Meanwhile...


[Image in tweet is a red-white-and-blue flyer reading: "We are going to put America back to work. We are going to put people before government.—Donald J. Trump."]

The fact that Trump thinks "people" and "government" are mutually exclusive concepts is revealing. As is the fact that the one person who won't get "back to work" is him.


Anyone else have a problem with that? I sure do.

Among the many consequences of an administration mired in incompetence, distracted by scandal, and dedicating what little focus they have to an aggressively indecent domestic agenda built around boogeymen, is that there's no one paying attention to actual threats to the nation.

In the case of a Russian spy ship, that inattention might be deliberate. But there are other threats out there, and there doesn't seem to be anyone who is taking them seriously, or even thinking about them at all.

This isn't mere speculation on my part.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Ryan Browne and Barbara Starr at CNN report that Army Gen. Raymond "Tony" Thomas, the head of US Special Operations Command, told a symposium in Maryland on Tuesday "that the US government is in 'unbelievable turmoil,' a situation that he suggested could undermine US efforts to fight adversaries such as ISIS."

He later said: "As a commander, I'm concerned our government be as stable as possible."

In a stark commentary on how deep that instability goes, Shane Harris and Carol E. Lee at the Wall Street Journal report: "U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter."

We don't have functional governance. It is totally unclear who is making decisions, and whether there is anyone in the entirety of the Trump administration with the decency and wisdom to make good ones.

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