Here is what the poster, Martin Random, spoke of in his thread:-------I was going to post this in the "Expose the big lie" thread but after I wrote it I thought it was interesting enough to merit a thread of its own. This is all good information, personally verified or witnessed by none other than me, but I will not answer any questions about it or go into any detail other than what I've already typed out. I may reply with more information or anecdotes if I see fit, but I've pretty much already scraped the barrel of my experiences.

These are some facts I have witnessed and learned through my employment. Take it at face value, believe it or don't believe it, because I'm not providing corroborating pictures, details, or evidence beyond my own testimony.

Homeland security buys in bulk and at great premium millions of dollars of useless personal appliances from China, such as rice cookers, nose hair trimmers, massage wands, and heating pads, boxes them up, and buries them in railroad shipping containers in the Arizona desert for no reason whatsoever other than to spend its budget and prevent sub-agencies from getting the funds. I suspect that the money goes to a middleman in order to secretly siphon funds into foreign organizations which we can't support over the table, but this is just me trying to find a justification for this massive and intentional government waste.

Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he's gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.

President Bush uses anti-depressant medication, a lot of it, at a stupendous dosage, and he is hiding it from the American public. This is the real reason he stopped drinking. Because of the dosage, he is also impotent.

Tom Ridge carries 20 credit cards with him at all times, each one with a very low limit. I have never heard of him using one, ever, but he has them. He also wears his socks inside-out, and will flip the fuck out and walk strangely if he is forced to wear them properly, because it drives him crazy. All of his socks must be laundered right side in and then turned inside out before they are returned to him. He gave specific instructions about handling his food, and not allowing his vegetables to touch any other food item on the plate. His utensils must be steamed over boiling water. He will not eat soup which hasn't been boiled within the past 20 minutes or which he has not prepared himself. If any of these rules are violated, he flies into a rage, turns beet red, and will not eat a single thing. He has his personal attendants confirm over and over that the food is as he likes it. He also shaves his forearms and hands because he can't stand the idea of body hair on his arms. He demands that his bedsheets are bleach white and changed fresh every night and he sleeps in a separate bed in a big, tight, body-length nylon sleeve, with a fan blowing over him at full power. He is terrified of animals which have fur or hair longer than one inch, and will not go near curly hair of any kind, even on people. At one time he ran from his office and demanded that someone look under everything for a rodent which did not and could not exist, then he had the entire place wiped down with disinfectant and vacuumed twice. While this was done he couldn't even bear to look at the door, or come within 20 feet of his office. He was in hysterics.

President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.

Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges. I don't have any direct information on this because the guys with him at the time are not talking. This is totally unconfirmed, but I think it is plausible.

Dick Cheney has chronic gum problems and his breath smells like shit as a result. He is also a CLOSE TALKER. He keeps a small bottle of diluted hydrogen peroxide which he rinses with every hour on the hour, and he swallows it instead of spitting. He also picks his nose vigorously (violently) and hums loudly and tunelessly to himself while taking shits.

There is a sealed room in the whitehouse which once held a half-ton block of cheese for about 30 years.

The White house is planting its own men among the press agents at press conferences.

The white house lawn is mowed every other day by the same man humming the same tune.

Despite all of this craziness, there is nothing strange whatsoever about Condoleeza Rice. She is completely balanced and normal, if slightly robotic in her personal demeanor. She smells very nice at all times. She does, however, constantly check her investments online from her office when she thinks that nobody is looking, and she has slept at her desk on multiple occasions.

There is an administrative law judge who sits in an office in a building near the white-house, earns around 200k per year and has a secretary, and he does nothing except sit, read, and listen to classical music all day. His secretary likewise does nothing. He gets meals taken to him from the White-house kitchen, and is so lonely that he latches on to whoever gets sent and talks to them for hours about the korean war. His family is all dead and his secretary hates him. In a drawer in his desk he has an old revolver, which he got in there somehow despite that he shouldn't have been able to bring it in. I think he will shoot himself one day.

The "undisclosed location" is usually a local police officer training ground or state trooper college. Shh.

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Despite the popular conception, I have never, ever, ever seen President Bush give anyone around him a nickname when it wasn't for public effect to make him seem home-towney. He also has a thing where his accent gets more pronounced when there is a camera on him. Go figure.

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Pig Head posted:

Huh. Me and my friends joked about him having to be wasted but I didn't know it could be true.

Because of some kind of medical condition, he gets incredibly hammered on very tiny amounts of alcohol. However, he also loves the taste of hard liquor. He has a little spit glass that he uses to taste whiskey in his office. Between the hydrogen and the whiskey, he is a fucking loathsome man to have proximate.

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1337Thespian posted:

I don't know if Tom Ridge really is that OCD, but I believe every word about Cheney. For some reason it didn't surprise me at all.

Tom Ridge brushes his teeth like 3 times per day religiously, but he can't stand looking at someone brushing their teeth. He contorts as in agony, as if he is actually experiencing pain. He can't watch himself brush his teeth, and even describing the process of brushing teeth drives him up a wall.

If you joke around near Rumsfeld, he will stare at you intensely as if you just killed his mother for about 10 seconds, which will be unnerving because you think you've offended him, then he will begin to laugh a little bit, a bit more, until he is in hysterics. He has a chest condition called Pleurisy that causes this; breathing deeply is painful to him as is laughing with gusto, so he tries very hard to control himself before losing it. It really unnerves people who are trying to be sociable. This is the reason for his creepy shallow laugh in public.

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Neutrino posted:

Let me ask you a question though. How can I get a 200k/yr job with the Feds where I just sit on my ass? How much would it cost me?

Be a war hero and also good friends with Ronald Regean while he was president, and also specialize in an area of law which is heavily federally regulated. Become an administrative law judge, then make sure the industry for the specific appeals board you sit on has suddenly done a great job of self-regulating so nothing ever makes it to you. Stroke your old revolver and have sad, sad lonely eyes.

