Monday, March 24, 2025

Oopsie and Yikes - two crazy blunders


Two crazy stories today, but at least in the end they combined into one very good joke:
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Yes, it was a crazy day.
First up, Crazy Blunder #1: Oopsie!
The White House National Security Advisor added an American journalist to a chat group that was planning last week's Yemen strikes.
Garrett Graff / Doomsday Scenario
Six Short Thoughts on the Most Insane Trump Story of All Time
Trump's "Team of Amateurs" Screwed Up in the Most Hilarious (and Troublesome) Way
This afternoon, just before 1 pm ET, The Atlantic posted what is, hands down, the wildest and most insane story I have ever read about US national security: The White House National Security Advisor added the editor of The Atlantic to a group chat with nation’s most senior leaders — including the vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of national intelligence, and CIA director — to discuss classified war plans and a weekend military operation targeting the Houthis in Yemen.
Read the article yourself.
No, really — if you haven’t — please stop here and just go read the article. I promise you the headline and whatever summary you’ve heard is way less weird, way less troubling, and way less eye-popping than the reality.
That is a gift link, so you should be able to read the whole article. Graff continues with a number of good points, but here are the ones most related to Canada, I think:
...add to all of that two new stories from just the last 100 hours: The idea that Elon Musk was going to be briefed on secret China war plans and now, the very next business day, a stunning example of the Trump principals mishandling sensitive operational war plans. Put all of that together and ask yourself: Is this a government and group of people you’d want to share your own sensitive intelligence with? Is this a government and group of people you’d be willing to share intelligence that put lives of your operatives or agents at risk? The CIA director posted an active undercover intelligence officer’s name in the group chat for pete’s sake. There are already moves to isolate the US from international intelligence sharing — and surely this story will only accelerate those conversations, to our detriment and our allies’ detriment.
....Lost amid the headline-grabbing insanity of the classified details is what the principals were discussing on the group chat. It doesn’t take reading too deeply between the lines to see that the principals weren’t entirely clear on what Trump had ordered — someone, apparently Stephen Miller, says, “as I heard it, the president was clear: green light” — which raises some troubling questions about how much White House staff and Cabinet leaders are interpreting or reading the tea leaves on vague presidential directives or desires. When the president of the United States commits US military forces to operations overseas there shouldn’t be any “as I heard it” ambiguity. Moreover, the principals here were having notably pointed policy discussions in the group chat — which, under a normal functioning government, would be handled at the interagency level by staff and sorted out long before it got a point where the vice president and defense secretary are texting back and forth. The idea that the highest-ranking officials of the US government are just texting each other in the same group chat you use with your college roommates from a decade ago should raise dizzying questions about how policy is being thoughtfully decided and road-tested inside the federal government right now. This is what happens when you fill a government with all of the most unqualified people ever to hold their roles — the most unqualified vice president, the most unqualified secretary of defense, the most unqualified director of national intelligence, the most unqualified FBI director, and on and on and on. This will surely not be the last time we see Trump’s “Team of Amateurs” stumble into messes.

Next, here is Crazy Blunder #2: Yikes
Alberta premier Danielle Smith tells a right-wing US podcast that Canadians might be dumb enough to vote for Poilievre if she can just get Trump to postpone his tariffs until after the election
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Bruce Arthur / The Toronto Star
Trump administration is Canada’s enemy, even if Alberta’s premier sees it as a friend
....Let’s state this plainly: a sitting Canadian premier says she asked our enemy — and there is no question, at this point, that America under the Trump administration is an enemy of a free and sovereign Canada — to alter policy in order to help elect a federal candidate who is better aligned with that enemy of the country. She didn’t even ask that the tariffs be removed, just paused.
It is the kind of astonishing carelessness of total political warfare with a resistance to reality. And the mistake would be to write it off as simple politics.
You simply cannot argue that the United States is not the biggest threat to Canada’s existence in its recent history. Trump’s threats are well-documented. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump has a painting of James Polk in his office; as president, Polk annexed Texas, and prosecuted the Mexican-American War that resulted in the acquisition of much of what is now the American West. As the WSJ wrote, “Trump remains serious about growing the country during his time in the White House. He views it as a part of his legacy, five people who have spoken to him say.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is adopting Russian talking points in Ukraine negotiations, and on Russian TV they are openly proposing to help Trump take Canada and Greenland. During the Oval Office ambush on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump told Zelenskyy, you don’t have the cards. In an interview with Fox News, Trump used the same words about Canada. “Canada,” said the writer David French in the New York Times, “is Donald Trump’s Ukraine.”
This isn’t posturing. This isn’t negotiation. This is the fate of Canada as a nation. This is us.
Smith and Poilievre are aligned: Smith had already issued an oil-and-gas list of demands to Carney with a threat of a separation referendum, and Poilievre called the demands “very reasonable.” And given the chance to distance himself from Smith’s solicitation, Poilievre passed.
....If there is a true dividing line in this election campaign, it is whether you believe Canada can ever trust a MAGA America again. Smith clearly does. Poilievre, who has proposed closer economic ties to the U.S., seems similarly inclined. And Carney said Sunday of Trump, “He wants to break us so America can own us. We’re over the shock of the betrayal, but we can never forget the lessons.”
That’s the line. These are dangerous times for our country, and the stakes are becoming clearer. And it is extraordinary that we have to start wondering about enemies within.
Both stories really do demand this response:

1 comment:

Cap said...

What?! PP is very much in sync with Trump? I'm shocked! Seriously though, how could anyone look at PP's record and think otherwise?

The thing to notice is that they're no longer bothering to hide it. That's very Trump-like. The corruption is out in the open, and they'll deny it to your face. Just like when Trump asked for Putin's help on national TV or led an insurrection on national TV or betrayed Ukraine on national TV (in both the US and Russia). PP is to Trump what Blair was to Dubya, and what Trump is to Putin.