This Man Has No Decency or Honor

 

When you ask a Republican politician if one of their own, who has called for the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is fit to serve, and if they give you this mealy-mouthed type of answer, you throw them off your show. You stop the interview.

The only answer to that question is, "no, that person is committing a criminal act by calling for the execution death of the person who is second in line for the presidency." There's no other answer that can be accepted. There's no saying, "well, gosh, that's not something I have thought about" or "that's something I will have to consider going forward."

There is no shame among Republicans anymore, just a fear of what Trump will do to them. There's no concept of hypocrisy because falling out of favor with an ex-president is just too dangerous. I mean, what future does Hutchinson really have? He's never going to run for president and he's lucky to actually have a job right now. I don't even get why he's being interviewed. I guess all the other lucky ducks said no to a free TV appearance.

If you don't have the courage to answer that easy question with the only acceptable answer, get the fuck out of office right now.

There is a culture of political violence that has taken hold in this country. The Republican Party is trying to use the threat of violence to seize and hold political power. There's no other word for this. It is terrorism and nationalism wrapped up in the veil of unhinged Trumpism. We're not talking about a dingbat with nutty ideas. We're talking a living, breathing political terrorist who holds Federal office, and there is not sane country in the world where a Marjorie Taylor Greene would be allowed to show up at work if she threatened to kill one of her co-workers.

Again, Nancy Pelosi is second in line for the presidency. Why hasn't the Secret Service arrested Greene? She is a direct threat. She has committed sedition.

As the courage of elected officials like Hutchinson slips away, note that the media has already normalized the idea that a "colorful" Republican is merely one who threatens to kill people so they can inspire violence and keep their hands clean. You know that old saw, both sides do it. Well, not in this case.

Dead Enders and Deadbeats

 

Welcome to your future, Republicans:

Statement from President.

Trump’s Save America PAC says he and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met today. “President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time.”

There's a lot of unpack here. 

One, the GOP is not moving on from Trump. He has compromising material on them because they certainly don't need to carry around his legacy or embrace his lack of ability to lead the country.

Two, after the election results, you would think that they would have understood their dire situation. The only reason why people voted in the last election for the Republican candidates was because of an artificially high turnout. The same level of engagement is not likely to happen in the future when Trump is not on the ballot. For example, he isn't on the ballot in 2022. If 2018 is any indication, McCarthy and his fellow House members are due for a bloodbath.

Three, the Sedition Caucus is real. They already have a hold on multiple state GOP organizations. The QAnon phenomenon has taken the Republican Party by throat and won't let go. I don't know how you appeal to the American voter when your party is dragging around the albatross of conspiracy theories and being part of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Four, the money spigot is going to run dry at some point. The inclusion of the Trump Save America PAC in this statement is about fund raising. Corporate America is already refusing to give the GOP money because of their efforts to deny Joe Biden the election. Republicans are now fully radioactive and giving them money is a losing proposition.

It could all go away in a few months, especially if Trump is indicted and if the Sedition Caucus is cut out of the body politic. I don't know how these people survive if their felony convictions preclude them from holding office.

However, when has that ever stopped a Republican from holding office?

Today's Republican Party

 

The Democratic Party has been trying to give people jobs, health care and a clean environment for what seems like forever. The Republican Party gives you a ransacked Capitol and some jackass with a Confederate Flag.

Two roads diverged in American politics, and the Republican Party chose the one traveled by disgraced ex-President Donald Trump and QAnon conspiracy theorists.

While pundits ponder the GOP's future -- and traditionalists hope to change course out of the wreckage left by Trump's insurrection -- Washington's power players and state activists have already made their choice.

Highlighting the former President's lightning fast rehabilitation, the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will visit Trump in Florida on Thursday after repudiating his own criticism of the incitement of the US Capitol riot.

Only a week after Trump left the White House, it's clear that his party is not ready to let him go. Extremists and Trumpists are on the rise, while lawmakers who condemned his aberrant conduct fight for their political careers. The anti-Trump wing -- represented by members of Congress such as Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mitt Romney of Utah and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger -- look like a small and outmaneuvered force.

This week's sorting will have significant implications for the GOP's positioning as it heads into the 2022 midterm elections, and for President Joe Biden's hopes of draining the poison from Washington in the name of national unity.