The man is possibly the most sad, forgotten, wretched creature I have ever met, yet somehow I feel a deep well of sympathy for him. He was once incredibly relevant, now he simply sits and does nothing in the hopes that he will never be noticed ever again.

As for condi sleeping in her office, I'm almost convinced she has narcolepsy. She'll work like crazy, and then BAM she's asleep on her desk for 15 minutes in the middle of the day, utterly insensible to anything, before suddenly jerking back up and animating as if driven by hidden clockwork gears.

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mojomonkee posted:

I don't care if the OP is all lies or not, it cracked me the fuck up to think of a federal level employee shoved in a nylon body-sock.

He is afraid of insects in his bed and will comment on this frequently, so I think the nylon and the fan is to prevent them from crawling onto him (or into him) while he sleeps.

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reflir posted:

You have to tell us more about that giant block of cheese. What the fuck where they thinking? Why was it removed? Did you ever eat any of it?

This is actually the least believable anecdote, but it is recorded historical fact, and I encourage anyone who is interested to research it and discover its truth for themselves. Back in the very beginning, on an anniversary of the states were joining the union, they'd send gifts. Philledelphia or Vermont, or one of those states, gave a gigantic, wagon-sized wheel of cheese. It was kept in a room and whenever there was a social event, they'd run in there, cut off the disgusting rancid mold, and start serving the still-good undercheese. After they had mined the thing and pockmarked it enough that cutting off the rancid portions was really difficult, they wheeled it out and rolled it down a hill into the river. The room has been remodelled several times but still people complain about the odor, so it is seldom used, not even for storage. I personally can't smell anything in there, so I think a lot of it is just a placebo effect.

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It is a little unfair to be picking on these people because they're all old men, and their bodies are falling apart, but oh well. Rumsfeld lets out really disgusting, wet farts, and then unbelievably denies the act. All staff on hand knows he does it, but nobody calls him on it, because he is Donald Rumsfeld. If he is really concentrating, he also reads letters and reports people write to him out loud in a weird squeaky voice. It sounds like some kind of crazy dramatic reading for a very very boring play.

The strangest thing about Wolfowitz was that he kept 4 pair of identical shoes in his office that he never, ever wore. He had some personal pictures on his shelf that he would violently snap down if he was in a bad mood, especially while on the phone. Also he is a frequent bathroom-user, but given the age of the men involved here, just assume that they all excuse themselves to piss all the goddamn time.

Also, another quirk about Cheney's hydrogen peroxide habit. He basically whips out a hip flask and takes a mouthful, and rinces for about two minutes, then swallows. Then, without fail, he tells everyone around him that he is using hydrogen peroxide, that it is great for your teeth, and that they too should rinse with it as he does. I think he's worried people will misunderstand what he is doing and think he's a lush.

Edit: Now that I'm talking about Rumsfeld's legendary farts, I realize that I'm pretty much tapped out. I don't have anything interesting left to say which wouldn't expose me. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

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DeathByChocolate posted:

Where in the Arizona desert does homeland security bury these products and how do you know about this? Is it just something you heard or do you have any evidence to back it up?

This is something I came to know through direct observation and so I know it to be truth. I'm not going to elaborate how I know it because doing so would reveal too much and might cause me to be fingered.

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MarvinMouse posted:

Just to call it, wouldn't this act be actually considered criminal? If anyone were actually get actual proof of this, it would be a major issue.

Look at what has happened to whistleblowers in the last 5 years. Look at the actual results of whistleblowing. I am where I want to be right now, and reporting the illegal activity does nothing to stop it and will only cost me grief and risk my career. There's a tacit atmosphere of "play ball" on the hill, and I am playing ball.

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MarvinMouse posted:

I would like to believe you are not that bad of a guy.

You have no idea what Washington has become. It's going to get much, much, much worse before it gets better.

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The Yellow Kid posted:

Wow Cheney even gave him a swig of his Peroxide!

The guy won't shut up about the Hydrogen Peroxide. He talks about how great it is and how everyone should use it as he does, and how it supposedly makes livestock super-healthy. He offers it from his disgusting little hip flask, and if you are enough of an ass-kiss you take him up on it.

Frankenstyle posted:

Under the current climate aren't you in the least worried about retribution, in the "Oh fuck I got fired" way?

I'm a little worried because I've come to not trust these forums as much as I used to, but the way I see it, you don't worry about a minor leak when your ship has been hit by three or four massive torpedos. The ship is sinking. This administration has terminal cancer and everyone scurrying around in the hallways here knows it. The Fear is strong these days.

BiterAtmonk posted:

Man, I would buy into this thread except that I remember a MartinRandom post in a confessions thread, where he indicated that he was fuckin' nuts. In a good way, but still fuckin' nuts. I have a hard time believing that someone of your strange, excellent caliber could find a job in the White House, MR.

Here's how the WH is populated. The secret service and other support staff are all exceedingly normal, competent, and excellent. They have families and careers and what-not. The people they're supporting come in two breeds: Ultra-competent semi-robotic A+ Harvard individuals with no personal life like Condi, or C- Harvard super-connected but barely contained balls of psychotic neurosis like Tom Ridge. It is as if these people spend so much of their mental energy trying to be normal, that all the strangenes manifests in their personal lives in a magnified and spectacular fashion.

Both are necessary to form an administration; the robots can't win a campaign and the psychotic schmoozers can't run things. Of course, people like Tom Ridge can only exist in a super-insulated environment or be destroyed by news of his eccentricities. One news story about the head of homeland security rolling around in his office, screaming about rats and attacking his own legs with an Iowa paperweight, if believed, will end a career. Chertoff is a robot and is not as entertaining.

Edit:Picture removed. Yay for goon detectives.

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Rapsey posted:

Why did you not answer his entire post?

Because it is based upon a naive and incorrect conception of how Washington functions these days, that the crime, if reported, would actually be corrected. The box car thing is one of a stupendous number of sham operations going on right now in the Federal government. I've thought about doing what he's suggested, but it won't do any good in the end. The entire system will perpetuate itself until a cataclysm of public opinion sweeps through the country.

