It gets worse by the hour

Well, let's see.

I am on record as saying that in some ways, having to do particularly with the socio-sexual level of scouting's place in our culture, the Boy Scouts of America has gone adrift.

But Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh is on the solidest of ground issuing a statement basically saying, "Sorry to Scouts, their leaders and families for the way the President of the United States of America got way out of line at our National Jamboree."

Then there is the latest column by Kurt Schlichter, a case study in the phenomenon of the formerly principled, deep, funny and articulate champion of conservatism becoming a pathetic apologist for the disgusting Donald Trump (and, once that Kool-Aid had permeated the subcellular level of his vital organs, Kid Rock). He actually finds it within himself to tell his idol to scale back at least one kind of stupid that DJT is going full-tilt on:

 . . . sometimes you need to lay down some real talk, and this comes from someone who supports the president’s efforts to defeat the enemies of normal Americans. So let me say it clearly.

Stop this nonsense about Jeff Sessions.

Stop it. 

Have some discipline and focus. The day you decided to start pummeling Sessions was supposed to be about health care. The fact that our cunning, turtlesque majority leader managed to drag the first vote over the finish line notwithstanding, all you did was annoy your allies. When pretty much every Twitter pundit and senator and Rush and Hewitt and Tucker and Breitbart and a bunch of other alt-righties are all on the same sheet of music, that’s an indicator that you’re stepping all over your Schumer.

And Sessions is your friend – you can’t diss a friend, or you won’t have any friends left. And you need friends, because the enemy is coming.

Then there is the Joint Chiefs of Staffs telling Squirrel-Hair: "We don't respond to tweets. If we're going to reverse the transgender policy put in place a year ago by the previous administration, it's going to be done according to official procedures."

And then there is the unfolding Scaramucci disaster. LITD brought you up to date as to where we were early today., but now comes the Ryan Lizza piece in The New Yorker:

Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn’t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was “a felony.”

“I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,” he told me.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“The swamp will not defeat him,” he said, breaking into the third person. “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.”

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)

He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. “He didn’t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,” he said. “And I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.” His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form.

I got the sense that Scaramucci’s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I’ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. “What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,” he told me.

He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”

“What?” I interjected.

“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this.

“Well, he doesn’t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he’ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.”

I'm currently watching Sarah Huckablee Sanders on Martha McCallum's FNC show try to put lipstick on this pig. It's the lamest blob of boilerplate I think I've ever heard from a White House press secretary, and that's saying something. She is sticking with the our-focus-is-on-moving-forward-on-issues-the-American-people-want-us-to-resolve talking points that any halfway savvy observer can tell is a way to feebly attempt to disguise utter panic. Whatever they're paying her, it's not enough.

I won't finish with my usual rant against the fools, phonies and careerists who handed us this mess.

But I will say once again, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio could have beaten Hillary Clinton and we wouldn't be covering our heads as the glowing red timbers fall around us.