Slashdot Mirror
White House Says Anonymous 'Coward' Behind New York Times Op-Ed Should Resign (freerepublic.com)
Earlier today, The New York Times published an op-ed from an anonymous staffer in the Trump administration, who has "vowed to thwart parts of [President Trump's] agenda and his worst inclinations," citing the president's amorality. The staffer writes: "We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office." An anonymous [coward] shares the response from the White House: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders ripped the anonymous senior White House staffer who wrote an op-ed for The New York Times slamming President Trump's conduct. "The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected President of the United States," she said in a statement. "He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people. This coward should do the right thing and resign," she added. Trump himself called the op-ed's author "gutless." He tweeted: "Does the so-called 'Senior Administration Official' really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!"
The New York Times op-ed page editor Jim Dao described the process behind publishing the op-ed, telling CNN that the official contacted him "through an intermediary." He said that the New York Times also spoke with the anonymous individual but there are only a "very small number of people within the Times who know this person's identity." Dao didn't provide a gender for the person, but the author was described in a New York Times tweet as a "he" earlier Wednesday. [The Times later said that the tweet was a mistake and that it "was drafted by someone who is not aware of the author's identity."] Furthermore, Dao "said there was no special effort to disguise the person's writing style, for example by rewriting the piece in some fashion," reports CNN. "'There's editing in everything we do,' he said, but it's based on making the person's views 'clearer' and adhering to style standards."
A separate CNN article highlights 12 senior Trump administration officials who may be behind the op-ed.
The New York Times op-ed page editor Jim Dao described the process behind publishing the op-ed, telling CNN that the official contacted him "through an intermediary." He said that the New York Times also spoke with the anonymous individual but there are only a "very small number of people within the Times who know this person's identity." Dao didn't provide a gender for the person, but the author was described in a New York Times tweet as a "he" earlier Wednesday. [The Times later said that the tweet was a mistake and that it "was drafted by someone who is not aware of the author's identity."] Furthermore, Dao "said there was no special effort to disguise the person's writing style, for example by rewriting the piece in some fashion," reports CNN. "'There's editing in everything we do,' he said, but it's based on making the person's views 'clearer' and adhering to style standards."
A separate CNN article highlights 12 senior Trump administration officials who may be behind the op-ed.
I've been posting on slashdot nonstop, wasn't me
Working for an employer you constantly seek to undermine is straight up bullshit. Either get out and berate them publicly, or work for the interests of who you are working for.
For those that support this guy, you do realize he completely validated every single post anyone ever made about the Deep State, right? I mean this is as Deep State as Deep State gets. So much so I almost think Trump penned the op-ed - it certainly will do a great job of bringing in votes for the GOP and pushing anyone with even a tiny bit of ethics left in them away from the Democrats.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Iâ(TM)m a senior official in the whitehouse now, lo and behold the new found authority and authorship of the beguiled, holierthantho, Lord and Almighty, Anonymous :)
If you think the President is unable to carry out his responsibilities, you have a duty to bring about impeachment and/or invoke the 25th Amendment.
Going behind the back of and trying to undermine the Chief Executive in this fashion is unprofessional, cowardly, and unconstitutional.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'm all for the "stuff that matters" part, but this is political minutiae. If there was a tech angle fine, but I don't see any. If the editors are going to greenlight political stories stick to the major ones. Not some random staffer who's dad probably made him take the job. I mean, we've got a SCOTUS nomination process going on right now...
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Yes, not Wall St. and London bankers.
Honestly the most disconcerting thing about this is that the author cites some of the worst things this administration has done as their few "successes" and says they were accomplished despite, not because of, Trump. I think Trump is an amoral buffoon and a disgrace to the nation as much as the author seems to, but I'm honestly a little glad to hear that that buffoon is gumming up the plans of those who want to rape and pillage our country for their own profit, instead of Darth Pence streamlining that process.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Whoever wrote this is a coward.
There are no "unsung heroes" in this White House. This is an escape hatch for the people who followed power for power's sake: "oh, sure, I was really fighting the good fight inside the White House, so you should be thanking me!"