The other, not as obvious sham is the following, which happens every single day here. A lobbyist will say that their startup company's new weapons system can fly from a plane and hit any target within 3 inches, regardless of weather conditions, by the way, wink wink, we are (or are owned by, or know) a major campaign donor. Of course, the weapons system doesn't perform as advertised, or perhaps fails in the design stages, or maybe never even gets researched, and this is just a sham to get contributions. Nobody ever follows up. I die a little inside.

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TACD posted:

At the risk of summoning some sort of D&D nuclear assault, what is the attitude towards peak oil around the White House? Does anybody know or care?

It's a combination of not knowing and not caring. It's filed in our collective consciousness as a potential political bone, but not as an actual problem which needs discussing or solving. In a way, nobody cares whether it is true or false. Like everything else, we only care about its potential to affect the administration or its tactical value in a campaign. If it becomes important, we'll all act like it is true or false, depending upon our particular strategy, determined by a combination of public sentiment and how much money comes from which people.

If it pleases enough people and is possible, the issue will be addressed indirectly in a way which satisfies both money and sentiment. This is why there is a lot of smoke about green energy technology, because it makes peak oil crazies happy and re-assures our supporting interests that we aren't taking any negative action.

Edit: And I say "peak oil crazies" not because they are crazy for believing in peak oil, but because they are crazy about it at this particular time.

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WhateverMJ posted:

Is there a "gallows humor" amongst the higher ups? I always thought being a politician who has to comment on things like bombings, genocides, assassinations and the like would end up having pretty dark senses of humor. Are there any references to popular myths floating around as well? ("Hey Random shape up or we'll do ya like we did JFK chick chick")

New comers and low-midlevel people have this kind of thing going on, but, like forums catchphrases, these things are not done by people who Matter. It's a LOT like forums catchphrases. People who make these jokes are obviously new blood, to whom their positioning is a novel and thus joke-worthy circumstance. It marks them as new, inexperienced, and unconnected, so they learn to shut the fuck up. Either that or they are retarded, like most FBI I've ever met. The FBI is full of the stupidest, most moronic rejects from society, and they only ever get anything done because they're so massive. They're either idiot aggrandized cops or corrupt political appointees, or they're ancient and awesome. The latter is a dying breed.

Most of the goons hanging around the white house in various staff positions try to be funny, but are too indoctrinated, stupid, or submerged in their particular brand of administrative culture to make jokes which are sensible to me.

As for gallows humor like joking horribly about the current political snap, it depends on the man. Rumsfeld will crack jokes about electrodes and testicals, and exclaim about horrendous things, but this is mostly because he does a lot of contemplation outloud in his loud, squeaky, unnerving thinking-voice, and he contemplates a lot of horrendous things. He doesn't joke with people much because it hurts him to laugh. Wolfowitz makes no jokes that I have seen, the closest he has gone is subtle, straight faced statements of irony at which he does not laugh. He kind of smiles very slightly and has a quizzical expression after issuing these statements, which is the only hint that he's trying to be funny. Cheney, I think, has some kind of reptile brain that operates on a level of humor which is so basic and ponderous that sometimes his jokes sound like regular (or particularly stupid) comments, and slip under everyone's radar. There are certain types of humor that takes several levels of comprehension to understand; Cheney has not expressed any facility in this. His gags are base humor, and usually made at incredibly inappropriate times too, like making a finger fucking gesture when he really should NOT be making a finger fucking gesture.

Cheney's jokes are like your father or mother, who is not funny or with it, trying to make a joke.

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Aliquid posted:

Anybody you actually like?

"Hey, this guy's qualified, well-rounded and personable, and I believe he looks out for the best interests of America!"

Everyone here is loathsome in one way or another. Even people who are squeaky clean become loathsome for that reason, because anyone here who is squeaky clean is only so by virtue of a psyche too insane or disconnected from reality for smut to stick. True cleanliness is squeezed out or quashed before it can take root. In order to embed within the system here in Washington, you have to have a duplicitous corruption of spirit, and the ability to, deep down, deceive yourself into believing that lies are truth, and to have utter conviction about it. For this reason many of the people here aren't alltogether human, in my eyes.

People around here who are disconnected from the machine are still decent. Thus, there is nobody here I truly like except for the extreme low-level support staff like the cooks and maids, and collateral administrative officials like that isolated wretch of a Judge I mentioned. Some people in independent administrative agencies are great, because they are independent, non-partisan, and usually more passionate about their work than they are about the position.

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Aliquid posted:

Have you ever met any of the "rogue" congressmen, like Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul? If so, do you think they were as politically indoctrinated into the status quo like the administration officials?

I've met Ron Paul but he was distracted at the time so we didn't get to chat. The House is like some big herd of barely qualified cats and there is no point in meeting any individual member unless the meeting is a set-up or he represents a faction. The Senate is another game entierly.

Morphix posted:

What's the general take on the religious right inside the White House? Is it one of those things where it's worked in the past and these people vote so lets throw some smoke up their asses and keep them voting. Or is there genuine support and care for the interests of this particular voting block? Also, is Bush a religious man?

You have to separate the people that constitute the Religious Right from the Religious Right itself, which is an interest. Asking whether a politician genuinely supports or cares about an interest is like asking whether a stockbroker supports and cares for Coca Cola. There has to be professional detachment. It depends on the market, and if he actually cares and acts according to some sort of sentimental feeling about Coca Cola which isn't totally a function of market conditions, he's a bad stock broker, cut from the herd, and eaten by bears. There has to be an emotional separation. "The Religious Right" is actually just a voting bloc, a collection of issues, influential people, and interested voters, so you can't care about it. You use it, like a hammer or a microphone.

As for the people within the religious right... well, it's hard to tell even for an insider whether they actually give a shit about the people. These individuals are the greatest in the nation at generating a phoney appearance of concern. Sometimes they will make coarse, off-camera remarks about smelly old ladies or flood victims, but who knows if this indicates their true feelings over general frustration.