When they finally deplatformed Trump, it made him the most irrelevant person in America. Does McCarthy think Trump is actually going to do the work? The most famously lazy and checked out president ever is not going to work at getting a second chance at the White House. He's going to eat fucking cheeseburgers and scream at whoever is near him.

Well, thank God the media isn't populated with stupid people with horrible takes.

Joe Biden is Trying to Save as Many Americans As Possible

 

Greg Gutfeld, ladies and gentlemen:

There's an obvious difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Donald Trump is the cheerleader. Right? Let's get this thing done, it's the primary reason why we got the vaccine so fast is because he said we're going to do it, and we can get it done, and this is how we are going to do it, we're all going to band together, isn't this gonna be great? You can criticize him being an optimist, and being -- the power of persuasion wasn't enough.

But then you look at Biden, and it's the angel of death, it's the exact opposite. And it makes you realize that Joe really did lie a lot during the campaign. I mean, he said a lot of -- he said a lot of big doozies, but he said if you voted for him he'd get the pandemic under control and now, you know, he's saying, well, there's nothing we can do to change the pandemic in the coming months, and, in fact, it's going to get a lot worse.

And it, you know what, just so you know, don't get mad at me because it's going to get really difficult, and there's going to be a lot of things that can go wrong, so just be patient.

So, basically what he's asking from America is the kind of understanding that he refused to give to Trump or his supporters.

This is the message of Fox News. 

This is what they want people to think. 

Greg Gutfeld isn't even smart enough to come up with this on his own. He's speaking for the marketing minds of Fox News and Rupert Murdoch himself. They are doubling down on the short attention span of the American television viewer (what few they can still grab) and they're putting out this cheeseball nonsense, thinking that's going to win back the small crowd that is now feverishly waiting for the shitty ads on OANN or NewsMax to stop repeating themselves.

I mean, come on. The Fox News demographic sure took a hit this past year. Not wearing a mask, going to the buffet, and voting for Trump sure killed a lot of them, the poor dears. 

Joe Biden is actually going to save a lot of the ones that are left and get no credit for doing so. But the minds running the flagship news station of America's death cult, the party of Trump, the America First wing of the GOP, well, they're all in on Gutfeld's brand of dickish contrarian. They want to change the way people view what has just gone on in this country for the last year. Fox News wants people to think that the Democrats are letting people die and that the Democrats are responsible for the massive death toll from COVID-19. They are certainly not going to tell people the truth. They're not going to explain that the last president, a Republican, let hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people die because he couldn't be bothered to show up and do his job.

No, they want to start convincing their dwindling, aging, terrified, and ignorant viewers that this is all Biden's fault.

Well, fuck that shit.

Dogs Are Back in the White House

 

Major shade from the people who witnessed many, many meltdowns and screaming matches before the Biden showed up with dogs to make the place normal again:

The new President and first lady settled in at the White House this weekend, and did so with extended Biden family members. 

"The residence has life in it again," a White House source told CNN of the energy inside. "It's the honeymoon period where everything feels new." 

There were nighttime movie binges in the White House movie theater, complete with snacks from the White House kitchen cooks, many of the Bidens' five older grandchildren piling into the seats to watch, said another source familiar with the activities. The increased activity was met with pandemic precautions, including mask wearing.

On Sunday, the first dogs arrived from Delaware, where they had been waiting until things were unpacked and settled enough to allow a comfortable entry for the two German Shepherds at their new pad.

"Champ is enjoying his new dog bed by fireplace and Major loved running around the South Lawn," the White House said a press release early Monday morning. Champ lived at the vice president's residence during the Biden's time there, and Major was adopted by the family in 2018 from a Delaware pet rescue.

It should be the practice of everyone to adopt a rescue pet. In and of itself, it would heal the soul of this nation.

White America vs the Rest of America

 

It's like the media can't help itself anymore. As soon as there was a Republican in the White House, you couldn't help but hear stories about white Americans who needed to be heard. Now, as soon as there's a Democrat in the White House, it's the responsibility of all of us to make sure white people in America aren't left behind. 

If you really feel like you're being left behind, vote for the candidate who will look out for you. If you vote for Republicans, why are you surprised when they cut your benefits and do nothing to help your largely rural part of the country? Conversely, why do we keep hearing stories about how these folks are being left behind when they won't vote for anyone other than Republicans?