Think there's a real problem here? Think the President is unfit for office? Then get to work on 25th Amendment proceedings if you're in a position to do so, or if not, resign and tell all of this to Congress. Don't stage a mini-coup and call it heroism. That's bull.
It's no secret the President is unfit for this office. It hasn't ever been a secret. This staffer, and their allies? They're complicit in everything. This is just a weak-ass attempt to make themselves look good.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
What bugged me more than mucking with Donald Trump was the things he's proud of.
Effective deregulation? Um, guys, those regulations weren't just written by some clown in a leather chair thinking, "Hey, let's make things hard for coal companies!". No. Those regulations came about because coal companies were killing people. People died for those regulations. Removing them? How many people do you want to kill off so coal barons can make more money?
Historic tax reform? Um, no, that wasn't historic tax reform, that was a giant giveaway to the already massively rich at the cost of blowing the government's budget for at least the next 20 years. No, it's not going to 'trickle down'. No, it's not going to 'stimulate the economy'. It's going to rip off poor people and give money to the rich. I'm rich, and I look to save quite a bit from that "tax reform", and I still think it's asinine.
A more robust military? Hello, ours is already by far the most expensive military in the world, and you want to spend MORE money on it? Howzabout spending a tiny fraction of that on peace instead?
I know that Mr. Anonymous Coward (a different anonymous coward than this one) is a Republican, but each and every one of those 'accomplishments' is sheer stupidity.
AC
"White House Says Anonymous 'Coward'..."
So who's the Anonymous Coward that goes by the name "White House"?
A few days before Bob Woodward book release (“Fear: Trump in the White House”), an "anonymous senior Trump official" writes op-ed on "resistance" within administration... saying basically that, "yes, Trump is bad and has his drawbacks but the White House is working well and delivers thanks to a competent team that supports the president". Meaning: Trump might be as bad as described in the book, but he still delivers, thus the book has no real value. Preemptive defense.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I think this person should definitely stand up, make their identity known, and resign their post. Seriously, enough of his flunkies have/will resign/ed -- couldn't you just claim credit for the op-ed while walking out the door? His staff could milk this for low-grade chuckles over the entire rest of his term.
Do you not hear what this person is saying? What dozens upon dozens of highly-knowledgeable people with decades of experience at the highest levels of government have been blaring from the rooftops, with ever-increasing urgency? Our current President - morally unfit, erratic, unstable, with a love for authoritarianism, and disdain for our Constitution - poses a grave danger to our Republic. To our freedom. We are in a full-blown constitutional crisis. People who value our democracy are fighting to save it. The United States, as a country, desperately needs more democracy-loving heroes like McCain.
Working to undermine the POTUS in the White House.
Subterfuge at best.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
that is detrimental to the health of our republic."
You don't get to decide that.
Regardless of your opinion of Trump's policies, he is the democratically elected representative of the people of this nation. Sabotage from within by an unelected, anonymous staffer is the antithesis of a representational republic. If the president is a danger to the nation, present your evidence and plead your case for impeachment to the nation and to congress.
On a related note this is a new low for the NY times. They seem determined to hasten the death of old media by burning any journalistic integrity they have left.
So, if anyone had any doubts that the deep state exists, this should pretty much put an end to them. This attempt at circumventing the elected government is incredibly harmful. You want to know the endgame of this? Pakistan. Pakistan is run not by the elected government, but by its intelligence community. They take actions that are in their own interest, not in the interest of the country, and as a result Pakistan is a shithole and will never get any better.
A better way to approach the problem might be to ask what does America's deep state think of you?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30027384-what-washington-gets-wrong
They would very much like the Pakistani model, where there is an elected figurehead, but they rule us. For our own good, of course.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I've heard of this happening before. It's entirely likely that the kernel module isn't loaded. First, try:
modinfo -v nytoped
look that the dependencies contain the anonymity you're looking for. Assuming that the version number is correct, then you're all set! Just:
modprob anon
Best wishes!
