Same, I want to believe that this is all a ruse and that the are smart and just really good at playing dumb, but there are just too MANY of them.
It's sycophancy plain and simple. Surround yourself with only yes-men, it ends up becoming less and less competent as the ones who stand up and say no are replaced.
Even if they know better, they can't do better because they know there is no loyalty to nay-sayers.
The simpler explanation is that all the competent people saw what happened the first go around and want nothing to do with it. That leaves a detritus of sociopathic wannabes to select from for staff, all vying to mirror the behavioral profile of dear leader.
Unfortunately for Maduro, that operation was run by military professionals rather than directly by Trump's lackeys. But give Hegseth enough time and he'll bring them around to the new standard.
When I saw mention it was in context of a “contracting” type set of info / document I actually chuckled - I spent a decade in procurement and sales for high stakes contracts. Incompetent person has no idea how to manage a procurement and goes online. Basically this is a 2026 version of an inept executive bashing “what is an RFP” into a search engine from 2007.
And when the CCP compromised the law enforcement portal for every American ISP, stealing info on 80% of Americans, including both the Kamala and Trump campaigns, under the previous admin it was rock solid op-sec, presumably.
Or when the previous admin leaked classified Iran attack plans from the Pentagon, so bad that they didn't even know whether they were hacked or not.
You can at least pretend to make a technical argument over a political one.
You're the one making a political argument by doing a whataboutism that attempts to negate the failings of this administration. Which you're not even doing correctly because by every measure the previous administration was drastically more competent by looking at the qualifications of the people who filled their posts.
Can you explain how leaking the phone metadata of 80% of Americans and compromising the integrity of the 2024 election campaign's private comms is better OpSec than a single leak?
It's the worst U.S. government leak of all time, by far.
If they are so leaky then why were they able to capture Maduro without a single American casualty? On one hand you claim incompetence and yet no one was tipped off. So maybe the Signal group chat wasn't as important as it was made out to be?
You have to actively maintain a state of ignorance to say this isn’t different. Go look at all of the public reporting starting in January about the way appointees in the Pentagon, DOGE, etc. blew through the normal policies and procedures controlling access, clearing people, or restricting sharing.
For example, this wasn’t just “oops, I used the wrong number” but Hegseth getting a custom line run into a secure facility so he could use a personal computer of unknown provenance and security:
That’s one of the reasons why one of the first moves they made was to fire CISOs and the inspectors general who would normally be investigating serious policy violations.
This isn’t “big government”, it’s the attitude that the law is a tool used to hurt their opponents and help themselves but never the reverse.
> Reviews of decades of scientific research suggest that polygraph tests are not reliable or accurate enough to be used in most forensic, legal or employment settings.
> Although lying can cause the physiological responses measured by polygraph machines—such as sweating and increased heart rate—those same changes can occur even when people are not lying, for example when they are nervous.
Leave Fife out of it. His heart was in the right place, at least. Also, his boss made sure he was unarmed.
Or at least not readily armed, bullet in the shirt pocket and all.
In at least one episode he gets it taken away from him, which is my favorite bit. “Give me my bullet!”
this administrations competence on anything and everything has been a kid eating glue
One of them has bragged about how difficult it is to identify a giraffe, but that he's done it three times
And probably also been asked to draw a clock at a certain time, too.
If it wasn't meant to be eaten, it shouldn't have tasted so good!
We should get their heads checked for crayons.
[dead]
Pretty sure that's a feature, not a bug
Personally I believe this but it gets into conspiracy theory real quick. There are far simpler explanations.
Same, I want to believe that this is all a ruse and that the are smart and just really good at playing dumb, but there are just too MANY of them.
It's sycophancy plain and simple. Surround yourself with only yes-men, it ends up becoming less and less competent as the ones who stand up and say no are replaced.
Even if they know better, they can't do better because they know there is no loyalty to nay-sayers.
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The simpler explanation is that all the competent people saw what happened the first go around and want nothing to do with it. That leaves a detritus of sociopathic wannabes to select from for staff, all vying to mirror the behavioral profile of dear leader.
Incompetence and conspiracies go hand-in-hand.
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Maduro and his bodyguards would slightly disagree.
Unfortunately for Maduro, that operation was run by military professionals rather than directly by Trump's lackeys. But give Hegseth enough time and he'll bring them around to the new standard.
When I saw mention it was in context of a “contracting” type set of info / document I actually chuckled - I spent a decade in procurement and sales for high stakes contracts. Incompetent person has no idea how to manage a procurement and goes online. Basically this is a 2026 version of an inept executive bashing “what is an RFP” into a search engine from 2007.
The trick is how to weaponize the incompetence against them.
There at least one country that weaponised it against the US.
Russia
And when the CCP compromised the law enforcement portal for every American ISP, stealing info on 80% of Americans, including both the Kamala and Trump campaigns, under the previous admin it was rock solid op-sec, presumably.
Or when the previous admin leaked classified Iran attack plans from the Pentagon, so bad that they didn't even know whether they were hacked or not.
You can at least pretend to make a technical argument over a political one.
> CCP compromised the law enforcement portal for every American ISP
Isn’t that the fault of the ISPs, not the admin?
It was a previous admin who mandated a backdoor. Predictably, enemies of the state got access to the backdoor.
Nope. The breach was in law enforcement operated portals.
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You're the one making a political argument by doing a whataboutism that attempts to negate the failings of this administration. Which you're not even doing correctly because by every measure the previous administration was drastically more competent by looking at the qualifications of the people who filled their posts.
Can you explain how leaking the phone metadata of 80% of Americans and compromising the integrity of the 2024 election campaign's private comms is better OpSec than a single leak?
It's the worst U.S. government leak of all time, by far.
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It's been the same with every administration, unfortunately. It's just a side effect of such an unnecessarily big goverment.
Inviting a reporter from the Atlantic to your signal chat where you coordinate military plans has nothing to do with government being too big
If they are so leaky then why were they able to capture Maduro without a single American casualty? On one hand you claim incompetence and yet no one was tipped off. So maybe the Signal group chat wasn't as important as it was made out to be?
2 replies →
You have to actively maintain a state of ignorance to say this isn’t different. Go look at all of the public reporting starting in January about the way appointees in the Pentagon, DOGE, etc. blew through the normal policies and procedures controlling access, clearing people, or restricting sharing.
For example, this wasn’t just “oops, I used the wrong number” but Hegseth getting a custom line run into a secure facility so he could use a personal computer of unknown provenance and security:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/us/politics/hegseth-signa...
That’s one of the reasons why one of the first moves they made was to fire CISOs and the inspectors general who would normally be investigating serious policy violations.
This isn’t “big government”, it’s the attitude that the law is a tool used to hurt their opponents and help themselves but never the reverse.
Are you sure? This guy didn't pass a counterintelligence polygraph. Like, the one that asks "are you sure you're not a spy?"
Which polygraph, "lie detector" polygraph?
https://www.apa.org/topics/cognitive-neuroscience/polygraph
> Reviews of decades of scientific research suggest that polygraph tests are not reliable or accurate enough to be used in most forensic, legal or employment settings.
> Although lying can cause the physiological responses measured by polygraph machines—such as sweating and increased heart rate—those same changes can occur even when people are not lying, for example when they are nervous.
You really think that every other administration has had this level of incompetence? The current bumbling and corruption is absolutely unparalleled.