Trump's Pick for New CIA Director Is Career Spymaster (bloomberg.com) 313
An anonymous reader shares a AP report: President Donald Trump's choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported. Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo. Haspel, the current deputy CIA director, also helped carry out an order that the agency destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges. Haspel, who has extensive overseas experience, briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
What a Sweetheart! (Score:5, Funny)
Wasn't I married to her once?
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That's no longer a requirement for marriage.
Thanks (Score:2)
Career Spymaster? (Score:2)
What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? (Score:2)
I'm against torture, (however much people use weasel words to underplay whatever "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used).
It brings us down to the level of those who seek to destroy our society and its hard-won liberties and values.
(I'm certainly not against them in battle or cold blood if they're caught in the act...)
I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking:
according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
WTF? Intelligence officials briefing the press? Prosecute them!
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Sorry, should read "...killing them in battle..." of course
Re:What happened to "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:4, Insightful)
Leaking is remarkably rarely prosecuted, especially given how much administrations complain about it. The reason that administrations don't pursue leaking more aggressively is that the people in the administration want to preserve their own ability to leak.
Leaking is an essential part of the way government works. It's going over the head of the regular channels and appealing directly to the people. This can be done for both personal/professional reasons, and for patriotic reasons.
There has only been one exception to this pattern I can remember: the Obama administration. Obama didn't complain much about leakers publicly, he just quietly went after them. Only 13 people have ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, and eight of those thirteen were on Obama's watch.
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I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking:
according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
WTF? Intelligence officials briefing the press? Prosecute them!
You do realize a lot of "leaks" are actually supported or directed by the administration or upper leadership of an agency, right? It's used as a way to control narratives, refute information that is about to be released by a news agency, as a way to get out information without making a formal statement, or even just to maintain relationships with friendly media.
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I'm also against the increasing trend of leaking
Why? Information frees.
Nothing to do with Russia - at all (Score:5, Informative)
So, Trump fired Tillerson just hours after this: https://twitter.com/ZekeJMille... [twitter.com] . Delicious.
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So, Trump fired Tillerson just hours after this: https://twitter.com/ZekeJMille... [twitter.com] . Delicious.
Yeah, but Tillerson already knew he was getting fired. The writing was on the wall, and he didn't really have anything to lose here.
The usual pattern for folks in the WH: Trump makes denigrating tweets about you, and then you're out. Trump had already started the tweets, John Kelly called Tillerson at 2:30am in Egypt (the night after he arrived in Africa) warning him of upcoming Presidential tweets that concerned him. Tillerson clears his schedule the next day due to "illness," he cuts his trip short, arriv
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More likely Tillerson said that when his contacts informed him that Trump was asking about who would be a good replacement.
Did he though?
https://twitter.com/ABC/status... [twitter.com]
Stop saying "Harsh interrogation" (Score:5, Informative)
The word and the action is "TORTURE"
Shouldn't it be "Spymistress"? (Score:2, Funny)
Shouldn't it be "Spymistress"?
Or is that sexist?
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More kinky.
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You need to ask Dame Judi Dench.
Er (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Er (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the bad thing is participating in the secret torture of untried human beings and destroying evidence, you think?
Really informed, huh, bubba??? (Score:2)
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No not really (except the torture part). What's bad is appointing the current CIA director to the Secretary of State position, even though he himself was hardly a career CIA guy. Who the hell would want to do diplomacy with a man whose agency spied and likely performed covert ops against your country?
No chaos. You're the chaos. (Score:2, Interesting)
The list of people who have either quit or have been escorted out of the White House by security continues to grow. The Trump administration has broken all records in regard to staff turnover, and it's only been a year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
THE BEST PEOPLE
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It starts to feel a bit like Celebrity Big Brother. Every week someone else has to leave.
Re:No chaos. You're the chaos. (Score:4, Informative)
He's firing people that he hired. So, if that's "draining the swamp" then it means that he brought the swamp with him in the first place.
YES - it's about time! (Score:2)
I don't really have an opinion on Haspel, I am just very encouraged that Trump appointed someone who seems qualified for the position.
Given his track record, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if he appointed the VP of marketing for Kraft foods the CIA director.
Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?
What a shitshow (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/AP_Politic... [twitter.com]
But she's on the Euro/No Fly List????? (Score:2)
That fact should bother few. (Score:2)
Re:Explain to me please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Explain to me please (Score:5, Informative)
that and torturing people
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Won't someone think of due process?
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Re: Explain to me please (Score:5, Insightful)
Because torture does not work and it ultimately does great harm to the torturers. I would cite moral reasons, but I get the impression from your question that morality is not an issue with you.
