Trump 44: Finally on Trial

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Politico: "‘He cares about his grievances and his reelection, and that’s it‘"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump was supposed to offer a White House plan to protect Americans from gun violence.

He was supposed to achieve historic immigration reform, crack down on flavored e-cigarettes, hash out a path forward in Syria and secure peace in the broader Middle East.

Then impeachment stole the show.

In the months since House Democrats began probing whether he leveraged foreign aid to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rivals, the president has ditched conventional political wisdom to pursue a uniquely Trumpian defense strategy: campaign more, govern less.

As White House aides and senior administration officials scramble to keep his administration afloat, Trump has become monomaniacally focused on impeachment. Policy meetings and listening sessions have taken a backseat to his indignant tweeting and live analysis of witness testimony. The details of issues that once consumed his attention — such as immigration and trade — have been outsourced to senior officials, and Trump has opted to let others do the talking during meetings with foreign leaders that he would normally command himself.

“His top priority right now is making sure voters know this is the single greatest scam in the history of politics,” said a Republican close to the White House, borrowing a phrase Trump used in a White House video circulated last week. “If that sometimes means spending less time in Washington and more time interacting with Americans, that is what he’s going to do.”

But even when Trump has been at work in the West Wing, aides say his preoccupation with impeachment creeps into every discussion. Six current administration officials and people close to the president described Trump as increasingly interested in how the investigation is impacting his political standing, and more paranoid than ever about Republican defections.

In late-night phone calls to longtime pals, Trump has grumbled about the stain impeachment is likely to leave on his legacy, according to a Republican who spoke with the president recently. Others said he spends the bulk of his time monitoring reactions to impeachment, as well as what his defenders are saying, on Twitter and on cable news, and then relays his concerns to the group of aides handling the White House’s impeachment strategy.

When Trump has participated in official events recently — a White House reception celebrating his judicial appointments, a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart — they have been intrinsically linked to his reelection bid. And often, the president’s blustery comments about impeachment during those events have distracted from the events themselves.

“This is a sham and shouldn’t be allowed,” Trump crowed during his press conference last Wednesday with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey. In a meeting preceding their joint appearance, Trump allowed a small group of Republican senators to confront Erdogan over his actions against Kurdish forces while he mostly listened, according to a person familiar with the meeting, who described Trump as uncharacteristically apathetic given his proclivity for interrupting and desire to dominate most conversations.

“Democrats in Washington would rather pursue outrageous hoaxes and delusional witch hunts than pass the USMCA and deliver real stuff for American workers,” Trump said in his Economic Club speech earlier in the week. His remarks were littered with references to impeachment and the general themes of his 2020 campaign.

The president resisted talking about the inquiry during the judges event in early November, though the purpose of the event was to celebrate his record number of judicial appointments since taking office — a key selling point for religious conservatives who make up a substantial portion of his base.

On the policy front, Trump has delegated issues that are critical to his reelection to high-ranking officials, acting agency heads and members of his family — freeing up his schedule to allow for more campaign events and less time dealing with the technicalities and complications of the policy-making process. Since House Democrats conducted the first closed-door deposition of their impeachment inquiry on Oct. 4, the president has held seven campaign rallies. He has another one scheduled in Sunrise, Fla., just before Thanksgiving — nearly doubling the combined number of rallies he held in July, August and September.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence has been leading the administration’s effort to get Congress to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which lawmakers from both parties have said they hope to ratify by the end of the year. White House policy adviser Stephen Miller and Acting U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Director Ken Cucinnelli have taken charge of the administration’s immigration policy, in addition to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who has continued to work on draft legislation to overhaul the United States’ legal immigration system, while managing the rest of his broad portfolio.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and State Department officials have been overseeing preparations for Trump’s upcoming trip to London for the NATO leaders summit, which the president himself has done very little to plan for, according to a person close to Trump.