Even though I responded it is a major failing of Slashdot the purely political pieces like this are put on the front page and poison the whole site.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Given the number of Trump appointees that have resigned from Trump's government or been sacked, you wonder how many people actually work on Trump's agenda! These are people Trump chose, so its hardly some sort of Deep State conspiracy thing.
"it certainly will do a great job of bringing in votes for the GOP "
Again, these are people Trump appointed, who've turned on him, and they were Republicans through and through.
The man who licks Putin's boots and bullies the refugees, the Draft-Dodger-In-Chief, the man without the courage or fortitude to have any kind of consistent moral principles whatsoever, is a coward and should resign.
As a Republican I say that not only the nation but also the party will be better off when he's stepped down (or been declared incompetent, or impeached, or assassinated, or voted out of office if he makes it the full four years).
Trump contradicts himself rapidly, and other than 'towards incivility' one never knows what direction he'll be pointed tomorrow. So if people don't overturn the country to implement the latest rage tweet (only to have the opposite direction tweeted tomorrow), they're not really being unfaithful to their boss, much less being traitors to the nation. They're performing the vital service of helping steady the keel of the ship of state through this self-inflicted storm.
Except this supposed 'deep state' Obama/Clinton conspiracy is by people APPOINTED BY TRUMP, who've turn on Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/08/thirty-seven-administration-officials-whove-resigned-or-been-fired-under-trump/
Republicans, chosen by Trump. Shallow state not deep state. 37 Republicans have turned on him so far and resigned or been sacked.
But yeh, at the core of it is the vote. Americans didn't vote for him, and so they don't feel any need to go along with his random bullshit.
you're drinking and/or smoking. That's some next level crazy you've got going on right there. Like Alex Jones by way of too much Nyquil.
Like I said, this is more than likely just a disgruntled staffer who didn't want to take the job and got pressured into it by their folks or something. Trump doesn't need anyone to sabotage his agenda. He can do bad all by himself.
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like Jones getting banned or when Trump won the election. Like I said, stuff that matters. But this? But then here I am commenting on it. To be fair I'm icing a sore muscle here and posting on /. works for that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But they all take the following oath that has nothing to do with the Executive. “I, , do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” There is a distinct difference. They work for the federal government. They're not taking a loyalty oath to the POTUS.
Shocked I tell you.
Please remember the Steele Dossier and it's vaguely cited anonymous sources. Please remember how accurate it has turned out to have been.
The worth of an anonymous source is close to zero beyond maybe telling you where to look to dig for real information or maybe telling you where the misinformation lives as it distracts you from the real stuff. Off hand this pile on of anonymous sources has the ring of a Soviet Union misinformation propaganda campaign. "They say....", "They all say....", "A highly placed source says....", and its all lies.
{^_^}
You'd think he was worried about someone trying to fire him, throw him in jail, getting executed or something...
Trump took it with stride and didn't rant about it make threats right?
He did?
I guess there's a valid reason that person decided to be an A.C. in this situation.
There is a bozotivity threshold once exceeded whereby that rule is out the window.
Table-ized A.I.
Pattern-matching/machine learning algorithms will be used to compare the writing style and vocabulary in the article against the large sample of communications records available in the White House. The author will be found quickly.
That is not true. Not generally and not specifically. President Trump does not sign the checks of his senior officials. Since the Carter Administration, White House senior officials, including cabinet secretaries are paid under a system separate from the GS system, because the pay of a GS-15 was considered insufficient for someone of the stature of a cabinet secretary who had been a CEO. And later, the "Senior Executive Staff" designation was also considered insufficient, so exemptions were created. But the pay structure and the way they get paid is the same, as is their employer, the United States Government. And their pay is set by the same civil service laws and under the same US code as senate staffers and Supreme Court Justices and postal employees.
And by the way, no cabinet secretary or head of an armed or intelligence agency can make more than the Vice-President, by law.
In case your interested, here are the salaries of non-cabinet staff from 2017. It is amazing how few of these people are still there.
https://www.washingtonexaminer...
And here are salaries of cabinet secretaries on down.
https://work.chron.com/much-mo...
You are welcome on my lawn.