Re:Some questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Informative)
1) Yes
2) No
3) See below
http://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/20... [yorku.ca]
https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
https://www.law.utah.edu/effec... [utah.edu]
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1. Is waterboarding torture?
Yes.
2. Has waterboarding ever extracted useful information?
As with most methods of torture, it leads to a lot of bad data.
But again, the problem is that once you torture, you abrogate your moral authority. The US loved to claim moral authority, once upon a time. It used to have value.
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Without any solid proof, most of the time based on heresay or even on arse pulls like wearing a Casio watch. Besides, torture is a crime. This is why you should care.
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Terrorists are murdering innocent people and she's torturing murderers.
Oh, and these people were terrorists, were they?
Or... wait, half the reason they were "indefinitely detained" is they were picked up but we don't know if they were terrorists or not.
Murderers don't care about the people they murder so why should we care about them?
You need to be better than the people you're fighting. Better, not the same.
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Terrorists are murdering innocent people and she's torturing murderers.
I thought that "two wrongs don't make a right" was still taught to young children. Apparently you skipped school that day...
Moreover, while your first point is broadly correct the second is merely an assumption. i.e. "she's torturing alleged murderers." I'd suggest this is still a moot point but, since I'm not sure how your moral reasoning works, it might be worth lodging objections at varying degrees of 'wrong' in case something triggers a response.
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Why? Do you expect that will result in a less violent society? Any references?
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"Well it does cut down on the number of repeat offenders"
Well yes, but the vast majority of murderers never re-offend, and for the few others incarceration has the same effect.
How different policies affect the overall level of violence is what I'm wondering about, because it seems that promoting revenge would of course promote revenge for example.
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That right there is the very definition of "not working". If the people who actually have useful information can be trained to not give it out, or to gi
Reasonable counterpoints. We don't know (Score:2)
Thanks for posting some counter points vs the groupthink. It's interesting to consider all sides of an issue.
On much of this, we are ALL talking to of our ass. We simply do not know. We really can't answer "is water boarding torture" for two reasons. First because we haven't experienced it and don't really know what it's like. We can only parrot what someone said on our favorite echo-chamber TV program. Secondly, the question itself is absurdly binary. Water boarding is clearly very unpleasant. It's a
Re:Explain to me please (Score:5, Insightful)
No, her being Deputy Director is a problem, AND being made Director is a bigger problem.
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I assume you're just pretending to be obtuse.
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I assume you're just pretending to be obtuse.
He's just being a disingenuous troll. Maybe he thinks he actually has a point, but he doesn't. He just attacks strawman.
Re:Explain to me please (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's OK for her to be the Deputy director, but once she gets to climb one rung of the ladder that's a big problem?
It's not OK for her to be either Deputy Director or Director, but it is nearly impossible to pull out the bad ones who are already in place.
Waterboarding by the CIA was something that helped terrorists. Our doing it gave a powerful recruiting tool to terrorist organizations: it allowed them to show that the U.S. are not the good guys. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and we should object to her being Director because we should not reward people for doing stupid things in their job.
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the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations has never, ever believed that the U.S. was part of the "good guys"... regardless of the existence of waterboarding methods. Just like you can't convince a truther than 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy, a birther that obama is an american, a fookooshimar that fukushima will kill every single person in japan and then some, a typical terrorist has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact.
Re:Explain to me please (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but until you torture and kill my father, brother or child, I could at least be indifferent to you.
After you do, I want you dead. You. And your father, your brother and your child.
Angry young men need to be given focus (Score:5, Insightful)
the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations has never, ever believed that the U.S. was part of the "good guys"... regardless of the existence of waterboarding methods.
This would be true if the world consisted of only two clearly distinct types of people "the type of person that is attracted to terrorist organizations" and the type that isn't, and if the type that "is" will always go and join Al Qaeda without any convincing. But the world is not, and they don't. People are anywhere in any range in between. Radicals have to be radicalized. Angry young men are plentiful, but they don't become terrorists until they have their anger focussed and fanned and, most particularly, given a target. "Terrorists" don't pop up out of nowhere, they are recruited and radicalized.
They might get radicalized to say "my country is repressive, I need to fight for more freedom for myself and my brothers." They might say "I need to fight to leave my country and go to America where I can open a falafel stand and get rich." Or they might get radicalized to "America is evil and wants to destroy us and our way of life and we need to fight it."
Our use of torture is a tool that gets organizations like ISIS or Al Qaeda the ability to take these angry young men and turn them to that last option.
Just like you can't convince a truther than 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy, a birther that obama is an american, a fookooshimar that fukushima will kill every single person in japan and then some, a typical terrorist has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact.
But how did that "typical terrorist [who] has an image of the West that does not need to be based in reality or fact" become a terrorist? How do they get that image of the west? They are radicalized. We are giving the terrorist organizations the tools to do that.
