3458

[quote=“barstein, post:3457, topic:126885”]
Current US presidential line of succession according to Wikipedia: Pence, Ryan, Hatch, Tillerson, Mnuchin, Mattis, Sessions, Zinke, Perdue, Ross, Acosta, Price, Carson, Chao*, Perry, DeVos, Shulkin, Kelly.
[/quote]I’m not familiar with some of those names, but Laura Roslin is 43rd in line.

3459

So the scuttlebutt is that the Trump Administration is about to announce that they’re going to nominate Callista Gingrich as Ambassador to the Vatican. Gingrich is of course the wife of censured former House Speaker, trashy novel author, and lifetime recipient of right-wing welfare Newt Gingrich. (Fun fact - Callista is Newt’s third wife.)

3460

Meh. Ambassadorships have been used to reward political allies long before Trump came to power. Which is fine, the main job qualifications of an ambassador are schmoozing and party planning, often at their own expense (since they quickly use up their government budget for party planning)

3461

“The Trump administration seems determined to utilize a larger version of Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility to cover the entire administration,” said Eisen, now a fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies program.

Across the vast breadth of the government, agencies have traditionally provided the public with massive data sets, which can be of great value to companies, researchers and advocacy groups, among others. Three months ago, there were 195,245 public data sets available on www.data.gov, according to Nathan Cortez, the associate dean of research at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, who studies the handling of public data. This week it stood at just under 156,000.

3462

I can see that appointing someone who married a divorced man might be problematic for relations with the Vatican. But to be honest I’ve no idea who our previous ambassadors were, so maybe it’s par for the course.

3463

Oops.

3464

Ha ha, that’s our Trump!

3465

Two US officials who were briefed on Trump’s disclosures last week confirmed to BuzzFeed News the veracity of the Post report, with one official noting that “it’s far worse than what has already been reported.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee was also briefed on Trump’s disclosures, one of the officials said.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the record when reached by BuzzFeed News. The official referred requests for comment to the National Security Council. The National Security Council did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for a comment.

3466

So… the hoopla around Clinton’s emails was the potential for leaking classified info. Was it ever proven anything actually got out? But it (at least sorta) cost her the election, and hailed as the worst thing ever.

This is a proven case of leaking classified info. Does this then count as treason? Can ANYONE ever scream ‘but her emails’ again? Or are we free to now punch them?

3467

It’s not treason because the president ultimately has authority to declassify whatever he wants, at any time, and give it to anyone.

But no, they cannot bitch about the emails, and you can punch them. Because Trump didn’t release this information with reason, he did it because he was BRAGGING.

I can only imagine what the Russians thought at the time. Probably just kept their poker faces on.

3468

See, Trump proven right once again. The leaks ARE real!

3469

Time to check the Fox News thread to see how (oops - if) they cover this.

Hmmm - nothing yet on the Fox web politics page.

3470

The amazingly are covering it, but Britt Hume says it’s to early to know if anything bad happened.

3471

John Schindler disagrees. He acknowledges the point that the president can declassify anything he wants, but says sharing info with a hostile intelligence service is a different matter. Dunno, if he’s right, but I think he knows way more about it than any of us

3472

Oh, another one!

[quote]
We got a call Friday from a reader named Paul Redmond that The Post had accidentally published Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s private cell phone number.

A story about President Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller, Redmond said, was accompanied by a photograph of the two of them walking on White House grounds. The bodyguard was holding a stack of papers, and, according to the caller, on the outside of those papers was a yellow sticky note that said “Jim, Mad Dog, Mattis” and had a phone number.

This of course sounds impossible. Way more care than that is taken around the president, right? The Secret Service is good at secrecy, generally. So I thanked the guy for the call and dubiously pulled up the photo in question. With the monitor turned 90 degrees and the photo blown up, indeed, I could make out a number and what might be “Jim, Mad Dog, Mattis,” if you have better eyesight than mine even when I squint.

I called. I got the voice mail. It was him.

Yes, of course, the president’s bodyguard — the guy famous for punching someone outside of Trump Tower, the guy who according to the story has the president’s complete trust — is employing the yellow sticky note system of information security. I got the tingly sensation that means someone important should know this and told my co-worker Anna and then my boss and one of the reporters who wrote the article.[/quote]

3473

There was once a game of Battlestar Galactica we played, where we were all quite new. And Adama was the Admiral, he was acting pretty shady. “Oh, sorry, the cylon feet was the best of the two options!” and “Damn, only a 0-distance card or a real terrible destination to pick from!”. But because we were all new, we never really did anything. He just continued selling us out to the cylons all game, and nobody ever actually could bring themselves to do anything.

This is just like that game.

(Edit: They even both control the nukes.)

3474

Quick, @Knightsaber @rowe33 to the airlock!

Coincidentally @Fifth_Fret would you be interested in Play By Forum? Our current game is oh so close to wrapping.

3475

Very tempted, but I just can’t commit to that right now. Thanks for the invite though!

3476

Well any time. Games tend to run approximately one month. So if you can pop by once or twice a day, there’s always a spot for you waiting ;)

3477

I question this story. There is only one 0 distance destination. :)