Hi, Josh. I think the whole deal about "owning the libs" or "triggering the libs" is sorta funny. I consider myself conservative in a small c way. When I look at Greene, Boebert, Gaetz, or any of these other assclowns, all I can see are a bunch of people who've never been held accountable for any harm they've caused in their lives. A…
Hi, Josh. I think the whole deal about "owning the libs" or "triggering the libs" is sorta funny. I consider myself conservative in a small c way. When I look at Greene, Boebert, Gaetz, or any of these other assclowns, all I can see are a bunch of people who've never been held accountable for any harm they've caused in their lives. As such, they've been emboldened. But they're not intelligent. They're not qualified for the offices they hold. But they do reflect the moral poverty of their supporters. When Greene tries to trigger someone like me or you, I just roll my eyes because she's so transparent.
Of course, she's also very dangerous, and we can't ever forget that. But when I look at the House GOP, I actually see an opportunity. It's a volatile mix of characters, and McCarthy's not going to be able to lead them. If I were Hakeem Jeffries, I'd be asking myself how I can get them to turn against each other every day.
One thing I've been pondering lately is just how painfully obsolete the 'own the libs' mindset has become these days.
They had their heyday back in 2015-2018, because their aggressive transgression was shocking in how it so quickly mainstreamed in the party. The upset was real simply because grown-ass adults were doing stupid juvenile things and being rewarded for it. The culmination of that was the first half of Trump's term, where he achieved one of the two actual accomplishments of his term in political terms- Paul Ryan got his precious deficit-exploding tax cut. (The other major accomplishment later being McConnell's maneuvering paying off in a badly-imbalanced SCOTUS that's entirely out of step with the popular majority.)
But it's 2023 and 'own the libs' doesn't come close to actually owning the libs anymore. Online libs evolved and developed their own insulation against the noise machine and mostly learned the futility of bothering to engage with dedicated trolls.
Which leaves them in a conundrum, because by and large the MTG/Boebert/Gaetz wing don't actually have anything else to offer. They weren't elected to actually accomplish anything of substance, and they aren't the kind of people who really know how to do that. Nor do they have any particular substantive vision.
So really in political terms they're chucking grenades at vacant lots or each other because that's basically all they have. They do still represent an actual danger, of course, because idiots with guns still have guns. But what they're up against at this point is social inertia. Even if most people aren't particularly enthusiastic about the present system, they don't hate it to the extent that they're willing to suffer the chaos and deprivations that would accompany burning it down.
That's what gets us moments like the Red Trickle election.
And yeah, spot on with just how much Jeffries is going to be able to monkeywrench the House next year. Biden would be sitting pretty right now if he apparently wasn't so damn criminally stupid about his document control.
They've found classified documents in Pence's home recently as well. I suspect every former president & VP has some lying around, it's just that the authorities hadn't been paying attention until Trump's actions. More evidence that our overly-convoluted classification system is overdue for a rehaul.
We can spend all day going back and forth. That would be fun. But for now, I'll deal with this point.
"Biden would be sitting pretty right now if he apparently wasn't so damn criminally stupid about his document control."
Yeah, that was dumb. I'm not sure what happened there, but it's dumb. I've been in DoD-adjacent world for all of my career. Documents like that are supposed to have a cover sheet with the overall classification, a back sheet, the classification authority, declassification date, and the classification level of every page and every paragraph, and so on. I'm not sure how a properly marked document ends up in personal files, the key words being "properly marked".
On the other hand, intent matters. Data spills, for example, happen more often that you think. Sometimes someone unfamiliar with the classification guide for their particular program will send classified information over an unclassified network, and there are protocols to deal with that. If it were intentional, that person would be fired and lose their clearance. What Biden has going for him is as soon as he knew there was an issue, he allowed the process to recover those documents to take place without interference, and that's a big deal. The chips will fall where they fall. I don't think this will preclude the prosecution of Trump.
Back to work. Take care, Josh, and good talking to you.
Not only that. It's very possible, and this doesn't mean he is not responsible, that he assumed after the documents were viewed for whatever reason, that someone in his staff would call the National Archives and have them pick them up. The fact that the President wasn't aware that these documents had not been returned and that he's honest enough to bring it to everyone's attention.
That is remarkable because the President has the right to view these documents.