I take you've never met anybody from the middle east, right? They aren't born saying "I need to kill infidels". They have to be recruited.
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Yeah, it really is that simple. Why don't you simply listen to what the actual terrorist say? Do you REALLY believe some sheltered, white, suburban "progressive" twit in a US college knows what motivates a terrorist from Pakistan or Iran or Saudi Arabia better than the terrorist himself?
Boy it's really convenient that
a) all terrorists have exactly the same beliefs and motivations
b) all terrorists are completely honest and forthright about what those beliefs actually are
It sure makes my job of blindly hating them much easier.
We are supporting the bad guys (Score:2)
Waterboarding by the CIA was something that helped terrorists. Our doing it gave a powerful recruiting tool to terrorist organizations: it allowed them to show that the U.S. are not the good guys. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and we should object to her being Director because we should not reward people for doing stupid things in their job.
Oh yes, it was the waterboarding that led to ISIS and Al Qaeda believing the US was evil.
You mis-interpreted what I said. ISIS and Al Queda believe the U.S. is evil, and utilize America's use of torture as a recruitment tool to get people to sign on to that belief.
It had nothing to do with brainwashing, fanaticism, extremist religious leaders, or any of that.
They have to recruit. They have to turn people into fanatics, and they do that by showing that we are the bad guys, and they are the people opposing the bad guya. When our message is trying to be "we're the good guys, we want to help you," their pointing to the U.S. using torture pretty much zeros out that argument, getting people
Re: Explain to me please (Score:4, Insightful)
Please point to actual evidence that Islamic countries have in fact ever demonstrated that they have given the US any "moral authority".
No one "gives you" moral authority. You earn it with the combination of your words and deeds.
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So it's OK for her to be the Deputy director, but once she gets to climb one rung of the ladder that's a big problem?
It wasn't okay. That's the point. But with all the other crazy Trump appointments it probably got lost in the news. The NY Times covered it when she was appointed Deputy Director. [nytimes.com]
Re:"harsh interrogation technique" (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical Internet slander from the alt right. Post a big fucking lie 50,000 times and people get confused, start thinking "Well, maybe... who knows what Obama did or didn't do."
In fact Obama was extremely vocal against waterboarding. [theguardian.com] He banned that practice of the Bush administration.
Cheney was the one who kept calling it "enhanced interrogation techniques" while insisting it wasn't torture.
Re: "harsh interrogation technique" (Score:2)
Obama was extremely vocal...
Aren't words grand?
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Nope, that's still a Bush policy [politifact.com]. To be fair, Obama's administration would instead tell other countries where "people of interest" were and let those other countries arrest them. In many countries that's likely to get the arrested person tortured, but it's at least a small step in a better direction.
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Nonsense. Rendition dramatically increased under Obama.
Why don't you provide a citation for this claim. I'm not one to usually exclaim CITATION REQUIRED as this is an internet forum, not a research paper, but when you make extraordinary claims you should back them up.
From looking at your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or just a horribly ineloquent contrarian. Then again, what's the difference?
Re: "harsh interrogation technique" (Score:4, Informative)
He tried and congress would not let him. At one point he even said his inability to close Gitmo was one of his greatest failures as president.
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He tried and congress would not let him.
You appear to be employing selective memory. He made the same argument about congress being a roadblock to fixing immigration. He maintained that position. After 3 or so years, when it finally suited him, he declared "I have a phone and a pen" and proceeded to do what he liked.
Now, you could argue whether he was right or wrong to act unilaterally without congress. You can also point to the problem those who supported Obama's actions on immigration face: an executive order by one president can be u
Re: "harsh interrogation technique" (Score:4, Informative)
I think he genuinely wanted to, but I also don't believe he resorted to a broad use of executive power lightly. The Affordable Care Act was his great congressional push and after that he lost congress. There are certain things the executive branch can act on and certain things it cannot. Selective enforcement, which is basically what he did with the immigration problem, has long been an area where the executive branch has great latitude. Moving a military base/prison isn't the same thing. As a Constitutional scholar, I'm sure Obama was aware that he would not win in court if he attempted to shut Gitmo down without congressional approval.
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Not being a constitutional law professor I'd argue that as Commander-in-Chief he'd have a lot firmer standing closing Gitmo than some of his other executive actions. It was likely a low priority with him, having more symbolic than practical substance. Something perhaps more politically beneficial to rue than to act upon.
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As a Constitutional scholar he should have known that holding anyone indefinitely and without trial was a violation of the Constitution and that, despite what some claim, the rights mentioned in the Constitution are meant to apply to all people, not just American citizens.
And also on that note Obama issued Executive Orders almost as many t
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For the first two years, they did not. Democrats had a super majority, and the opposition had no veto power. This power was used extensively. It was not used, however, to close Guantanamo Bay.