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CaptainScraps posted:

Martin, since you've met all these people, which one if any do you respect now?

We're getting pretty close to territory I don't want to go into, but let me just say that Senator John McCain is truly, truly a good individual. He's also one of the few people who I would actually call a true gentleman. Barbara Boxer is also on my A list. She gets in the partisan quagmire a lot, but I think she has positive reform at heart. I like Marcus Peacock from the EPA, he's not some hack, he does the best he can with the pressures we place on him and his. I don't want to name anyone else.

Edit: From what I've seen, which isn't much, Russ Feingold is a reactionary and a class A faggot, but maybe he was having a bad day. He can't keep is cool, which means he'll never make it anywhere.

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We've strayed into stuff I don't want to talk about. Let's not turn this into a "Who you know!" game, please, because it is dangerous, and besides, I haven't had close contact with most of these people and thus can't say anything particularly interesting other than, "I met him, he was nice, but we only shook hands."

Q: Is bush a religious man?

I don't think Bush quite knows the answer to this himself. If you asked him, he'd say yes, as if he believes it, and I think he's convinced himself of this. However, he uses religion as a tool so much in dealing with just about everyone that anyone in his position, even the genuinely religious, would be confused about whether or not their faith is true.

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WhateverMJ posted:

Have there been any major crises that managed to stay localized to the White House and the people higher up, or does the media really break everything as soon as it happens?

There's a scary fact that you learn once the first Big Thing gets contained. It's not a crisis if it stays localized. We contain all kinds of caustic shit that would cause major Incidents, just as any administration does. However, I've seen criminal stuff going on inside the WH that will eventually be uncovered as soon as the dems can capture either House or Senate. People will be going to jail.

As for the media, they are completely fucking worthless, and I hate all of them with a passion. They are worse than the people here, because they choose to be depraved and corrupted. It is they who should have prevented Washington from becoming what it is today. At any rate, they never get anything good or solid because we have them mostly contained in a little box, and if they misbehave, they aren't invited back. They should be raising a stink about this, but they aren't, because they are worthless, incompetent people with no sense of outrage.

Stoic Commie posted:

about the Chinese goods buried in the Arizona desert, are they buried on private or government land?

The thing that saddens me is that there used to be a distinction between private and government. To answer your question, it is hard to tell. It's on private land which is owned by a private entity which contracts with the government. The private entity now owns the once-government land. Whatever way you want to conceptually sort it out is up to you.

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clockworkjoe posted:

What role do think tanks play in the white house? Does anyone pay attention to them? What are the respected ones?

They are tools just like anything else. They are paid to produce opinions which make our tactically chosen positions easier to maintain with apparent intellectual honesty. There are some I respect, but those are mostly the science-oriented ones, and I respect them for the same reason that I respect the science nerds in various independent administrative agencies.

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clockworkjoe posted:

Has this administration done anything redeemable or worthy of praise?

I don't even know anymore. On the aggregate, tallying up the good against bad, no, it has not. It very much has not. It's impossible to say whether individual acts are good or bad, because of their context in the overarching tapestry of awful.

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^^^^ Start thinking about around 200-300 mg of Zoloft and you're in W's ballpark.

MACMAC posted:

In your personal opinion, is Washington competely fucked? Is there any hope for the future of this country? I really feel like you're trying to tell me that I should get the fuck out while I'm still young.

I just have a key-hole glimpse at things, and so am just as suited as anyone else might be to predict how things will turn out. You want my personal take on things?

Democracy as a government relies upon the ability of factions to compromise on divisive issues through rational debate instead of violence. The current political power brokers have figured out how to short circuit this process by focusing national attention on issues which are based on differences of non-negotiable, irrational moral sentiment, and are thus not subject to resolution through rational reconciliation. They've broken democracy.

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Radd McCool posted:

Given your insider experience, what woudl you say are the most critical things that need to be done to fix the government? Also, I've always figured that a military officer would make a good president. What's your take on that?

A) Democrats win clear majority in either House or Senate and initiate investigations.

B) Massive campaign finance reform,

C) supreme court's money = free speech ruling overturned,

D) corporations no longer given the rights of people.

Edit: While I'm at it

E) End all tax subsidies. Fuck, reform the entire tax code.

F) Bring back the estate tax and sharply tax estates worth over 50 million.

G) Switch back to a college grant system instead of a loan system

H) Pass a law making it an ethics violation to appoint anyone who has helped with your campaign to any judicial or administrative positions.

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neato burrito posted:

Please tell me you know something about White House press secretary Scott McClellan. I can't stand him and whenever I hear or see his stupid, smug, lying monkey face I wanna punch a nun. It'd make my day to find out that he wets his bed or gets Dr. Pepper enemas every other day.

The guy is a human bean bag when confronting the press, designed to absorb blows, and he is a total douche, and granted, the A could get a prettier, more charismatic face to put up there. What you can't see is the genius behind-the-scenes ball twisting he engages in which has cowed them into submission. Revoking press passes, carting them into rooms, deciding who gets to be on which airplane, etc., the man has many tools, and he uses them to spectacular effect. The guy is a genius, a filthy, disgusting genius. I know some damning stuff about him but I need to think a while on how to deliver it without endangering myself.

Every time he is put up there in front of the microphone, realize that he is there as a human signpost of contempt for the press.

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theblackw0lf posted:

Are you sure it's him orchestrating such manuevers, and not the higher-ups telling him what to do? I'm just having a hard time believing Scotty is a genius. Now Ari, there was a genius.

Scotty is a genius, and if he wasn't, someone more charismatic would be in his place. This is evident by just studying how horribly the WH press has been cowed.

Higher-ups do strategic positioning of the administration and determine which is the most painless stance to take on any given issue. Each stance has its benefits and drawbacks. The strategic positioning is delivered down to him and his, and they figure out how to articulate it in such a way as to emphasize the benefits and spin or ignore the draw-backs. The emphasis and spin is his department, the strategic positioning is above him.

