Even more text messages can't be found!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2022

We don't all know what happened: In our view, Kevin Drum's extensive work on the effects of exposure to lead is just about the most interesting work the Internet has ever produced.

(Also, see his cover report for Mother Jones on this topic. For an overview and link, click here.)

We say this because we don't intend what follows to seem like pointless snark. We mean it to be an important example concerning an important basic principle.

In this new post, Kevin notes that even more text messages have turned out to be missing / wiped / erased / unavailable. He quotes CNN reporting this:

SNEED AND COHEN (8/2/22): The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings.

[The officials include] former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, among other prominent Pentagon officials.

Assuming CNN's report is accurate, this means that texts are unavailable for various officials and employees "across multiple agencies." Texts are unavailable from the Secret Service, from the Department of Homeland Security, and now from the Department of Defense.

Now for our main point. After Kevin posts the quoted material, he asks a very good question:

DRUM (8/2/22): The Pentagon's explanation is that this is routine: When anyone leaves DOD they turn in their phone and the phone is wiped. I must have at least a few readers who have worked for DOD and then left. Is this true?

Is that statement by the DOD true? Sensible minds want to know!

We mention this because it differs from Kevin's reaction to the initial reporting about the Secret Service. We all know what's going on here, he said, perhaps prematurely, in a post at the time.

At the time, we noted that we didn't know what was going on, and we doubted that Kevin did either. We adumbrated a very important principle:

Novelizations are instantaneous. But you have to wait, perhaps a long time, if you want to know the actual facts.

All across the blue tribe dial, corporate hustlers spread instant novelizations about the Secret Service texts. Quite a few facts were disappeared in service to Storyline.

(Since that time, it has become more and more clear that the Inspector General who started the flap about the Secret Service is highly unreliable. We have neither space enough, nor time, to list all the other facts which have been shoved to the side so people like Lawrence and Joe can sell us the angry rants which serve their preferred cable product, scandal.)

Kevin has received the following comment to his new post. We don't know how much of this is accurate:

COMMENT (8/3/22): I am on the fence. I've been in IT for decades much of it in the DC area. Incompetency is definitely not out of the question for much of the data loss due to wipes. It was only in 2017 that texts were deemed as records requiring retention and agencies had until 2019 to comply. Who knows whether such policies were actually being used in 2021?

Also the wipes are not the problem. That is normal operating procedure. The problem is that the retention requirement says the data must be retained in an external system. It would be a pretty crappy system if losing the phone meant losing the records.

This is clear from https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-XII/subchapter-B/part-1236/subpart-B, "Agencies must incorporate controls into the electronic information system or integrate them into a recordkeeping system that is external to the information system itself (see § 1236.20 of this part)."

In other words the kerfuffle around wiping is a smokescreen.

To our non tech-savvy ear, that seems to suggest the possibility that a lot of agencies have possibly never bothered constructing an "external system" for automatically retaining these records. 

That said, is any of that comment accurate? We have no idea. 

Kevin started out by saying that everyone knew. In his new post, he says that he himself doesn't. 

Most likely, that was true all along. Nor is it obvious that we the rubes will ever know what has been happening here. We know of no reason for thinking that our press corps is up to the substantial challenge of settling such a question.

Lawrence and Joe and Mika and Claire pushed instant Storyline. Everybody else joined in. It was "good television," but it was also good solid fun.

Lawrence and Joe pushed the one product served by today's "cable news." Can our floundering, tribalized nation possibly hope to survive it?

Recalling a different day: For Drum's cover report on exposure to lead, you can just click here. Much more work was offered online.


26 comments:


  1. "Kevin notes that even more text messages have turned out to be missing / wiped / erased / unavailable."

    Whoa, the plot thickens.

    ...you think it's the lead exposure, dear Bob? Could be, could be. But do you know, by chance, if your dembot friend Kevin might be an avid glue sniffer?

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    Replies
    1. Or is the plot as thick as your own filth as you roll around in it today Mao?

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  2. At one point I was responsible for records management in a USDA agency. I'm long since retired, but still am curious about the agency's work. Anyhow, as it happens they just issued an internal directive (https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_Notice/as_2337.pdf). I'm not sure, but I interpret it as saying the agency is still in the process of implementing an external recordkeeping system.

    I'm not surprised--record management has always been tail-end Charlie in terms of management attention and concern.

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  3. This post reveals Drum is trying to be fair in assessing this matter as an adult should. Unlike Bob, who has his usual heavy thumb on the scale for Trump.

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    Replies
    1. I don't think that Bob is covering for Trump. It's just that one shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by mere stupidity, or incompetence, I suppose. I think that that's about the sum of it.

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    2. Drum goes from blurting that it’s utterly obvious that Trump’s SS accomplices illegally wiped their cellphones, to now saying there are some other considerations.

      So now Drum is just “trying to be FAIR”…

      Somerby voiced this from jump, but that meant HIS thumb on the scale…

      sheesh.

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    3. How anyone can read Somerby's blog and come to the conclusion that he is a Trump supporter is beyond me.

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    4. Meh. To a liberal-cult faithful, every infidel is a "Trump supporter". And dear Bob does occasionally exhibit minor heretical tendencies.

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    5. At 1055. You are pretty slow, but obviously your shortcomings are due to mental illness that completely excuse them and really I am to blame for not fully exploring them.

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    6. Also, let’s not attribute Republican bigotry to “economic anxiousness”, while we’re at it.

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  4. And Cipollone talking to a grand jury? Doesn’t look good for team Somerby/Trump.

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  5. It's not just Hispanics and young people. Blacks are leaving the Democratic Party as well. You have to wonder why.

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    Replies
    1. I guess Somerby was right all along. We're stupid and silly and nobody likes us.

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    2. You just contributed nothing to the discussion.

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    3. But Democratic presidential candidates lost 17% of their margin in the Hispanic vote from 2016 to 2020.

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    4. Hispanic voters are normy voters. They’re voters who are concerned with upward mobility, with jobs, healthcare, their communities, their kids, effective schools, public safety. These are voters who thought the Democrats could be relied upon to do a good job in those respects… all of that got lost in the transition from 2016 to 2020.

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    5. Is 9:54 Joe Rogan?
      I ask because, like Rogan , 9:54 is too stupid to know when he’s being lied to.

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    6. Rogan and 9:54 confuse gullibility with being “open-minded”.

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    7. 11(03,
      So Biden won in a landslide due to the increased white vote.
      Why isn’t Fox News leading every hour with that news?

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  6. If the "lost" messages bring an end to the Democrat clown show, after it serves its purpose to deliver the house and senate to the GOP, it's a good thing they're "lost."

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    Replies
    1. There is not a day that goes by, when Right-wingers shouldn’t be reminded they threw a childish temper tantrum, just because black peoples votes counted in the 2020 Presidential election.

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    2. The Right doesn’t call the Left “snowflakes “ for nothing.
      They call the Left “snowflakes “ because every Right-wing accusation is really a confession.

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    3. Say what you will, but Republican voters throwing a childish temper tantrum just because black peoples votes counted in the 2020 Presidential election is as “on brand” as anything you’d l ever see.

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    4. Look, Right wing racists are better than Democrats who are child killers, castrators, groomers, and predators. So if they're key to removing the child abusers from power, good on em!

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    5. 12:26,
      Nice imitation of the brain dead Right.

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    6. Nice try, 12:26, but you’ll need a lot more bigotry if you want to fool people into thinking you’re a Right-winger.

      Delete