Sunday 6 August 2017

have you seen any russians in west virginia, ohio or pennsylvania?

Just days after someone leaked to the press the full, revealing transcript of Dear Leader’s telephone conversations with foreign heads of state, his embattled though quick to squander any sympathy the public might have formed for him for working in such a toxic climate Attorney General announced that four White House staffers have been charged with unauthorised release of information. In an aggressive crackdown that might meet the definition of a witch-hunt, he pledged to stop the culture of leaks and would uncover the culprits, adding that no one is “entitled to surreptitiously fight their battles in the media by revealing sensitive government information,” never mind that his mission in defence of an individual who has a substantial portion of the medium exclusively rigged to support his agenda, no matter what form it’s taking at the moment and speaks further to importance of distinguishing between what is an illegal leak (the disclosure of classified information), a legal leak (almost everything else) and gossip or speculation.
It’s just like the regime painting with too broad a brush when it comes to fake news—just because the truth is not flattering does not mean that it’s not the incontrovertible truth. The Attorney General is also reformulating the subpoena laws so that journalists might not so easily protect their secret sources. I wonder how that will manifest itself. At the same time, it was revealed that a small delegation of members of the intelligence committee travelled to London—with sanction by the rest of the members—to confront the former MI6 spy who compiled the Moscow dossier on Dear Leader. The law-makers did not met with the ex-spy but were being I suppose vaguely menacing. Then, and speak of Friday afternoon disasters (some people take all week to think up problems to spring on others)—Dear Leader announces a working vacation at one of his New Jersey golf resorts, abruptly but argues it was timed to coincide with long-planned renovations to the official residence—which Dear Leader recently described as a dump. The White House’s superintendent probably struggled to come up with something plausible quickly, but I suspect that they’re installing more surveillance equipment in efforts to intercept patriotic leakers. Such paranoia eventually backfires, especially given this bumbling cast of morons to include a Majordomo that suggests lie-detectors be installed—and Dear Leader’s own atrocious behaviour (not that it hasn’t already been broadcast before and to little lasting avail) will be on display.