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Beerbaron posted:

What is the food like? This is a fucking awesome thread

The food is the best part of the job. They're on a health kick lately, but at pretty much any time of the day you can zip down to the kitchen and get something very very good. The vegetables are so fresh that you can eat them raw; you've never tasted anything until you've eaten raw asparagus as it is supposed to be. Fresh, sweet, and tasty. I spend a considerable amount of time down there snacking and chatting up the staff. I love our cooking staff, cleaning staff, and the grounds staff. Sometimes, if I need to go for a walk or ride or just get outside, I ride along on a meal delivery and say I'm out doing something important.

Crenshaw posted:

Also, I don't see you post in D&D much; do you think you could change that?

I hate posting in D&D. I posted there one time this past year, something completely innocuous, and was put on probation for some incredibly lame reason. It's too crazy and hyper-sensitive in there for me, and from what I've seen, almost everyone there has no idea what they are talking about. Sorry to disappoint.

GatorHoy posted:

I hope I didn't miss this question already, but do people in the white house know or care about The Daily Show?

Not anything which isn't reported to us through a clipping service. Other people have the job of sorting what is relevant and irrelevant in the media, and then we get a report about it. I've watched it one or two times and think it is funny, and then I get sad because nobody where I work would laugh at the jokes.

OUR KYLE posted:

Anything you are willing to share about Iraq, afghanistan and what is going on over there?

I have no access to millitary intelligence, anything I learn is massivley filtered and so inherrently contextual to my job that I can't comment.

GJMIII posted:

Rumsfeld was also pretty friendly when I joked with him and didn't seem strange. Iced underwear I'll believe though, I wish I had some.

Did he laugh with you at all? Did you notice his weird, shallow laugh?

Og Oggilby posted:

Just out of curiosity, are there enough weaknesses that a government overthrow could happen? It almost seems like it's so screwed up, something like this could happen.

This country, just like any big ship, will right itself. The fact that things are still great despite this massive corruption is a very encouraging sign. It means that our inherrent resources and placement in the world are so great that this waste at the top isn't hurting us.

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La-li-lu-le-lo posted:

On the topic of conversation, is there any real active search for Bin Laden? Do you know anything about what's going on with him? Have there been any 24-esque incidents that have been swept under the rug, like a city was about to be blown up but they saved it at the last moment?

I know that they have some poor bastards running around, peeking in caves, and pissing off locals so that we can continue to say that the hunt is on, but nobody expects to get OBL. Ever.

No 24-esque things have happened on my watch except for incredibly retarded terrorism scares that just turn out to be some creepy guy masturbating onto the White House gate.

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W is a decent seeming guy who is very good at putting people at ease when he is in personal proximity. He's incredibly smart in some ways, and in other ways where he is not so smart he likes to rely on the expertise of others. Unlike just about everyone else in the top level flight deck of the WH, I've never seen him swear in person. Ever. This creeps me out way more than anything else about him.

As for the Cheney bulge, I think I have a theory. He gets a lot of 24 hour urine tests done, which requires every drop to be preserved for testing. Since he's a busy guy, instead of lugging around a jug of piss, he just had an external catheter installed. What do you think?

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Merijn posted:

Is George W. Bush actually still as smart and eloquent as he was so long ago?

I think the alcoholism is finally taking its toll on his brain. The antidepressants is an attempt to deal with this, but combined with the stress of his job, it is a losing battle.

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Oh, I have an interesting tidbit you guys might think is funny. Except for agents of the press and people who prepare stuff for them, there are no extension cords allowed in anyone's offices in the white house. The joke was that they didn't want people hanging themselves as there was some bad news coming down the pipeline, but it actually turned out to be some retarded fire-hazard thing.

I looked over some of the "documentary" and read some of the spin online about it. The set up is very familiar, just like a lot of things I've seen prepared; cobble together a series of evidentiary documents and statements, proposals which sound sinister but which are actually just the everyday papertrail of this institution. If a plan is possible, no matter how evil-sounding, it is written down, considered, and chucked or saved. <Someone> could probably, if wanted to, find a document proposing the assassination of the president of france which is of no vintage later than 20 years old. It means nothing, because many people here are busily trying to think outside the box in their action proposals, and the first thing most newbies think outside the box about is stuff beyond the pale like butchering babies or assassinating people. It's edgy! Look at me!

Here's my take on it. The conspiracy it describes is too huge to stay secret. I won't go forward with information about blenders in the desert, but I am not so depraved that I would stand by as civillians are killed for petty political reasons. I'd like to think that I am no different from anyone else around here in that regard. The massive actions described in the documentary rely on a chain of human beings, and it would be extraordinary to find a chain of individuals so dedicated that they would not leak this info. I don't want to bother going through it and finding specific things to refute, but given the way I've seen things operate around here, there is absolutely no way that this would go on and not be exposed within a matter of months.

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OUR KYLE posted:

Homeland security has been a compelete failure.

Homeland security started as a really awesome idea to revolutionize the huge structure of administrative agencies within a centralized cabinet. It was really really awesome at the time and everyone was excited about it, even people like me who usually have nothing to do with this crap. It got bogged down because there was a shortage of good talent to design and put into it at that given moment, and people who felt they were owed political favors would resent being passed over for positions. The result is a horrible mess which is exacerbated by the fact that the resulting organizational structure was never refined or even properly DEfined. Instead of a slick cock-like penisular totem pole of speed, you have a horrible turf-war of budgetary battles, ship-jumping, and intra-administration head-hunting. There was a string board at the beginning, showing links between various organizational units, and when the Homeland Security was getting proposed, it looked like a thing of beauty. Everyone was jazzed. Then compromises happened and it turned into a horrible tangled mess, and just by looking at it on the board I could tell that no good would come from it.

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Death and Decay posted:

I'm sorry if these have been asked before, but have you ever met other world leaders such as Putin when they come over? Anything quirky about other nation's leaders?