He could have told his lawyer to bring them to the White House. At that point he could notify the National Archives to come and pick them up. There would been no mishandling of classified documents.
Hi, Josh. I think the whole deal about "owning the libs" or "triggering the libs" is sorta funny. I consider myself conservative in a small c way. When I look at Greene, Boebert, Gaetz, or any of these other assclowns, all I can see are a bunch of people who've never been held accountable for any harm they've caused in their lives. As such, they've been emboldened. But they're not intelligent. They're not qualified for the offices they hold. But they do reflect the moral poverty of their supporters. When Greene tries to trigger someone like me or you, I just roll my eyes because she's so transparent.
Of course, she's also very dangerous, and we can't ever forget that. But when I look at the House GOP, I actually see an opportunity. It's a volatile mix of characters, and McCarthy's not going to be able to lead them. If I were Hakeem Jeffries, I'd be asking myself how I can get them to turn against each other every day.
One thing I've been pondering lately is just how painfully obsolete the 'own the libs' mindset has become these days.
They had their heyday back in 2015-2018, because their aggressive transgression was shocking in how it so quickly mainstreamed in the party. The upset was real simply because grown-ass adults were doing stupid juvenile things and being rewarded for it. The culmination of that was the first half of Trump's term, where he achieved one of the two actual accomplishments of his term in political terms- Paul Ryan got his precious deficit-exploding tax cut. (The other major accomplishment later being McConnell's maneuvering paying off in a badly-imbalanced SCOTUS that's entirely out of step with the popular majority.)
But it's 2023 and 'own the libs' doesn't come close to actually owning the libs anymore. Online libs evolved and developed their own insulation against the noise machine and mostly learned the futility of bothering to engage with dedicated trolls.
Which leaves them in a conundrum, because by and large the MTG/Boebert/Gaetz wing don't actually have anything else to offer. They weren't elected to actually accomplish anything of substance, and they aren't the kind of people who really know how to do that. Nor do they have any particular substantive vision.
So really in political terms they're chucking grenades at vacant lots or each other because that's basically all they have. They do still represent an actual danger, of course, because idiots with guns still have guns. But what they're up against at this point is social inertia. Even if most people aren't particularly enthusiastic about the present system, they don't hate it to the extent that they're willing to suffer the chaos and deprivations that would accompany burning it down.
That's what gets us moments like the Red Trickle election.
And yeah, spot on with just how much Jeffries is going to be able to monkeywrench the House next year. Biden would be sitting pretty right now if he apparently wasn't so damn criminally stupid about his document control.
They've found classified documents in Pence's home recently as well. I suspect every former president & VP has some lying around, it's just that the authorities hadn't been paying attention until Trump's actions. More evidence that our overly-convoluted classification system is overdue for a rehaul.
We can spend all day going back and forth. That would be fun. But for now, I'll deal with this point.
"Biden would be sitting pretty right now if he apparently wasn't so damn criminally stupid about his document control."
Yeah, that was dumb. I'm not sure what happened there, but it's dumb. I've been in DoD-adjacent world for all of my career. Documents like that are supposed to have a cover sheet with the overall classification, a back sheet, the classification authority, declassification date, and the classification level of every page and every paragraph, and so on. I'm not sure how a properly marked document ends up in personal files, the key words being "properly marked".
On the other hand, intent matters. Data spills, for example, happen more often that you think. Sometimes someone unfamiliar with the classification guide for their particular program will send classified information over an unclassified network, and there are protocols to deal with that. If it were intentional, that person would be fired and lose their clearance. What Biden has going for him is as soon as he knew there was an issue, he allowed the process to recover those documents to take place without interference, and that's a big deal. The chips will fall where they fall. I don't think this will preclude the prosecution of Trump.
Back to work. Take care, Josh, and good talking to you.
Not only that. It's very possible, and this doesn't mean he is not responsible, that he assumed after the documents were viewed for whatever reason, that someone in his staff would call the National Archives and have them pick them up. The fact that the President wasn't aware that these documents had not been returned and that he's honest enough to bring it to everyone's attention.
That is remarkable because the President has the right to view these documents.
He could have told his lawyer to bring them to the White House. At that point he could notify the National Archives to come and pick them up. There would been no mishandling of classified documents.