Seems to me that if you cared about change, being taken care of, and wanting to be heard, you'd stop voting for the same people over and over again.

Most of the coal mined near Gillette sits on public land, meaning that the state government collects royalty payments and other taxes on its production. Wyoming doesn't have a state income tax and its property and sales taxes are notoriously low. Many years, well over half of the state's tax revenue comes fromthe coal, oil and gas industries. 

After the bust, Carter-King said she knew Gillette would have rethink everything. 

Gray told me that his call to CNN was influenced by how things fell apart with the oil and coal industries shortly before and after 2016, the year US voters elected President Donald Trump -- who'd promised to bring back "beautiful, clean coal." Nearly 90% of Campbell County residents voted for Trump again in 2020. But you won't find too many people in Gillette who believe Trump kept his promises to coal workers -- or that it was even possible to keep them. 

Wyoming coal production peaked in 2008 at 468 million short tons, according to the US Energy Information Administration. By 2016, it was 297 million tons, creeping down to 277 million in 2019, nearing the end of Trump's term. Last year's figures are not yet available, but the Covid-19 pandemic's impact on demand for energy is known to have contributed to widespread collapse in the energy industry.

Huh.

Voters in Campbell County gave Trump 15,778 votes in 2016. What they got in return was four years of insanity, fraud, confusion, neglect and white supremacy. After all of that, they turned out in 2020 and gave Trump MORE votes than they did in 2016.

And I'm supposed to give a shit? Well, as a liberal I do and as a liberal I want them to have jobs, opportunity, access to affordable health care, and the same chances everyone else gets. But it's really hard to square 2016 and 2020 against one another. The only thing Trump gave these people was the white supremacy and the insane bullshit he was famous for. And, what did they do? They all but screamed "give us more of that, please."

Please note that, when white supremacy wasn't on the ticket but Mitt Romney was, Obama/Biden got more votes in 2012, which was 2, 163. So, okay then.

Joe Biden's policies will do more for these folks than anything Trump ever did for them. He won't cut their Medicare or Social Security. He won't cut their SNAP benefits. He'll spend money trying to fix it so we don't burn coal, which destroys the environment. He'll invest in green technology that creates jobs. He'll offer programs to help people train for a new job. He'll prioritize the ability for kids from this region to afford college. Hell, he already gave them access to health care. The problem is, people in Wyoming keep voting for Republicans who deny them access to health care.

I mean, what the hell do you do when someone keeps voting against their economic self interests?

In the rest of America, which you can find in the rust belt, the blue states, the red states, the purple states, the ones that are struggling and the ones that have large cities, people already know that they will hold Biden and Harris accountable. They already know what to expect and what to do because they voted for it in 2018 and 2020. The problem is, white people in America will not give up the fever dream of being able to vote for Republicans and then blame Democrats when nothing good comes their way.

Raise the Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

 

This is what everyone needs to fight for if they want to have their country back:

President Joe Biden on Friday is expected to introduce his proposal to raise the federal hourly minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. Biden will begin the process by requiring that everyone working for the federal government be paid a minimum of $15 an hour.

Organized labor and its supporters have been agitating for a $15-an-hour minimum wage for nearly a decade, but shifting political winds, the embrace of populism by both parties and widespread financial pain for Americans at the bottom of the income spectrum make a minimum wage hike a policy whose time may finally have come.

“If the federal minimum wage were to be raised it would provide a much-needed financial shot in the arm for many of those still in a position of financial fragility,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

Resistance to raising the wage floor has waxed and waned over the years, he added. “Before the erosion of the political middle ground in recent years, the idea of a federal minimum wage was far from controversial. It was seen as helping the economy and also reflected a statement that labor was valued.”

There are symbolic acts that mark the end of Trumpism and then there are substantive changes that could be made to lift people out of poverty and make the lives of working Americans better. We all need to fight for a raise in the minimum wage. No compromises, no wishy-washy tactics, no leaving anyone behind. The right to work 40 hours a week and get paid a living wage is a great place to stake a claim on the future of America.

Remember that every time someone raises the minimum wage, jobs don't disappear. When they argue that it will hurt the economy, laugh and tell them that the pandemic has done more damage than anything else. When they argue people don't deserve it, remind them that lifting single mothers and their kids out of poverty is worth every penny.