World leaders are carefully insulated and exposed to an incredibly refined process designed to give them only what intelligence exposures we want them to have. For this reason, I've not had very many "chance" encounters with them, but I did, in fact, encounter Putin. He had some extremely bizarre notions about our export policies, like to the point where I think he believed that our government actually controls which products we do and do not export to his country, and what quality those products are. I'm not sure if he was trying to make everyone uncomfortable or if he actually believed that the US Government goes through chicken bones and horseshoes or whatever the fuck they buy, chooses the shitty ones, and crates them up to go to Russia. It caused me to be a little worried about what is going on in that country, but I try not to think about that stuff.

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SplishSplash posted:

Umm, if Condi ran I think the democrats would put a man up, as that would be a surefire way to win the election.

Oh yeah, I meant the other way around. If Hillary runs, Condi will run. Otherwise she will not run.

Hillary will not run, I think. She has "taint." The first thing that will happen if she runs is that a lot of nutjob hatchetmen will come out of the woodwork, claiming that she sexually molested children, she takes prozac for breakfast, she had a secret operation to remove her facial hair in mexico, she took money from lobbiests, she threw her vietnam war medals over the gate of the white house, etc. She's tainted, so a lot of this stuff might stick, or it will leave enough residual slime that for some reason that most americans can't put their finger on, she seems sleazy, even if they can't figure out what particular thing she's done. It's sinister and effective, because it takes advantage of the sloppy way our minds work.

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OUR KYLE posted:

Is there anything that you mention about opinions from the white house staff/admins on real world issues that are currently going on right now? Everything from Katrina to the middle east and terrorism?

I like to steer away from really current stuff because people here might remember particular encounters they had with me when they are more recent. To be frank, I have no idea how the fuck we dodged the Katrina bullet. They have this thing where they assemble a lot of raw information and organize it, combine it with media coverate summaries, and then show it to various people here for an assessment, and we look guilty as fuck. I can't even begin to explain how the media has not destroyed us utterly, and instead we are on just a nice, slow decline.

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Dugmon posted:

As in people in the administration, or people such as yourself?

Jailings are pretty fucking random, but they can be somewhat predicted by who the first people to run to the investigatory committee or prosecutor are. They are usually the people who are not jailed. Thus, when it seems like the investigation will hit paydirt, there will be a huge stampede of disclosures by everyone, myself included, except for the really reallyreallyreallyreally guilty. It's like a bank rush, only disgusting, perverted, and with more fear.

This is the disclosure calculus. If there is an actual prosecution which proceeds past the preliminary stages, like to an indictment, nobody will blame you for leaking. If you run too soon, you're outed as a leaker and you're finished. If you run too late, you stand a good chance of going to jail. If you leak and then the investigation stalls and then fails, you are really fucking double dog finished with your buddies. Find a new line of work, or lecture at some colleges or something. Also, there will be containment strategies which governs who squeals and who goes on a vacation of silence. This is handled by somebody within the party. If you violate the containment strategy then people get very very angry and you are finished in this town, buddy. The prosecutor's game in these situations is to freak people out enough, or cause them enough personal grief, that they violate the containment strategy and cause the house of cards to fall.

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Dugmon posted:

Is this going to be a huge scandal in the future?

I used to be able to predict which scandals would hit hard and which would roll off our back, but my spider sense is off recently. Stuff I predicted would hit hard has fizzled and stuff that I didn't see coming really whacked us. I'm beginning to get creeped out, because it feels as though there is an X factor messing with stuff, like some kind of press-conspiracy. For this reason I can't comfortably predict which scandals will take hold. Sorry. I think that the Kataryna scandal still has legs left in it, but if those fuckers down in the big easy keep being all corrupt and evil, they'll take the limelight away from where it belongs, which is right here.

onii posted:

Martin, do you know if John Kerry is weird in any way or is he basically a good man like John McCain? Do you think the WH (and America) be in much better condition if the Democrats had won?

No contact with John Kerry except for long range surveilance while he does his thing. I know that 99% of the bad shit that came out about him over the election is false shit thrown together in a big ratfuck campaign, but I also think that the guy is a complete douche and somewhat of a moron. He has, well had, some smart people under him, but a pyramid is only as impressive as its capstone. It's hard for me to remember which scandals were actually released and which ones stayed on the drawing board... did the one with hookers in Nevada ever make it out?

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Aliquid posted:

Did the press pretty much get Katrina right, or could you tell us some stuff that was worse than the delays and unpreparedness that was reported?

This is the one thing I can't talk about, because all of our sphincters are clenched about it still, and we are all genuinely perplexed about why the shittastrophe has not swept through the hill. I didn't see any of the press coverage when the thing hit because I was incredibly busy with something, but I did check the clippers. I think that somehow, the existence of the hurricane was so interesting and easy to report that they totally gave up on exposing our evil negligence. It's kind of like dick cheney speeding to his lawyers to cover up a major government-wide tax evasion conspiracy and hitting someone on the way, flinging incriminating documents everywhere. They're gonna report the dead body and what the fuck paper? I have to read PAPER? THERES A DEAD BODY RIGHT THERE JESUS GET THAT ON FILM.

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S105 posted:

Do you do any personal web surfing while at work? Another way to put it is: how closely do they monitor employee internet activity, if at all?

Very, very, very closely. I never do any personal web surfing at work. I know a few people who do, but they're usually robots with nothing to hide. You can tell who the closet freaks are by who does and does not do personal web surfing. Condi is as clean as Gandhi's steak knives, so she does personal stuff all the time. This one guy I work with I am convinced is a closet homosexual or something, because of some comments he made to me, and he doesn't so much as check his e-mail.

Aliquid posted:

Do you see many "You scratch my back" scenarios, like conflicts of interest or insider trading? Anything specific you can mention?

Yes. Washington is a big back scratching orgy of compromise.

Politicans, unless they're on a board or something, can't engage in insider trading. This is used to great financial advantage by pretty much everyone. You remember how I mentioned Condi trading online? This is the big unkept secret of this place. It's like a money-making machine. Once a lobbyist tells you a secret about his company, though, you can't trade in that corporation's stock.

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MariusMS posted:

BECAUSE WHY??