Policy meetings that Trump once used to hear from stakeholders and provide his own prescriptions have disappeared since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the formal impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24, according to a POLITICO review of the president’s public schedules. In their place, Trump has been dispatching senior administration officials more frequently to deliver their own updates on the administration’s policy actions from the White House briefing room.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Matthew Albence and Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan have each appeared twice in the last month and a half to discuss border security and immigration enforcement, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced new sanctions, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie has outlined the state of his agency and healthcare decisions related to American military personnel, and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney appeared in mid-October to unveil the since-changed location of next year’s G-7 summit.

When Trump has participated in policy discussions, his fixation with impeachment has often overshadowed the intended subject. During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where he was supposed to discuss “updates on [his] Cabinet’s whole-of-government approach to supporting America’s veterans,” according to the White House, the president didn’t mention military veterans once during the public portion of his remarks, but mentioned impeachment four times and responded to a question about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the witness House Democrats had called that day.

“It’s no real mystery why he’s handing things off to other people. He cares about his grievances and his reelection, and that’s it,” said Chris Whipple, an expert on presidential schedules and author of “The Gatekeepers” about past White House chiefs of staff.

In Whipple’s view, Mulvaney’s decision to let Trump be Trump, particularly in the midst of an impeachment inquiry, has only exacerbated the problem. What Trump wants — what Trump has always wanted — is to assume perpetual campaign mode while leaving the grunt work to his deputies.

Even when the president has taken a break from campaign travel, and retired to the executive mansion for a weekend, his recent attempts to break into the news cycle have revolved around impeachment. On a recent Sunday, when the president had zero public events on his schedule, he tweeted 17 times: about the whistleblower who formally complained about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, about Jennifer Williams, a Pence aide whom Trump accused of being a “Never Trumper,” and about a Fox News anchor whose interview with House Minority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) left the president particularly disgruntled.

People involved in Trump’s 2020 operation said his constant desire to get out of the epicenter of impeachment is what makes him a competitive candidate in their minds. But some were quick to add that if the president is going to prioritize campaigning over his official White House duties, he should spend ample time using his rallies and face time with voters to underscore what Republicans and his own aides are doing back in Washington.

“Talk about the roaring economy, talk about tax reform, talk about taking on China and striking a trade deal with Japan. But for God’s sake, don’t spend an hour-long rally complaining about impeachment and criticizing Republicans who haven’t been loyal enough,” said one GOP ally of the president’s campaign.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good op-ed: "The frenzy of flattery around Trump is reaching new extremes"

Spoiler

Deborah Parker, a professor of Italian at the University of Virginia, and Mark Parker, an English professor at James Madison University, are the authors of “Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy.”

President Trump’s mysterious hospital visit this weekend prompted lots of questions — but White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham doesn’t understand why. “He’s got more energy than anybody in the White House,” she recently told Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro. “That man works from 6 a.m. until, you know, very, very late at night.” That might sound excessive, given what we know about this president’s work habits.

Yet Pirro still felt compelled to one-up her guest. “He’s almost superhuman!” she gushed.

There is something grotesquely revealing about this frenzy of boot-licking. From the start, the Trump administration has been distinguished by an extraordinary atmosphere of sycophancy. Yet something seems to be changing. As the president’s travails deepen, his flatterers are redoubling their efforts. Now only the extravagant, the bizarre and the contorted will serve.

Witness Michele Bachmann’s breathless return to public fawning. Asked about the impeachment inquiry recently, she touted Trump’s manliness and readiness to rumble. “Our president of the United States — he is like nobody else I have ever met in my life,” she continued. “And he doesn’t scare easy and he’s gonna stare these guys down. They have no idea who they’re dealing with. ... He understands the difference between good and evil. We have not seen a president with greater moral clarity than this president.” Who could possibly worry about evidence when such an abundance of moral force meets transcripts?

The more Trump’s presidency deteriorates, the more his followers seem compelled to escalate their commitment. Fox host Lou Dobbs embodies the principle. “At every level, on every floor, this White House is energized,” he said in September. “There’s sunshine beaming throughout the place, and on almost every face. It’s winner and winning center, and our White House, our president, is at the top of his game.” He predicted that Trump “will be regarded as one of this country’s greatest presidents.” He wasn’t the only one. During Wednesday’s impeachment hearing, Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) saw fit to compare Trump to George Washington.