In terms of what the government pays out in SNAP assistance and other benefits, raising the minimum wage takes pressure off of those programs and frees up resources. Raising it to $15 an hour helps people live their lives with dignity.

We gotta fight for this and we have to support every effort to get it as close to $15 as possible.

Normalcy

 

Normalcy returns, and I'm fine with that.

That's it, that's the post.

So Long, You Piece of Shit

 

We should only consider Trump in the past tense. He has no future, no promise, no possibility of redeeming himself. 

There is still one more full day to consider him in the present tense.

He should never have been elected president. The Republican Party is forever tainted by its association with the worst president in American History. 

He is incapable of shame. Republicans have submerged the gene that allows humans to feel shame in a vat of acid and they have burned it out of their souls.

He is a shit bird. 

He hates dogs, and dogs hate him.

He is scum. 

His presidency killed so many people that we'll never get a full accounting of it. 

He is a monster of a human being, incapable of normal human interaction and exchanging basic information with other people. 

He is like a live wire cable that comes off a pole and starts thrashing around, whipping itself into a frenzy. There are sparks everywhere, the thing is out of control, and when it flies over your head and takes out something behind you, that's when you know you're screwed. 

The entire country was this level of screwed for a full four calendar years. The wire lashed out and electrocuted and destroyed so many lives, wiped out promise, charred hope so bad they couldn't identify it. The last sparks are dissipating. The power has gone out of it. A few volts are all that is left, so don't touch the goddamned thing. Just run from it. Run, and don't look back.

It used to be that the American character was full of promise. This guy could do good things for us, that guy could solve this problem, that woman could be a transformational president who would work hard to fix things.

Not anymore, we'll never fall in love with anyone who claims to know what they're doing. We will always wonder, "when will they act like Trump? When will the worm turn? When will they start screaming at some poor woman in the corner with a binder and a confused look on her face? When will the howling begin? When will this person end up being another Trump?"

That's because America's psyche is scarred forever. Thanks again, you shit bird. That's all you are. A soiled, nutty bird bathed in shit, flopping around on one wing, no chance of getting off the ground. Ya fucking shit bird. Look at what you did with your time on Earth. Look at what you did to this country, shit bird.

The babies around us, they won't remember Trump but they'll grow up and absorb the shock of it all. They'll hear an uncle talk about losing his wife to COVID-19, a grandfather's picture will serve as a reminder of what was lost, a mother who is still paying off debt, a father that left and never came home, unable to cope with it all. Cousins with stories about being hungry, about losing two years of school, of being behind and feeling helpless. They'll wonder about the burdens that their family still carries, and this will be twenty fucking years from now, opportunities lost, a story about how they used to live in a house in that part of town but then they had to go live in an apartment on the other side of town and then a job opened up so they had to move and so on.

There's kids that haven't even come into this world and they'll grow up in a traumatized society. Think about that.

We'll have to live with this for the rest of our lives, four years of watching goddamned Donald Trump run wild like a naked, shrieking madman across the front yard of an insane asylum, flinging his own shit at decent people who haven't even been given a butterfly net that can catch him.

So long, ya piece of shit. No one will miss you.

America the Beautiful

 

Whose idea was it to put these troops out there? We don't have a functioning Department of Defense leadership team. We barely have anything that resembles a government right now. What you're seeing is the bests we have given the chaos and confusion that is rife within the U.S. Government right now. God help us all.

Thanks to Trump and his enablers, Washington D.C. looks like it would if we had been forced to declare martial law in the wake of a major terrorist attack.

This is not a good look for a country like ours to have troops in the streets, manning barricades while low functioning idiots test the security parameters and get busted with ammunition in their cars. 

I don't know about you, but there are probably a lot of crazies out there who want to do something but just haven't figured out what that will look like. Because of them, we do need these protocols in place. It's good to have a heightened awareness and vigilance and every inauguration has a security plan that needs to be carried out. But the closures and the fear of right wing violence are over the top this time around. Not since the "Michigan Militia" days of the 1990s has it really felt like our fellow citizens have lost their goddamned minds and gone over to the dark side.

But yes, the ransacking of the Capitol was a domestic terror attack, likely facilitated and carried out with insider assistance and directed by the man who lost the presidential election. How shocking is that to think about?