Sorry, I realized midsentence I'd be saying a bit too much, went back to edit the previous paragraph, and forgot to edit out the sentence completely. Please edit your post.

peterickson posted:

Ok I have an actual question. You have a contempt for the media but how do you feel about public funded stuff like npr etc.

I think it is one of the only good things left in the media, and I hope that someday we can have the maturity to have state-sponsored news television like I understand the BBC does. This will never happen, and for that reason I die a little inside.

Ice Traigh posted:

Woah woah, now you're entering my area of expertise. No funny shit went down over the Ohio elections. Even though we have a Republican SoS (OMG CONSPIRACY), all of our county election boards are made of even numbers of Ds and Rs, so we're all watching each other's backs for slip ups.

I love the insiders look into the WH, but now this thread is becoming a "What's your opinion on THIS???" and "Since I work in the WH my opinion carries 10x normal weight..."

You lost me when you started the "This is how I think it's going to go down" stuff.

I agree, and I don't like it how people are asking me to predict stuff or my opinions on things which I have no expertise on. I'm just some guy hanging around who knows only about the stuff immedately surrounding my job, really, and people above me are the ones who make the earth-shattering decisions. I think I have way more interesting insights to offer on Dick Cheney's gastro-intestinal processes, anyway. It's less risky to talk about this stuff, too, because everyone knows about Cheney's bathroom habits.

I would like to respectfully disagree with you about no funny stuff going down in the Ohio elections.

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Err, when I say that politicians can't engage in insider trading, I really mean that they CAN engage in stock trades based upon foreknowledge of political votes and soforth, to immense profit. This is not insider trading, so by trading on this knowledge they can't engage in insider trading. If that makes sense. All I know is I'm getting rich and it shouldn't be legal.

TrenchGun posted:

And I suspect that Tom Ridge's OCD or other personality quirks may have had a role to play in him "resigning". Maybe he was too unstable to handle the task at hand, or maybe Bush realized he had picked the wrong man and wanted to try again.

It's a little from column A and a little from column B. He was a wackadoo and getting way, way worse, especially because of the pressure of managing a dysfunctional abortion of a cabinet. We couldn't just can him so we had to wait for the right moment. In a way, we are fortunate that Brown fucked up so badly because it gave us an opening to get rid of him before he set fire to the carpet or called a press conference to declare a war on spiders.

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Illustrated_Man posted:

People like you and the folks you work with are the reason this planet deserves to be hit with an asteroid.

I'm sorry but going public on that particular thing makes about as much sense as walking out to the freeway and standing in front of an oncoming truck to strike a blow against global warming. Sure, the truck is contributing to the problem, but it's part of a system of trucks that will not be stopped by that one pointless act.

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Aliquid posted:

So as a member of the House, I could see that a vote to go with Intel instead of AMD for all future government computer contracts will pass, so I invest accordingly?

Yes, exactly. You can even trade based upon your own personal vote. But if a lobbyist for intel tells you a company secret in order to sway your vote, you cannot trade on it. There's a big evil secret scandal going on right now with the following practice. Before you meet with a lobbyist, buy a shitload of lowball stock options predicting the price of stock in that company. Have a system worked out with your stockbroker with a pre-arranged signal unrelated to the stock options. If he tells you good news, do not call. If he tells you bad news, have a friend call and buy or sell an unrelated portion of stock. The people doing this think they are so goddamned slick, but I know they'll get busted for it.

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Crutches posted:

Do you see yourself as 'loathsome'? Do you think that your co-workers feel that way about you?? Do you feel that you've had to compromise yourself for your job/position?

Part of my job is producing justifications for things, so, just like everyone else here who wants to preserve a shred of their humanity, I think up justifications for my place in a system which, for a large part, visits a lot of evil upon innocents. I try to think of the notion that it is not a government that does good, but a government which is stable that is of the most benefit to the people. I also contemplate the notion of aggregate good; that a few evil acts here and there from a necessarily flawed system is the best and only way of doing things. I'm sure that my co-workers think I'm as loathsome to them as they are to me, but this isn't because I fuck children on the job. As we compromise and are complicit with evil, we view others as having the same taint we perceive in ourselves. I'm sure that my co-workers see in me whatever brand of evil they empower through their own work. This is why the squeaky clean individuals are so disturbing to all of us, because they must be completely disjointed and insane.

MasonReese posted:

Are there any Mac users in the White House? If so, whom?

Yes there are, but none of the higher-ups are computer literate enough that I would think them capable of volitionally siding with either macs or ibms.

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GratefulHume posted:

Being a DC native, I'm curious to know if you'd live in the DC area by choice. Do you feel safe living here or do you think its got a huge bull's eye on top of it for the next terrorist strike?

I'm not worried about terrorist strikes simply because I've seen how trumped up most of that garbage is. I am more worried about getting mugged. Way, way way more worried. I hate this city and if I had my choice I would live in quiet Arizona.

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Because Rove is hot right now I can't say anything about him at all. I can tell you this, however. Scooter Libby wasn't dubbed Scooter by the President. The obnoxious fucker went around and MADE everyone call him Scooter instead of his proper name, and MADE SURE we called him Scooter by CORRECTING US WHENEVER WE CALLED HIM BY HIS TRUE NAME.

One guy actually called him by his true name to someone else in his own office, and Scooter, who was walking by, popped in and CORRECTED HIM and then sped off.

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Aliquid posted:

How do you personally feel about the whole situation?

I think it is ridiculous that this guy wanted such a shitty nickname which he got because he rubbed his asshole all over the carpet when moving around as a toddler. Also, and this is just rumor that I have not personally heard from Scooter himself, but he obsessively cultivates the nickname because it makes him appear less threatening to his enemies. What a fucking psycho.

We've speculated that he did that scooting as a toddler because of a throwback mongoloid mental defect that caused him to be unable to balance on his hind feet. The fact that he is inhuman in his mannerisms supports this theory and I endorse it with my full backing.