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Obama is the reason we have Trump. If you consider that an accomplishment then oh well.
Agreed. Obama was so bad we elected a billionaire reality tv star who's never held a political office. Considering his lack of politics he's doing surprisingly well but that's not the point.
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Obama was so bad
At what? He came into office during an economic crisis. He stabilized the economy and it has done extremely well since. He also expanded healthcare to millions of Americans without it, which addressed one of the great moral failings of this country. He appointed experts to the various agencies and bureaus he oversaw. He took steps to protect our environment that led to an explosion of green technologies. No major wars were started during his presidency. America regained good standing with the international
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I hate to respond to myself, but I will include a quick caveat: I wholly disapproved of how Obama handled Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and the NSA data collection as a whole. It's an unfortunate stain on his presidency. However, I would be a fool to believe any of the men who ran against him would have been any better. McCain is scary pro-military and Romney isn't much better.
Obama moved society in the direction of being better. If we judge a president only by their failures and not by their greater bod
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Considering that the alternative would have been Hillary...
THANK YOU, OBAMA!
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No, the Democrats putting Hillary on the ballot is why we have Trump.
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That you even use the terms "cuck" and "soyboy" doesn't say much for you as a person.
You're for treating women unequally? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying we should treat women differently and shouldn't be outraged that she destroyed video documentation to hide torture and approves of harsh methods as we would even if it were a man doing the same thing?
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Don't feed the trolls.
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He doesn't hate her, rather when she's around he just stares blankly while Hootie and the Blowfish plays in his head.
Re:You're for treating women unequally? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you hate strong women?
What's "strong" about destroying criminal evidence? I've always thought of it as rather weak, actually.
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"diverse CIA director"
What the hell does that mean? Does she have ten totally different hobbies or something like that?
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Has it occurred to you yet that it makes more sense that you're the Russian spy troll sent here to make progressives look even more dumb?
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See? Now that's American-style humor. Much better.
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Yeah, he really did. Stop spreading lies.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/
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Meanwhile, your own link is from.. oh, that's right, you haven't provided one. Maybe instead of doing nothing but "nuh uh! you're wrong because I said so!", you should try backing up your claims?
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Your own link is from 2011. Are you aware that he was president for another 5 years and renditions skyrocketed during that time? Tell us again about his promises to close Gitmo.
I can blame Obama for a great many things (including torture), but I can't really blame him for not closing Gitmo. Congress refused to authorize any funds because they wanted to keep the detainees there, and both Congress and the states refused to allow any detainees to be moved to any mainland detention facility out of safety concerns, as if they were a bunch of super-spies that would somehow escape and commit terrorism. Obama's choices were to keep the detainees in Gitmo or release them, and the latter wo
Re: Is Slashdot full of misogynist pigs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whataboutism is strong in this one
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Both [Re: Re:News Just In] (Score:2)
CNN before: "He's the ex CEO of Exon Mobil. He's trash". CNN after: "Rex Tillerson is a Hero. He stood up to Trump"
It is possible for both of those statements to be reasonable. It's possible for him to be trash, and also for him to be heroic.
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It's all relative to what the alternative is. If you've got a Dean Acheson or George Marshall waiting in the wings, and you go for a Warren Christopher instead, Warren Christopher is trash. If your alternative to Warren Christopher is Rex Tillerson, then Warren Christopher is a hero.
If your alternative to Rex Tillerson is Mike Pompeo, then Tillerson looks like a hero. The Secretary of State is the country's top diplomat, and Pompeo has no relevant experience. He's a short-term tea party Congressman who's
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The only Secretaries of State in living memory with less experience in foreign affairs were William Rogers and Cy Vance.
You're showing your age there.
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Considering the Manchurian candidate has yet to say a single bad word about his buddy Putin, it was about time an adult said something.
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Give it up Russian troll bot.
Why do you think he's a Russian troll bot?
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Tillerson has already said he doesn't know the reason he was fired.
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Rex Tillerson never wanted the job. He publicly said as much when he was appointed.
Trump has been making derogatory remarks about Tillerson for awhile, and the general trend is that once Trump starts publicly bad-mouthing you, your days are numbered. Sessions will be next, though the Mueller investigation makes firing him more challenging. Not that that stopped him from firing Comey.
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So ... you prefer to keep someone who is incompetent?
If you find out you made a bad choice, fix it and move on. That's leadership.
Sounds like Trump's base needs to fix their bad choice, move on, and lead.
Re: Fill the swamp, drain the swamp. (Score:2)
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If you replace one person under you they're likely the problem
If you're replacing everyone under you you're likely the problem
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Hmm... Hard to decide which one of the assholes I wanna waterboard first.