It’s not easy to understand such paroxysms of abasement for such a flawed leader. Psychological research provides some insight into this mystery. Edward E. Jones, in his comprehensive studies “Ingratiation: A Social Psychological Analysis” and “Interpersonal Perception: Risk and Remedy,” grounds such behavior in fraud: Ingratiation combines “manipulative intent and deceitful execution.”

But what begins as a transaction ultimately changes the flatterer. Sycophants typically deceive not only their target but also themselves. Concealing one’s motives from others leads to concealing one’s intentions from oneself. For Jones, people are easily induced to suck up; they readily deceive themselves about what they are doing, and the same “hunger for approval” underlies the flattery, the flatterer’s self-deception and the target’s willing acceptance of ingratiation.

And so we witness how Trump’s self-dealing prompts a corresponding brazenness from his followers. Defending the landlord in chief’s announcement of his Doral Resort as the location for the Group of Seven meeting, David Marcus of the Federalist lauded it as a stroke of genius: Trump “is meant to bask in his own glory as a proxy for our nation’s.” Marcus pulled off the difficult feat of the triple suck-up: combining Trump’s mastery of “the art of the deal,” the “glory” of his presence and his mystical relation to the state. So brilliant a refreshing of the Sun King’s “l’état, c’est moi” deserves special mention in the current revival of vibrant flattery. (Small wonder that at least one of Trump’s defenders has described impeachment as equivalent to “regicide,” apparently failing to notice that we dispensed with monarchic rule 2½ centuries ago.)

The excess of flattery seems to have prompted something like self-reflection from former and present White House staff. John Kelly, while reminiscing about his final hours as chief of staff, recalled his advice to the president about his replacement: “Don’t hire someone that will just nod and say, ‘That’s a great idea, Mr. President.’ Because you will be impeached.”

Looks as though he was right. But that’s precisely what Trump’s toadies can’t admit — so they have to up the ante in response. “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president,” said Grisham. Clearly such genius and greatness as Trump’s must be given their due — a tsunami of sucking up.

But as ever, when it comes to audacity in flattery, no one can compare to Vice President Pence. At an Oct. 10 campaign rally in Minnesota, he declared support for Trump an article of faith: “While you bring all that energy and enthusiasm, bring your faith, too. Bring faith in this president, whose drive and vision has made America great again.” Cleverly diverting faith in God into a flattering faith in the president, Pence imagines an apotheosis of Trump, a leader who ascends to heaven, presumably to make that great again as well. Other sycophants might strive to mesh genius and greatness, but only Pence can fuse all of it with divinity.

May God save the United States.

 

[apple1]

@GreyhoundFan

Wow. Very good article.

Through this whole Trump saga, it has been my opinion/observation that, for many Trump voters/followers/defenders/,,, the nouns could go on and on... they have made Trump their god. In particular, many "evangelicals" (whatever that word means) have substituted following Trump for following God, no matter what words they say to the contrary. Hypocrisy. Corruption. Blasphemy.

(FTR I self-identify as a Christian).

[GreyhoundFan]

The Tangerine Toddler had a hissy, alleging that Marie Yovanovitch refused to hang his picture at the embassy, which is false (big surprise). The picture was hung as soon as it arrived. I love Clay Jones' comment:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s legal strategy: If you can’t beat the case, beat the system"

Spoiler

David Fahrenthold, a reporter for The Washington Post’s national desk, covers the Trump Organization and President Trump’s conflicts of interest.

Donald Trump’s friend, lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn had an adage: “F--- the law,” he liked to say, according to a new book by attorney James D. Zirin. “Who’s the judge?” He meant that, although idealists might imagine that the courts were august and impartial, the judiciary was in fact made up of people who could be bullied or bamboozled or bought off. To Cohn, politics was a brutal and unfair game, and the law was just an extension of politics, with extra paperwork. If you understood that, he believed, you could get a huge head start on the idealists.