There's no debate. It was carried out by Trump and his supporters. They have all been caught in the act but the "evidence" of that attack is being held by a Justice Department run by highly incompetent and compromised people who are Trump supporters. The U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. is also highly compromised and desperate to run out the clock.

What would be wonderful is if Wednesday comes and goes in the most normal and quiet of manners, an inauguration that ends the Trump Regime's stranglehold on America's psyche forever. A return to decency and responsible governance. A moment of accountability is needed for Trump and everyone who backed him. 

Russia's return on its investment really paid off, didn't it? Thanks to the effort they put into helping Trump steal the election from Hillary Clinton, they ended up with quite a foreign policy achievement. America the beautiful looks more like America the soon to be broken up into warring factions. 

I'm barely a half an hour away from all of this but it seems like a tremendous distance. I am having trouble sleeping, I have a hard time thinking about what all of this means. Can't it already be over? 

Looting in Progress at the White House?

 

I have no evidence that they are, in fact, stealing the property of the American people at the White House. This is really something that is probably being looked at by the people who run things at the facility. There are clear rules for what is, and what is not, the property of the Trump family and what belongs to the government.

All of the furnishings in the White House go back into a sort of warehouse or pool of available items and then the new president chooses what he wants to have on display. It's more of a museum situation where much of the permanent collection is in storage and only a limited number of items are put out for exhibition. There are customary items that are displayed in the Oval Office but who knows what Biden will decide to put in there. 

I think the yellow rug has to go. I don't care about the "Resolute" desk. The president actually works in an office nearby and the Oval is used more for ceremonies. But, again, that's up to whoever is president. Trump probably did more to defile and disgrace the place than anyone else. I would not want to occupy it so soon after his departure.

In any event, the Trump family did bring their things and they did receive gifts. They appropriated items from the French Embassy and who knows what else? They have small, light fingers, in other words. The thing is, I do suspect that the lines are blurred because the Trump family has behaved as if everything in the White House belongs to them. 

Everything you see could very well be innocent, but it's a bad look to be seen packing up when you never even congratulated the person who won.

Pennsylvania State Legislator Doug Mastriano May Be in Serious Trouble

Oh shit, they have the receipts from your almost successful attempt at staging a coup that would have assassinated at least three members of the presidential line of succession:

Campaign finance records show that State Sen. Doug Mastriano’s campaign spent thousands of dollars on charter buses ahead of the Washington D.C. rally that ended with supporters of President Donald Trump violently storming the halls of Congress last week during an insurrection.

Mastriano (R-Franklin), rumored to be a future GOP gubernatorial candidate, has faced calls to resign for attending the rally. A review of the state senator’s campaign finance records shows that his committee paid $3,354 to Wolf’s Bus Lines in three installments for “bus reservations” about six days before Trump’s “Save America” rally.
The same week the payments were made, Mastriano posted an event on Facebook offering bus rides to D.C. on Jan. 6 — charging attendees $25 dollars for an adult and $10 for children.
Mastriano refused multiple requests for comment. Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman says Mastriano was within his First Amendment rights and declined to pursue punishment.

Insurrection is a messy business. 

First you have to find a vendor who has buses. Then you have to haggle over what kinds of buses will work. You don't want to use the expensive ones--your goober supporters who smear urine and feces everywhere on a regular basis could cost you a damage deposit. 

Second, you have to herd them into lines and ship them across state lines without anyone violating their parole or probation. What a hassle! Then, when your attempt to carry out insurrection fails, you have to gather up all of those hangdog faced losers and ship them back to wherever you got them and that's when they typically go to town on the upholstery of the cheapest bus you can find. 

Third, you have to tell a number of emotionally unstable adults that bringing their weapons on the bus is one thing but showing up the morning of the bus trip to a site of insurrection against the government of the United States with their emotional support animals is just unacceptable. Oh, no, another $500 for the damage deposit? Because a sick potbellied pig named Rushy Rushy Piggy Boi just shit all over the back of the luxury coach? Well, that's great! Fine! Whatever!

Fourth, you have to be careful no one finds out and whoops too late, bro.

Pennsylvania does not have a functioning legislature right now, but that's okay. The FBI has a plan for this sort of thing. 

Welcome to Round Two of Impeaching the Worst President in American History

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning for the post-Trump era. She is preparing her caucus for a round of legislating that will restore the economy, deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, and secure President-Elect Joe Biden's legislative agenda. She is mentally and physically done with the Trump era and wants it to end as soon as possible.