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05, 2018 @08:46PM (#57261402)
You are welcome on my lawn.
Working for an employer you always attempt to weaken is straight up bunk. The employer is the US authorities, not the president. Federal employees take an swearing to support and fight the establishment.
https://www.ilovetangerine.shop
What's it got to do with tech? Please don't tell me that even /. is now reduced to posting clickbait?
help me God. Sigh. What's wrong with you guys?
When in public Trump does not speak like someone who has all of the issues his mortal enemies wish to claim he does.
To a normal, unbiased observer he clearly does have these issues. That's the problem. It started very early with his childish and disgraceful inauguration crowd size rants and has continued since then.
Republicans amongst themselves merely seem to disagree about the extent of this erratic behavior and how much it hinders the functioning of the government. Some think it's harmless and just another governance style, others think its a problem because he's acting too impulsively and refuses to listen to reason.
The only thing he validated is the utter stupidity of our president. Anyone that votes for the GOP based on this is a fool, and yes the GOP is populated by fools. Anyone else will flee the Republican Party.
"There is no Republican Party. There's a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere."
-- John Boehner
There hasn't been a president elected by popular vote for decades because a lot of Americans don't vote. In fact, so many nowadays that even a unanimous vote may soon be unpopular.
So stop with that bullshit.
Note that less than half of the GOP voted for Trump in the primaries - even though by the time of the later primaries most of the other candidates had bowed out.
There are plenty of Republicans who didn't want this President, and painting all of us with that brush is just as foolish as the prejudiced tweets from the Blowhard-In-Chief.
Then get your act together, reclaim your party. Reform your primaries so you candidates can make unpopular but necessary decisions while in office without having to fear being primaried by a nut bag pervert like Roy Moore in the following election cycle. Then try to work together with your opponents in congress to end the tribalism and trench warfare in the US. You need to take your congress back to an earlier age when Democrats and Republicans could cooperate and compromise on sensible legislation that most American voters could live with. Until both the Dems. and the Reps, realise that the tribalism and 'my way or the highway' politics have reached the end of their lifespan the US will remain a basket case and an international laughing stock.
against all enemies, foreign and domestic
I'd say it's their damned duty to resist.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting [the duly elected President of the United States] more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
Is this one of those "we have to take away your freedom to protect it" kind of deals? Unless somebody would like to accuse Trump of election fraud he is the product of those democratic institutions. And I'm sure you can accuse him of a lot of things, but trying to dismantle democracy and install himself as supreme leader is not one of them. Raise your hand if you think Trump is not going to peacefully pass the presidency to the next duly elected president or try to dismantle Congress or the Supreme Court.
It basically comes down to "my boss is making stupid and wrong decisions". We've all been there. We've all wondered "god, who made this guy boss". And we've probably all not 100% followed up on every decision and instruction we've gotten from above. And when I do I can usually justify it by saying I'm the one down in the trenches, I know what we really need. But I am de facto replacing "popular rule" with "expert rule", I know what's really best for you. Maybe he's doing it for the country, but he's not doing it for democracy because you can't do that by undermining it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I would have modded it "interesting", not "insightful", but I never get a mod point anyway.
However what is amazing me is the lack of names here. I saw a couple of discussions going all over the place on the suspects. Originally I was convinced it was General Kelly, but now I think it is Conway trying to frame Kelly and get rid of him. Of course she's also playing the editors of the NY Times for suckers. In addition, she's surely working with Bannon on this project, which helps explain the motive. Bannon has wanted revenge on Kelly ever since he was punted out of the White House. I bet the two of the are already working on the fools at Faux and Friends to get them to pronounce Kelly guilty where Trump will see it.
Whether Kelly did it or is being framed, I bet he'll be gone within a week.
The "lodestar" was added just to confuse the issue some more. Wheels of lies within wheels.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The coward that needs to resign is Trump himself. He has been consistently working to undermine our actual democracy. Whether it has been through intent or ignorance is of no importance; he has disgraced the office and committed numerous criminal offenses. It is a shame that the critters in congress lack the collective spine to remove him through the prescribed legal mechanisms.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well I say the Anonymous Coward who's been posting here on Slashdot all these years should publicly resign!