For a young Trump, this was a foundational lesson, according to Zirin. In his book “Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits,” Zirin argues that Trump learned to see the law as Cohn did: “not as a system of rules to be obeyed . . . but as a potent weapon to be used against his adversaries.” Trump sued often but rarely won big. Winning in court wasn’t always the point: The lawsuit itself was the thing, a tool of intimidation cloaked in legalese, an outgoing missile that left your enemies buried in costs and hassle. That approach had costs for Trump, too. But he could bear them. He lost friends, wives, lawyers and business partners — but always found new ones, who thought their fate would be different.

Zirin has good timing: His book arrives as Trump faces the legal fight of his career, using all the tools he honed in a lifetime of lawsuits. So far this year, Trump has sued those investigating him, including House committees and the Manhattan district attorney, to stop them from obtaining his financial documents. He has also attacked those pursuers out of court, trying to tar his enemies as partisans seeking “a coup” to overturn the 2016 election. Instead of submitting to precedent, he has ignored it — and posited a theory that, in the eyes of the law, a president is like a temporary emperor. In a recent appeals court hearing, a judge asked Trump’s attorney what would happen if the president shot somebody on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

“Local authorities couldn’t investigate? They couldn’t do anything about it?” Judge Denny Chin asked, adding, “Nothing could be done? That is your position?”

“That is correct,” said Trump’s private attorney.

All of it came from the playbook that Zirin lays out: confuse, deny, delay. If you can’t beat the case, beat the system, by exploiting its human flaws.

As a former federal prosecutor and longtime private attorney, Zirin has depended on the idea that the law is legitimate and no man is above it. So he sees Trump’s life — and now his presidency — as an attack on that legitimacy. “Trump’s position,” he writes, is “that he is either above the law or released from the obligation of observing it.” If everybody starts to think that way, Zirin says, the system collapses.

Despite its subtitle, Zirin’s book isn’t actually about all 3,500 lawsuits Trump has been involved in — the number comes from a USA Today report, and Zirin admits that he hasn’t read them all or even counted them for himself. Instead, he focuses on a smaller set of legal cases from various phases of Trump’s life: his days as a Manhattan developer, his bankruptcy-plagued time in Atlantic City, the allegations of sexual misconduct during “The Apprentice” years and his time fighting the Mueller investigation as president.

The book has flaws: It is overlong and repetitive. The Mueller chapter, in particular, is breathless and disjointed, as the author tried to keep up with the fast-unfolding saga. But this is still one of the most useful and readable accounts of Trump’s early career in business. Zirin does not get lost in the clouds of flimflam that have spewed out of Trump for decades, which other biographers have taken as their mission to prove or disprove. That leaves them wandering endlessly in a fog of old boasting, trying to evaluate claims about 30-year-old real estate deals or now-demolished casinos.

Instead, Zirin focuses on a pattern that repeats across the president’s adult life. Trump discovered early on that, if you’re wealthy, most of life — including much of the law — operates on an honor system. People obey the rules without being forced to do so, out of shame or respect or fear. If you just don’t obey, Trump realized, these systems take a long time to catch up, if they ever do. “What is clear in the law becomes contestable for Trump,” Zirin writes.

As a reporter for The Washington Post, I’ve covered Trump since the start of 2016. I first saw him apply this approach to the honor system that governs tax-exempt charities. It turns out that the IRS, which enforces charity law, essentially outsources most of its enforcement to the charities themselves: If they break the law, they’re supposed to report it. Trump’s charity — the Donald J. Trump Foundation — repeatedly engaged in conduct that was in violation of the rules, such as aiding his presidential campaign, paying off legal settlements for Trump’s private businesses and buying large paintings that featured Trump himself. He didn’t volunteer the violations to the IRS. It wasn’t until after my reporting, and a 21-month investigation by the New York attorney general, that a lawsuit was filed. It took until this month for Trump’s actions to finally catch up with him: A New York judge ordered him to pay $2 million in damages, a stunning rebuke for a sitting president.

Zirin describes how Trump applied the same approach to duck, minimize or avoid consequences for a number of questionable actions by his businesses. One was Trump University, a program of real estate seminars that was accused of fraud after taking thousands from customers and providing little education of value. Trump was sued, and he settled — after winning the presidency. “So who won and who lost?” Zirin writes. “Trump lost little. He only had to give back the fees he had stolen from his victims. . . . He did not admit guilt.”

