I feel like Bolton is experienced enough in bureaucratic warfare that he would have encouraged someone else to do it to keep his hands clean.

He's certainly not the first whistleblower, who, as the NYT revealed, is a CIA officer who was detailed the White House.

I just hope this doesn't bring Bolton into the ranks of "elder statesmen" for the next GOP president.

+to

I'd join 1.1 and 1.3, but hesitate on 1.2. If the NYT's source is a Boltonist, pointing to the CIA is a safe way to deflect.

Because, really, what sort of responsible outlet would publish identifying details like that it was a CIA officer detailed to the WH?

The part of the story which makes me think that it isn't Bolton is:

As first reported by The New York Times, the whistleblower reached out to a House Intelligence Committee aide, seeking guidance from the committee, prior to filing a complaint.

The staff of the committee told the whistleblower to reach out to the intelligence community inspector general and seek legal counsel, according to a statement from Patrick Boland, a spokesman for Schiff. The Times reported that Schiff "learned about the outlines" of the whistleblower's concerns prior to the complaint being filed.

I don't trust my judgement on this, but that doesn't sound like Bolton to me.

The real whistleblower was the friends we made along the way.

Maybe Giuliani's next ex-wife?

Speculating is fun, but really what Trump says openly is pretty clearly impeachable.

I just hope this doesn't bring Bolton into the ranks of "elder statesmen" for the next GOP president.

Bolton becoming the Kissinger of the next thirty years is Whig historiography.

Sure, I guess he's not any worse than the previous Kissinger, and he won't have any influence over Democrats at least.

To be fair to Bolton, he never even had a chance to prop up a dictatorship on as many continents as Kissinger.

Because, really, what sort of responsible outlet would publish identifying details like that it was a CIA officer detailed to the WH?

I think you've answered your own question there.

1.1 He did. That person is Fiona Hill whose testimony will now force the Congressional committee's hand in demanding that Bolton himself testify.

Circular? I was just pointing out that it looks like I was right! And if I can't do that here where can I do it?

Also, see this

1.2 Right, which makes Bolton even more of a sly bureaucratic in-fighter.

13.1: Yes, if you define "the whistleblower was Bolton" as inclusive of "Bolton guided the whistleblowing" then it seems highly plausible.

And ""I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up," is one of he all time greatest lines to come out of this mishegas.

Jesus

||

For millennia, Tsaatan nomads moved with their family herds up to 10 times a year, frequently crossing what became the border between Mongolia and Russia. During our visit to the region, Gombo, a Tsaatan elder, told us that when Stalin gained power in what was then the Soviet Union, many Tsaatan on the Soviet side of the border fled to Mongolia, fearing they would be forcibly settled and assimilated. But this also cut them off from much of their traditional land.

The real whistleblower was the friends we made along the way.

I laughed. Sort of reminds me of a tweet I saw recently a la, "Trump's taxes will reveal that his greatest weakness is caring too much."

Speculating is fun, but really what Trump says openly is pretty clearly impeachable.

Now I'm picturing a super clandestine Deep Throat operation where they hand over Trump's tweets and footage of his rallies.

Aren't there two whistleblowers now? Bolton could be the second one.

Two mouths, one whistle.

Thanks for 18, blood pressure spike notwithstanding. The bit that made me blind with rage for a second was this:

One of the hard lessons of conservation history across the world is that national parks and protected areas were often created at the expense of indigenous peoples. Yosemite National Park, for example, was created by forcing out indigenous tribes, casting them as enemies of wildlife. Today we see the same process happening in Mongolia - funded in part by the Yosemite Parks Association, which has raised money to pay rangers' salaries.

Of fucking course. Of course. (I'm too MAD to strip the excess parameters out of that URL, which is just google image results for "yosemite traffic jam.") dairy queen, the link in 18 might be up your alley...

22 You know how to whistle, don't ya?

Deep Gargler.

Does anybody have any idea where, "the real X is the friends we made along the way," comes from originally? This has been driving me crazy for, like, years.

Here's a reddit thread that I haven't yet read about it

One person posits this Jack Handey Deep Thought: "It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating."

The phrasing isn't quite right but it seems close enough to spawn a meme.

I searched "friends we made along the way" year by year on Twitter and the first year people seemed to use it in a formulation like that was 2014.

Knowyourmeme traces it to a Tumblr post dated July 21, 2014, and the general plot concept to Stand By Me (1986).

Jack Handey was great.

Not as funny as Giuliani going to jail for contempt of Congress, but funny.

29: knowyourmeme is way off on this one. The kids in Stand By Me didn't make friends on they way, they were friends before they started and made some enemies during the journey. The urtext for "friends along the way" is .

Is it too much to ask of 2019 that it gives me a Giuliani perp walk?

The real treasure are the Turkish dictators we meet along the way.

33: Rudy and Manafort at Club Fed: worst Odd Couple remake ever.

35: add Trump - worst Golden Girls remake ever.

Incidentally, someone needs to redo this painting as Putin and Trump.

29 et al the plot concept goes at least as far back as The Wizard of Oz (the movie, anyway, maybe also the book?) and probably way further.

Like it seems like a point O. Henry probably hit at some point, and maybe Hans Christian Andersen (tho probably not depressing enough).

OT, but less so than on the other threads: If Trump uses his own hotel for the G7, can the other six just tell America to fuck off and not go?