The op-ed says:
If this were true, why publish the op-ed, something that will make such activities much harder in the future? What could a self-proclaimed member of the "quiet resistance within the administration" possibly hope to accomplish by publishing this memo?
And what evidence is there that this is real? All we have is the NYT's word for it, and they have made numerous, serious mistakes in recent years.
If you think the President is unable to carry out his responsibilities, you have a duty to bring about impeachment and/or invoke the 25th Amendment.
Only very specific people have the power to impeach the president or invoke the 25th amendment. Furthermore it requires a rare consensus among those very specific people. Everyone has to use other tactics available to them most other times. There is NO difference between a member of the administration opposing a president they disagree with versus a member of congress in the opposition party. Government workers have certain legal obligations but among them is not and never has been blind obedience to the president. This is true for EVERY citizen including you and me. This is not a monarchy and Trump is not the king.
Going behind the back of and trying to undermine the Chief Executive in this fashion is unprofessional, cowardly, and unconstitutional.
Are you really so naive as to think this doesn't happen in literally every administration? There is nothing illegal or uncommon about this. First off, where exactly in the constitution does it say something about this? The constitution says nothing about it being illegal to oppose the president while working in the executive branch. Second, falling on your sword publicly is a pointless act of martyrdom that will get nothing accomplished and counter productively facilitates exactly what is being opposed. Opposing elected officials who have failed their office is a DUTY of every citizen and being a government official does not change that. Third, it isn't even remotely cowardly - quite the opposite actually. There is quite a lot of personal risk here in speaking truth to power publicly, particularly when the person in charge is a narcissistic megalomaniac. Anonymity is a useful tool and if you think professionalism is defined by falling on your sword then you on't know what professionalism actually is.
A manifesto of a conspiracy of deep-state moles in the White House...
Calling it "deep-state" is somewhat inaccurate here. I'm not going to go with the op-ed author's sunny sounding "steady state", but "deep-state" specifically refers to the idea that career civil and military folks who predate the administration are running a shadow government. Taking the Times at their word, this guy is almost certainly a political appointee (the other option being the vice president), given they're identified as "a senior official in the Trump administration" (mentioning that their job would be in jeopardy tends to rule out the vice president, since he can't be fired by anything shy of impeachment or being replaced as running mate in the 2020 election).
Point is, since the author is (almost certainly) a political appointee (not civil service), who came in with the current administration (doesn't predate), it's not a "deep-state" scenario. "Shadow government" would be more accurate, given the author and his allies are intentionally running the gov't in ways not sanctioned by the Constitution, with no oversight, voter approval, etc., and "shadow government" doesn't require the extra qualifiers that describing it as the "deep-state" implies.
This also means that invoking the 25th amendment will backfire. After invoking that amendment, congress takes over.
The outcome of which depends on the composition of the cabinet and congress at the time. After the upcoming election the political calculus could become quite different than it is currently. I see zero chance of a Trump cabinet invoking the 25th given that they haven't already.
And that this point in time with elections upcoming, they will all loudly shout "I still love Trump so please vote for me!!" after which the VP and majority of the cabinet will quickly find themselves out of a job.
The Vice President cannot be fired from his job by the President. Only Congress can remove the VP from office via impeachment. The president has no power to remove elected officials from office. In any case it is a moot issue since there is zero chance of the 25th amendment being invoked by a Trump cabinet. Impeachment is FAR more likely if the democrats win a large majority this coming November.
This brings to mind Jamie Lanister from Game of Thrones, known as the Kingslayer because he was a member of the kingsguard and yet he killed the king. Although he was the rightful king, he was also known as the mad king because he was insane and commanded his men to kill people recklessly. When asked what the king said as Jamie stabbed him in the back he replied, "The same thing he'd been saying for hours, "burn them all!""
Although many people questioned how a member of the kingsguard could kill the "rightful" king and consider it just, Jamie indicated that the man was literally insane and was intent on mindlessly killing lots of innocent people.