“In the world of Trump, admitting guilt is shameful,” Zirin explains. “Redemption doesn’t come with confession.”

Zirin’s book is a valuable guide to Trump’s mind-set and a good primer for the months ahead as a series of investigations close in on the president. Back to Cohn’s old saying: “Who’s the judge?” Trump seems to believe he can count on the Supreme Court, to which he appointed two justices, to deflect prosecutors’ inquiries. But he also faces impeachment proceedings in the House and the Senate, where his fate will be decided by politicians, not judges.

Trump, of course, has boasted that he will never make like Richard Nixon and resign. Zirin seems to have doubts. In cases like the one involving Trump University, Trump had vowed never to give in — and then gave in, settling the case, walking away, declaring victory in retreat. Even Cohn, in the end, couldn’t beat the system forever: He was disbarred in 1986, five weeks before he died. Zirin closes the book with a quote from Cohn about how hard it is to be where Trump is now, fighting the system on every side at once: “No public man can remain indefinitely at the center of controversy.”

Plaintiff in Chief

A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits

By James D. Zirin

All Points. 314 pp. $28.99

 

[JMarie]

Shouldn't he be pardoning a turkey or two? Or is he jealous, knowing he won't be pardoned?

[fraurosena]

So Trump pardoned two war criminals. The Navy Seals weren't too happy about that, and wanted to boot them out of the Seals. Of course, Trump couldn't stand for that and so he's had Mark Esper fire the Navy Secretary --the coward would never dare do it himself.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer fired in dispute over discipline of SEAL

Quote

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was fired Sunday by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who ordered that a Navy SEAL who was acquitted of murder be allowed to remain in the elite commando corps, the Defense Department said.

Esper asked for Spencer's resignation after President Donald Trump tweeted on Thursday that Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher would retain the gold Trident insignia signifying his status as a member of the Sea, Air, and Land Teams, or SEALs. Spencer told reporters on Friday that he believed the review process over Gallagher's status should go forward.

In a letter to Trump, Spencer said he acknowledged his "termination," saying the president deserved a Navy secretary "who is aligned with his vision."

"Unfortunately, it has become apparent that in this respect, I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me," Spencer wrote.

"In regards to the key principle of good order and discipline, I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Shortly thereafter, Trump tweeted that he was displeased not only by the way that "Gallagher's trial was handled by the Navy" but also because "large cost overruns from [the] past administration's contracting procedures were not addressed to my satisfaction."

"Therefore, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer's services have been terminated by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper," he wrote. He said he would nominate retired Adm. Kenneth Braithwaite, the U.S. ambassador to Norway, to succeed Spencer.

 

The Navy sought to eject Gallagher and four other sailors from the SEALs after Trump intervened to direct that Gallagher not be demoted following his conviction of having posed for a picture with the corpse of a teenage fighter for the Islamic State militant group.

Esper directed that Gallagher retain his Trident pin, the Defense Department said in a statement. Undersecretary Thomas Modly becomes acting Navy secretary pending Braithwaite's confirmation hearings.

Speaking with reporters while en route from Jordan, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Gallagher case "is closed" in his view.

Esper "made decisions for good reasons that are within his power to make decisions, and I’ll support the secretary of defense in those decisions," Milley said, adding that Esper and Trump "are all part of the process and made a decision, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s case closed now and it is time to move on and address the national security of the United States."

Milley said he still believes the military "has good order and discipline."

"We adhere to various rules and regulations and policies and laws, and always have and always will," he said. "And I think that this case obviously raises a variety of questions, but in the main I think the United States military remains and always will remain a very highly disciplined force."

The dispute flared into the open last week after NBC News and other organizations reported that the Navy was convening a review board to consider whether Gallagher should remain in the SEALs after he was convicted of posing with the ISIS fighter's corpse but acquitted of having killed the young man.

Trump tweeted on Thursday that "the Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin," saying the case was "handled very badly from the beginning." Earlier, the president had overturned the Navy's decision to demote Gallagher, which would have severely affected his retirement pay.

