathroom schedule too?).
Yeah, ignoring for a moment the argument of "who's handling was worse", I think we also need a good hard look at the entire system. What is getting classified, how are we tracking access to these documents, what are the procedures for folks leaving office, etc.
I personally don't have enough hubris or knowledge to think I have the answer to these questions but I do know this. In my process improvement work if I had a retailer that was constantly running into issues with store keys going missing, safe/alarm codes being misplaced (or being used by folks no longer employed by us), IT security breaches... We'd be taking some hard looks at the protocols around those things. At this point I think I can safely assume that almost any high ranking public official likely has at least one classified doc in a box somewhere and that doesn't sound like a winning setup to me. And as a Normal Joe I don't really know any more if that is supposed to bother me. Are these documents that contain "real" national secrets or are these the equivalent to Nana's secret cookie recipe*?
I guess this also raises the question of needing another special counsel to look at Pence's situation but I'm curious how this impacts the public perception of the topic and special counsels generically. Having 3 running at once seems like it paints all three of these situations as the same but also if nothing really comes from them then I wonder if some of the public perception of these counsels and their roles loses some oomph.
*she just wrote down the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag
He/Him
"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation." -L.P. Jacks
You beat me to the post by about 30 seconds, Steuss (are we on the same bathroom schedule too?).
Yeah, ignoring for a moment the argument of "who's handling was worse", I think we also need a good hard look at the entire system. What is getting classified, how are we tracking access to these documents, what are the procedures for folks leaving office, etc.
I personally don't have enough hubris or knowledge to think I have the answer to these questions but I do know this. In my process improvement work if I had a retailer that was constantly running into issues with store keys going missing, safe/alarm codes being misplaced (or being used by folks no longer employed by us), IT security breaches... We'd be taking some hard looks at the protocols around those things. At this point I think I can safely assume that almost any high ranking public official likely has at least one classified doc in a box somewhere and that doesn't sound like a winning setup to me. And as a Normal Joe I don't really know any more if that is supposed to bother me. Are these documents that contain "real" national secrets or are these the equivalent to Nana's secret cookie recipe*?
I guess this also raises the question of needing another special counsel to look at Pence's situation but I'm curious how this impacts the public perception of the topic and special counsels generically. Having 3 running at once seems like it paints all three of these situations as the same but also if nothing really comes from them then I wonder if some of the public perception of these counsels and their roles loses some oomph.
*she just wrote down the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag
If it really is rule by the people, shouldn't voters have a right to know what is in these classified documents so they can know what they're voting on? I don't see a whole lot of protecting the citizenry as the purpose behind these documents being classified. It looks a lot more like protecting the bureaucracy of partisan appointed public officials as the driving force behind the decision of what is classified and what is leaked.
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
If it really is rule by the people, shouldn't voters have a right to know what is in these classified documents so they can know what they're voting on?
Non sequitur and no. You may see what you want to see here, but having a representative democracy doesn't mean everyone everywhere should have access to any information they want whenever they want it. Complicated social structures like those that make all the things you enjoy about life possible demand a certain degree of trust with mechanisms for oversight. International politics require states to have tiers of information with access based on certain privileges and needs. This is quite frankly about as dumb as a person comparing a national budget to a household budget. Works for memes but also as a neon arrow saying, "Dumb idiot right here!"
I think Xeno and Steuss are right, and there are systemic flaws in the system. It strikes me that so far the leakage we are seeing are civilian politicians whose election to office mandates they be given access to information that is otherwise restricted to folks who have been through training and filters likely to ensure better compliance can be kept and whose careers or freedom are on the line were they to fail to follow procedures that apparently don't translate to high political officers. Were we seeing discoveries in the private home offices of high level CIA directors or military officers I'd be concerned the entire system is broken. As it stands it seems to me the issues are in how permeable the barrier is between professional handlers of classified information and the elected civilians whose access is determined weeks before they are granted that access and then have daily amounts of said material passed through their control until they then give up their seats for the next person who was elected to the job. Something is certainly broken. It isn't that you can't have access to whatever information so you can vote any less intelligently than you do already.
Do I seem testy? That stupid Carter Page book arrived and whatever slim chance I gave to it not being a waste of time is gone. You owe me ajax. This book is garbage.
Do I seem testy? That stupid Carter Page book arrived and whatever slim chance I gave to it not being a waste of time is gone. You owe me ajax. This book is garbage.
I agree that it's not possible for every voter to know everything. It just seems like a weakness in the system that they cannot.
What exactly do you think Carter Page is lying about in his book? I've been studying a lot of Russian lately and taking a break from politics.
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
I think Xeno and Steuss are right, and there are systemic flaws in the system. It strikes me that so far the leakage we are seeing are civilian politicians whose election to office mandates they be given access to information that is otherwise restricted to folks who have been through training and filters likely to ensure better compliance can be kept and whose careers or freedom are on the line were they to fail to follow procedures that apparently don't translate to high political officers. Were we seeing discoveries in the private home offices of high level CIA directors or military officers I'd be concerned the entire system is broken. As it stands it seems to me the issues are in how permeable the barrier is between professional handlers of classified information and the elected civilians whose access is determined weeks before they are granted that access and then have daily amounts of said material passed through their control until they then give up their seats for the next person who was elected to the job. Something is certainly broken. It isn't that you can't have access to whatever information so you can vote any less intelligently than you do already.
I think you're right on point here, honor. I know some folks on the board have had some experience with classified materials via their military service and I imagine that those experiences don't align with how we are seeing public officials handling these materials. I suspect you could laser focus improvement strategies around how you onboard public officials and their teams, exit protocols for document recovery during transition periods, while also taking a hard look at what precisely we are defining as classified in order to make some meaningful changes and improvements.
He/Him
"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation." -L.P. Jacks
I think Xeno and Steuss are right, and there are systemic flaws in the system. It strikes me that so far the leakage we are seeing are civilian politicians whose election to office mandates they be given access to information that is otherwise restricted to folks who have been through training and filters likely to ensure better compliance can be kept and whose careers or freedom are on the line were they to fail to follow procedures that apparently don't translate to high political officers. Were we seeing discoveries in the private home offices of high level CIA directors or military officers I'd be concerned the entire system is broken. As it stands it seems to me the issues are in how permeable the barrier is between professional handlers of classified information and the elected civilians whose access is determined weeks before they are granted that access and then have daily amounts of said material passed through their control until they then give up their seats for the next person who was elected to the job. Something is certainly broken. It isn't that you can't have access to whatever information so you can vote any less intelligently than you do already.
I think you're right on point here, honor. I know some folks on the board have had some experience with classified materials via their military service and I imagine that those experiences don't align with how we are seeing public officials handling these materials. I suspect you could laser focus improvement strategies around how you onboard public officials and their teams, exit protocols for document recovery during transition periods, while also taking a hard look at what precisely we are defining as classified in order to make some meaningful changes and improvements.
And then the dopey politicians would whine and moan about a dEeP sTaTe while their dopey electorate nods vigorously in agreement.
- Doc
Donald Trump doesn’t know who is third in line for the Presidency.
The Hur testimony and transcripts really turned this into a nothing burger. Of course Hur was able to sidestep some of it, and the conservative media is still running with their spin, but for the adults in the room it was pretty devastating. Of course Jim Jordan and Comer would never dream of holding Trump to the same standard they want to hold Biden to. Shame on the liberal media for taking Hur's summary and running with it, and shame on Hur for being such a partisan hack.