While Trump is not literally saying, "burn them all!," we are hearing from high-level people in the White House that he wanted to assassinate the leader of Syria, that he has little knowledge of or concern about war on the Korean peninsula, and generally isn't intellectually up to considering the consequences of his actions and who might die as a result. But if this anonymous person is like Jamie Lanister and knows that Trump, although the elected President, is borderline insane or mentally unfit for the job, do you think it is ethically right for him to subvert the will of the elected President? I'm not speaking legally because it would seem to be illegal, but do you think it is ethical?
Neither of which are remotely related to any of this , except in the minds of the most magical thinkers.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
While I agree in principle with your comments on the oath, it is a balancing act because the same oath requires you to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter". Their duty is to the Constitution if it is actually being violated or about to be violated by some act commanded from above. If not, then faithfully discharging your duties in office should prevail. Not liking what is going on is insufficient unless the Constitution is at risk. Many in the armed forces have thought particular conflicts were wrong over the course of your history. Yet they don't get to just frustrate the orders from above with impunity and without consequence.
Nope, he says he didn't write it, and politicians never lie. https://www.bbc.com/news/world...
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
help me God. Sigh. What's wrong with you guys?
If there is a god, perhaps He will help.
If there is no god, it can't hurt to ask.
help me God. Sigh. What's wrong with you guys?
If there is a god, perhaps He will help.
If there is no god, it can't hurt to ask.
It can hurt. I suspect stupidity is contagious and US politics is my petridish.
Sabotaging a government from the inside is as anti constitutional and as treasonous agaisnt the office as you can go. There is a constitutional remedy for incompetent (as in unable to fulfill office function) president and that is the 25th. It does not matter if it is Trump or Obama or whichever, sabotaging from the inside is way over the limit. Either give up your job, and let the president do its worst, then next elections there will be a rectification. Gee the republicans staffer are really dropping the ball here.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The "loadstar" usage was just a red herring.
Michael Wolff is trying to give credibility to his new book "Fire and Fury"
And yes, it would take a constitutional amendment to set this up at the national level for the presidential elections.
This is just sound and fury before the midterms signifying nothing. The MSM has already proven that it will print outright lies (see Harry Reid calling out Mitt Romney for never paying income taxes). This is just more of the same.
So, according to mister AC someone printed something, gave it to an intermediary to put on the President's desk, then the AC stole the print out from the desk and that worked? Did the person who printed it and the other person who put it on the President's desk do no follow up? Was the President not informed before hand that there would be a document for him to sign? Were there no other stake holders to follow up about the document? How many people have access to the President's desk and wouldn't someone else notice the AC stealing the document?
No, I'm sorry to say that this does not pass the smell test. This sounds more and more like just innuendo and third hand reporting that will disappear and never be commented on again.
Precisely this. Complaints about our President's morality, mental state, etc. are opinions. Factual bases for these complaints do not exist, for some require knowing his state of mind, and well that's pretty much impossible. For anyone.
But the opposition isn't opposing him because of that. It's other things.
There have been many examples by Trump of erratic and/or aberrant behavior. It is one thing to disagree with someones politics or policies. It is quite another to see someone behaving dangerously.
Can you explain your reasons for supporting Trumps behavior? Can you explain how you think he is good for America?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Let's see, if this person goes public, then a) he's out, b) the Orange Cheetoh will have DoJ jail him, and c) he will have zero power to protect and defend the Constitution of the US.
Meanwhile, I read Trevor Noah's cmts: if this is a curbed Trump, that we thought was off the rails, the uncurbed Trump is horrifying beyond words.
I'm sure an anonymous NYT op ed will really sway a lot of votes of ... people who base their voting on anonymous NYT op eds.
It just sounds like they are acting like a low-pass filter, which is a sensible design consideration for any noisy system.
Slaves have to be sold!
If you actually read the Op-Ed, it's very clear that the "Resistance within the White House" is not the "Deep State" that Trump whinges about. This "Resistance within the White House" is a part of the radical right wing of the Republican party that finds Trump repugnant but wants to stuff in as many tax cuts for the wealthy and ultra-conservative judges as possible before the Trump White House is consumed by hellfire. There is NOTHING honorable that they can claim to be accomplishing by doing so.
