Job interviewer: What's your greatest weakness?
Me: Honesty.
Job interviewer: I don't think it is a weakness.
Me: I don't give a fuck what you think.
Quote from article: The willingness of government officials to ignore the rule of law in order to buy peace gave us enduring reverence for the principles of the Confederacy, along with countless dead Unionists, mostly Black people, killed as former Confederates reclaimed supremacy in the South. It also gave us the idea that presidents cannot be held accountable for crimes, a belief that likely made some of the presidents who followed Nixon less careful about following the law than they might have been if they had seen Nixon indicted.
Holding a former president accountable for an alleged profound attack on the United States is indeed unprecedented, as his supporters insist. But far from being a bad thing to stand firm on the rule of law at the upper levels of government, it seems to fall into the category of āhigh time.ā
āDONALD TRUMP UNDER ARREST, IN FEDERAL CUSTODY.ā It was quite a chyron from CNN, marking the first time in the history of the United States that a former president has been charged with federal crimes. And in this case, what crimes they are: the willful retention, sharing, and hiding of classified documents that compromise our national security. Trumpās own national security advisor John Bolton said, āThis is material that in the hands of Americaās adversaries would do incalculable damage to the United States. This is a very serious case and itās not financial fraud, itās not hush money to porn stars, this is the national security of the United States at stake. I think weāve got to take the politics out of this business when national security is at stake.ā
I don't see nearly enough people talking about the staggering cost to the US and allies as a result of The Former Guy's theft.
Politics is one thing, but in the Intelligence and Counterintelligence communities, there are protocols. And one protocol you can take to the bank: When a man who is known to have back channel connections to literally every one of our enemies steals a trove of classified documents, you treat every single one of them as if they are now owned by our enemies.
Let the gravity of that sink in. Every single agent mentioned is now compromised. Every agent alluded to is compromised. Every combat plan is now available for all our enemies to develop countermeasures for. Every secret plan to develop intelligence on our enemies is now a dead end.
There were nuclear secrets in there.
How do you begin to calculate the impact and cost of the enemy knowing our nuclear secrets, including potentially our plans if Putin were to launch a limited nuclear strike?
We will never know the cost of it, because it's all SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET TO PROTECT US FROM OUR ENEMIES. But however much you think it cost, it was probably more.
The Defense Department and Intelligence Community don't have the luxury of hoping he didn't make the sales we all know he made.
They have to assume he sold all of it. Whether it's ever proven or not.
This is one of the worst crimes ever committed by a US citizen against the US.
If/when the former guy is finally convicted, he should also be made to pay for all of the additional security and policing costs used to protect legal venues like courthouses.
The tax payer should NOT be on the hook for his and the Republican party's violent post-indictment rhetoric.
As (sadly) predicted, Big Journalism -- while apparently trying in some cases to do this right -- mostly continue to treat the Trump criminality as just one really interesting side in a horse race story.
The NY Times and Washington Post coverage, at least some of it, is especially egregious today.
Meanwhile in Canada
nixCraft š§
Author Sharon E. Cathcart ā
Dudish š¶
donni saphire
Will Allen
Ham on Wry
Morgan Fairchild
Dan Gillmor