Also, after a while, we called him Cooter behind his back, because the guy is a complete obnoxious nosy cunt. One of the reasons why he is on the hot seat right now is because he got no love from anyone.

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classic girl posted:

4. Do you happen to know what brand of perfume or whatever Condi Rice uses? Sorry if this is a "fluff" question, but signature scents always interest me, especially those of the powerful and successful!

If anyone finds this out for me I will give them payment for the information. Everyone loves how Condi smells and we do anything we can to sniff her while she isn't looking. If I knew what perfume she wears, I would simply soak a sock in it and writhe in orgasmic excstacy without having to stalk her everywhere she goes. After she shook hands with Putin, he sniffed his hand again and again. Her aroma is heavenly and legendary throughout the world.

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I have a friend in the field of psychology who believes, based on publcly available evidence, that Cheney shows clear signs of Aspergers (a high functioning form of autism). A poor grasp of humor in the manner you describe is a common trait.

I can totally believe this, because the guy can't take a fucking hint about his close-talking. He gets right in your mug and continues to pursue even if you walk backwards, until you're against a fucking wall and he is telling you about some personal anecdote which is the last fucking thing you want to hear about at that moment. The guy is like a heat seeking missile sometimes, I think he has a time allotted in his schedule book to HUNT people down and regail them with anecdotes from his empty life. We warn eachother when he's on the warpath and make ourselves busy or absent, but he has a way of finding you, no matter where you are, and telling you how he loved running through sprinklers as a child.

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onii posted:

After reading about Tom Ridge's OCD, I've come to the conclusion that Tom Ridge = Adam West.

Many of us have made this comparison, and I'm sure we didn't help his descent into madness at all. Some people working around him would do stuff like whisper inaudibly and then deny doing anything at all, or subtly slip nonsensical words into their discussions. We all WANTED to see him freak out, if only because none of us would get blamed. After the rat incident people wanted to put like toupees and other hairy objects in his desk drawers but he had a personal assistant watching his office at all times to guard against this, so nothing was ever successfully planted. I'm glad for this, because I think he might have put himself in the hospital if he grabbed anything bulkier to beat his own legs with, and there's no telling what he would have done a second time.

He also had this weird thing where he always wanted there to be a lot of blankets, no matter what he was planning, he demanded many many blankets, both for himself, and as supplies for his people. We wondered about this but never found out why.

classic girl posted:

Would it be totally out of line for you to ask her this? I can see how you wouldn't want it to come across the wrong way, but if you have a good working relationship with her and she knows you're cool and respectable, she'd probably be happy to tell you.

We can stalk her, we can secretly trail behind to smell her, we can even go up to chairs she's used and inhale deeply, but asking her this is beyond the bounds of decency and I will have none of it.

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Crenshaw posted:

Have a woman ask her for you.

I have tried this. She keeps it a secret. We suspect she gets it custom-made. I don't know if she's on to the fact that everyone is sniffing at her, but tons of us are doing it, and it's very difficult not to bust up when I catch someone else doing it. Everyone loves her enchanting aroma.

Edit: Rumor is it is special engineered perfume from the CIA which makes her irresistable to men.

(Editor's Note: url="Palatin Technologies[/url] makes such an aphrodisiac spray.)

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jowr posted:

With all the inhumane and downright evil shit going on that for some inexplicable reason I believe you fully about, the thing that gets me the most is everything you have said about one woman's fucking perfume. I bust up every time I read more about it. It is ridiculious.

You would understand if you smelled it. I've seen her greet foreign dignitaries from a distance, and invariably their hand goes to their nose, it is fucking uncanny. The rumor is that this is either some KGB perfume or something the CIA cooked up to make her irresistable. Maids comment on it. Cooks comment on it the kitchen staff and sniffs her used napkins. Everyone is in on this thing except for her. We all know everyone else is doing it. It is the most massive government conspiracy I have yet known, and I suspect it goes all the way to the top.

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randomwords posted:

Does any of this institutionalized psychosis bullshit apply to the judiciary branch in any way? If so then at what level? I'd like to think that I could eventually become a federal prosecutor/judge without losing or sacrificing the desire to actually make the world a better place.

Judges have the reverse phenomenon. They start out corrupt, but then gradually become awesome, independent, and civic minded as whoever or whatever put them in office recedes into the distant, dead past. They are in danger of sort of drifting away from reality until they become like my ALJ friend, forgotten, irrelevant, and afraid.

Elvis_Nixon posted:

Which begs the question: What's the most important thing we aren't paying attention to?

Everyone is paying attention to the right stuff, just not with the intensity required to get stuff done.

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WhateverMJ posted:

You mentioned extension cords earlier, are there any other weird "house rules" at the White House? No shoes in this room, don't go in rooms with green doors, don't open these windows, etc. Also what percentage of the place does the public see on those tours? Are there just massive underground structures?

The people-moving procedures are disconcerting. By people-moving, I mean the way they control the flow of individuals through the white house, segregating them from eachother and preventing collisions of staff, public, and visiting dignitaries. They shuffle things around constantly depending on the day of the week or who is visiting, so what is an OK hallway to walk down one day is off limits the next. You can tell which is which instantly, but the exact method you use is a state secret. :shh:

Rumsfeld wanted to implant all of the lower level staff with radio chips. This did not go over so well. Everyone got the jump on him on this one becuase he said it outloud to himself while contemplating plans in his weird squeaky thinking-voice. This makes Rumsfeld less scary, because generally if he is going to do anything nasty to you, he squeaks about it first.

The underground structures are fucking astounding, but nobody ever gets to see them. Most federal buildings, by design, have tunnels underneath them large enough to drive one jeep through. Whenever I can find an excuse, I try to go down there, but my usual excuse doesn't work because it's impossible to unintentionally "get lost" inside the white house.

You can't use a picture cellphone here but that is the same for any federal building. There's a doctor around here 24/7, and I'm good friends with some. If you talk to them, they will supply you, for free, with any non-narcotic pharmaceutical product in whatever dosage you request. :shh:

Many staffers scam them out of small dosages of levothyro