One of the popular hashtags regarding this publication is #VeepThroat, based upon the use of use of the word "lodestar" in the op-ed. It's not at all clear that this is dispositive, or even a willing or unwilling false-flag signal. But the term is enticing, particularly as Woodward's "Fear" is coming out on 9/11.
True that. Of course, if you identify as one or the other, for convenience, you may not be a member of the Deep State. It's your acceptance of and support for the Deep State that determines your membership...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You can see from the story itself the reasons why folks post this stuff anonymously.
Regardless if there is any truth to the Op-Ed or not, if it portrays the target in a negative light, folks always use the same
methods to discredit the author ( and / or manipulate public opinion ) and they're pretty easy to spot once you know what
to look for.
Right off the bat, they're resorting to character assassination attacks starting with labeling of the author as " Coward ".
Next we'll end up claiming it's just a smear tactic, penned by the opposition, etc. etc. We'll see every possible method
there is to discredit the author, without even knowing who the author is. Other typically used labels are: Racist, Traitor,
Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Left Wing, Right Wing, terrorist, pedophile, etc. etc. You get the point.
Were the author to divulge their real name, the same tactics would be employed, only the focus would be sharpened to have
maximum effect based on the authors character, beliefs and / or imperfections. Staying anonymous is the only means for
a single voice to stand against the chorus of opposition that will band together ( and has far more influence over media channels )
to destroy any who dare speak out in defiance.
People use anonymous posts as a means to speak freely without fear of retaliation. We can swear up and down retaliation
doesn't exist ( it's even illegal in some situations ) but we all know otherwise, thus the reason for staying anonymous.
However, staying anonymous has its drawbacks ( and is ripe for abuse. Even the Government uses it when it suits them ) as well.
It's easy to discredit or brush off information provided by an anonymous source as " Fake News " or " Propaganda ". Not so
much if you have a real person whose information can be verified easily. ( See Snowden as an example ) Not to say they won't
try. Snowden was branded a Traitor, Russian Spy, and half a dozen other names in an effort to discredit him. I dare say it didn't
quite work out as well as they hoped it would.
Imagine the hilarity that will ensue if it turns out the author of the Op-Ed is one of Trumps family members, friend of the family or an ally. :D
Remember that one time when we were in a cold war with a communist country? A lot of people here got real scared about godless communists and decided to fix this by putting things like "in God we trust" on our money. It made them feel better.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The best part of Trump's election has really been the way it's led to liberals coming completely unhinged and exposing themselves as the party of hate and deceit. I've never been a huge fan of Trump's but the one thing he's unquestionably succeeded at is showing what a vile and disgusting bunch of self serving and seditious scumbags the political elite are.
By this standard, how could anyone anywhere ever be diagnosed unstable?
I know, we could look at what he says and does! Like arguing that photographic evidence is somehow inaccurate. Or holding that he never said things for which there is video of him saying them.
One is left with 2 conclusions from which to draw. Either he has a very tenuous grasp on reality, or he is telling the worlds most obvious lies and thinks that YOU are dumb enough to believe them.
At the very least it seems obvious that he holds you with far less respect than you do him.
Well we generally employ experts who examine individuals suspected of instability or dangerous states of mind to, well, evaluate and offer their educated opinion.
We don't ordinarily decide someone is unstable or dangerous based on their behavior in social media, and we don't ordinarily employ people who have made it clear they dislike, or hate, or merely oppose the subject. We normally would employ reasonably objective examiners. Certainly not their political opposition...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Not knowing who it is, all we know about him or her is that the editorial board of the New York Times likes what he or she has to say. For all we know, it's some random blogger, or someone entirely made up, like the Jayson Blair thing.
It is around because it is by design. There is only ONE part of the US government that is actually represented of the people who vote (note, its not all the people). That is the House of Representatives within Congress. Even the Senate is not a representation of the people. The House members also only serve 2 year terms!