However, she will impeach this motherfucker one more time:

House Democrats are formally unveiling their resolution to impeach President Donald Trump on Monday, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for his role in last week's riots at the US Capitol.

The single impeachment article, which will be introduced at 11 a.m. ET when the House gavels in Monday, points to Trump's repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on January 6 before pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump's call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to "find" enough votes for Trump to win the state.

"In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," the resolution says. "He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States."

The impeachment resolution is Democrats' first step toward holding an impeachment vote this week to make Trump the first president in history to be impeached for a second time.

I think the strategy here is to engage in a full court press that keeps Trump occupied so that he doesn't have time to call up Erdogan in Turkey or MBS in Saudi Arabia and arrange for asylum.

Don't question Pelosi's skills or strategy. She is way ahead of everyone else and I have seen smart people go broke betting against her.

Another Shameful Week of American History

 

I could write about any one of those stories and still not capture the entirety of this shameful week of American history.

Trump's four years in office will go down as the most reprehensible period of American decline we have ever faced. It has been a rapid descent into chaos, madness, racism, bigotry, corruption, fraud and lawlessness and I haven't even captured it all with those terms.

It will not be enough to prosecute these people. If you were a Trump official, you should never hold public office or responsibility again. A vast number of these people should be shamed out of public life forever. Even the ones who barely lasted for a full Scaramucci. 

American history now resembles that of the banana republics we used to invade. The shocking, degenerate acts of Trump supporters give our enemies a lot of fodder. Our defense department is completely without focus or leadership. 

God have mercy on us all.

What's This About Not Being Able to Pardon Myself?

 

As that great political scientist Richard Nixon said today, thanks to a thousand years of English Common Law, no man may be his own judge.

To a fumbledick autocrat, there is no question--a self-pardon is a right granted by God when the rubes were foolish enough to hand them the power they refuse to relinquish. It is not a stretch to assume that Trump is surrounded by incompetent boobs who are desperate for face time and willing to stretch the truth to convince him that he can, in fact, pardon himself.

The problem is, he cannot.

Trump has gone insane anyway. He will be declared incompetent and live out the rest of his days in soiled diapers and a bad mood. 

The act of pardoning oneself could be seen as obstruction of justice. So add that to the pile of things that Trump could be charged with and tried for.

The Trump Presidency

 

You Will Never Know the Half of It

 

I'm starting to think it would just be easier to pay these guys a few million dollars to leave Russia and come work for us:

Microsoft said Thursday that suspected Russian hackers who targeted federal agencies and U.S. companies accessed more of its systems than previously believed.

The company revealed that the hackers managed to look at Microsoft source code through an employee account, although they were unable to access emails or Microsoft products and services. "Our investigation into our own environment has found no evidence of access to production services or customer data," Microsoft said in a blog post. "The investigation, which is ongoing, has also found no indications that our systems were used to attack others."

The cyberattack began as far back as October 2019, when the hackers breached systems at SolarWinds, a technology monitoring company used by government agencies and most Fortune 500 companies.

Solar Winds protected themselves by making their password Solarwinds123 so I'm not sure what remedy our government has against the incompetence and stupidity of all the companies that they've been forced to depend on for the last twenty years. The U.S. government has been outsourcing IT responsibilities to companies that have consistently let us all down because of an inability to understand the threat posed by Russia and other state-backed actors who have been running consistently ahead of us for a long time.

You'll never get the truth out of these people. If they admitted how bad something like this was, there'd be no way they'd ever get another lucrative contract. From anyone.

They have let us down because the focus is on letting any clown with a half-assed plan to make easy money run government IT programs as the low bidder on contracts that really should have gone to professionals with a real track record for delivering results. You can't award your entire agency's IT configuration to the sub-contractor who came in a few grand under the other guys. The whole structure of awarding government contracts being completely fucked has not left us in a great place. There are far too many people working government IT who have demonstrated that they have no idea what they're doing. Why do we keep making the same mistakes over and over again? They can't secure networks, they can't secure data, and they can't figure out how the Russians are able to exploit vendors and source code.

We should just start hiring these Russians and giving them a great life in Silicon Valley. Buy them houses, cars, and give them a great life. The alternative is to keep watching them tear up the government's rickety networks again and again.