POTUS isn't supposed to represent nor be curtailed by national mood swings. Neither is SCOTUS. The Senate represent their state, not it's people. If the US government was as represented by the people as the media and everyone thinks, we wouldn't have freed the slaves, couldn't stay in Wars, women & blacks wouldn't have voting rights, etc.
And the people DO elect their Electors. Even though it looks like you are voting for a single person, you are actually selecting the group of Electors who will vote for that person if they go to the Electoral Collage. You still aren't voting for a POTUS because most states will dump ALL of their Electoral votes to the one that had the majority. So every year, many Electors technically don't vote the way their people told them to.
Conspiracy Theory: It was 'the Donald' himself. A further attempt to muddy the picture and distract from the Russian investigation
And this is why we don't employ political opposition to evaluate aberrant behavior. Your example is more easily described as political hyperbole than clinical evidence of, well, anything.
Seriously, this isn't much to hang your hat on. Remember when Obama declared that the Cambridge, Massachusetts police 'acted stupidly' when they arrested a college professor, at his own home front door? Recall the facts of that incident? That Obama actually admitted he didn't know all the facts?
What do you call someone who decides what the facts of an incident are when they shot they don't know all the facts, declares that one party 'acted stupidly', despite admittedly not having all the facts?
Stupid, themselves? That's actually the minimum, to me. No, not unstable, nut maybe narcissistic, as in loving the sound of their own voice so much, or believing their opinion on any subject is so important that they can make it up as they go along?
Yeah, Trump tried to make his inaugural crowd more than it was. Vanity. He's not the first president guilty of vanity. Elevating it to some clinically dangerous instance of narcissism is pure political theater. Buy your own popcorn.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
". If you oppose the balance of that social contract, then logically you must also allow for the renegotiation of the union, or it being dissolved, because you are advocating against the terms of the existing social contract."
No, the way the constitution is set up that is not the case at all. A simple ammendment with all of its hurdles is all that it takes. It's right there in the agreement everyone signed.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
What I wonder, and what I didn't get from the essay is what the author hoped to accomplish.
Cheney personally managed the Iran/Iraq war/stalemate under Reagan.
He had a reason, restart the the Sunni/Shia stalemate. They just couldn't say it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I agree, it's normal to think poorly of any politician but the way many are convinced Trump is somehow evil and stupid is a bit disconcerting.
Most of his actual policy decisions aren't that bad, and if you look at how he likely came to the decision it's usually clear: many of them don't take into regard all the past 'politics' of it (see Israel embassy move, which also makes many of his decisions seem 'shocking' but what is really just bold), or they're made without the long-term public policy background, which makes even more sense because he wasn't a politician before.
I think most people are just shocked to see someone with his style in that position, it's offensive to them, but they should really just calm down. I meet bigger jerks on a daily basis and know good people that regular say more 'offensive' things regularly, which normal people don't take offense too, just the twittersphere. He's been a successful man in work and life; he has a beautiful family he's on all good terms with, a hot wife, successful business, and he won the election for president of the fucking United States.. people should celebrate success like that more than berate. And hate his style all you want - all politicians should be scrutinized heavily - but keep it to policy decisions and research both sides. You might find he's actually not that bad at the job.
It honestly started long before his inauguration. If the Bad Lip Reading YouTube channel put out a video of his own interpretation of a trump speech, and then another where he simply read the transcript, I'd wager most people wouldn't be able to reliably determine which was which. Trump has always made other bad speakers like Bush sound like legendary orators. He clearly can't hold a thought long enough to form a few proper sentences to express it.
The mean girl hissyfit that Emperor BoneSpurs has embarked upon simply verifies the article is spot on true.
Apparently the McCain death and funeral was the final straw for someone.
This is not a true anonymous story, the "Failing New York Times" knows exactly who it is, and it will come out soon enough. It correlates with the new book "Fear" by Robert Woodward, who even the cowardly Republicans agree is as straight a shooter as you'll find.
Meanwhile, I would offer the Emperor a protip. When completely innocent, the best tactic is to act innocent. Just sayin'.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.