In response, Spencer told reporters on Friday that he believed Gallagher's review process should go forward. Multiple sources told NBC News that Spencer had privately told the White House that a tweet wasn't an official order and that if Trump was ordering the Navy to end the review board proceedings, he needed to do so in writing.

The Defense Department said Sunday that Esper had learned that — contrary to what he was saying in public — Spencer privately proposed to the White House both that Gallagher's rank be restored and that he be allowed to retire as a SEAL. It said Esper was never informed of the private proposal.

The Defense Department said Esper had lost "trust and confidence" in Spencer "regarding his lack of candor over conversations with the White House."

In an interview on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" on Sunday, Gallagher accused the Navy of seeking to strip the SEAL designation as retribution for Trump's intervention on his behalf.

"This is all about retaliation. They could have taken my Trident at any time they wanted," he said. "Now they're trying to take it after the president restored my rank."

Referring to Rear Adm. Collin P. Green, who as commander of Naval Special Warfare Command is in charge of the SEALs, Gallagher alleged: "What the admiral is doing is showing complete insubordination."

But Ray Mabus, President Barack Obama's Navy secretary, suggested that it was Gallagher who was being insubordinate.

"Here's a guy who is still on active duty. Here's a guy who is going on television to argue this case," Mabus said Sunday on MSNBC's "Up With David Gura."

"It's so dangerous for good order and discipline, so dangerous for military forces to get this politicized," Mabus said. "You simply cannot have good order and discipline. You simply cannot hold people accountable. You simply cannot have the elite fighting force if you allow things like this to happen."

Mabus said it was vital that the review board take any final action, not the administration.

"If you set this sort of precedent, then how do you tell the next SEAL that is up on charges not to go public, not to try to undermine their superiors, not to try to change a military judgment and make it a political one?"

A military jury acquitted Gallagher of murder and war crimes charges in July but convicted him of having posed with the corpse of the ISIS captive. He was ordered dropped in rank from chief to petty officer first class.

Trump reversed the order this month, directing Gallagher's restoration as chief petty officer.

Spencer, who became Navy secretary in August 2017, was the acting defense secretary for about a week in July as Esper underwent confirmation hearings in the Senate.

Image of Spencer's letter under the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by fraurosena
adding Spencer's letter

[GreyhoundFan]

"In firing Richard Spencer, Trump recklessly crosses another line"

Spoiler

President Trump’s attempt to manipulate military justice had a sorry outcome Sunday with the firing of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer. For the past nine months, Spencer had tried to dissuade Trump from dictating special treatment for Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher — but in the end Spencer was sacked for his efforts to protect his service.

With Spencer’s firing, Trump has recklessly crossed a line he had generally observed before, which had exempted the military from his belligerent, government-by-tweet interference. But the Gallagher case illustrates how an irascible, vengeful commander in chief is ready to override traditional limits to aid political allies in foreign policy, law enforcement and now military matters.

Spencer was fired by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper late Sunday, supposedly because Esper was “deeply troubled” that Spencer had tried to work out a private deal with the White House that would avoid a direct presidential order scuttling a scheduled SEAL peer-review process. That panel was set to determine whether Gallagher would keep his coveted Trident pin, marking him as a SEAL, after he was convicted in July for posing in a trophy photo with the corpse of a Islamic State captive.

Spencer had tried to find a compromise, sources tell me, after Trump tweeted Thursday, “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin.” Spencer feared that a direct order from Trump to protect Gallagher, who is represented by two former partners of Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, would be seen as subverting military justice.

After that Trump tweet, Spencer cautioned acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney that he would not overturn the planned SEAL peer review of Gallagher without a direct presidential order; he privately told associates that if such an order came, he might resign rather than carry it out. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with the White House late Thursday to try to avert this collision.

Milley’s de-escalation efforts initially appeared to be successful. A Pentagon official messaged me Friday morning: “Missiles back in their silos … for the time being.” But the truce was short-lived. By Saturday, the White House was demanding to know whether Spencer had threatened to resign; the Navy secretary issued a statement denying that he had made any such public threat and continued to seek a deal that would protect the Navy from a direct showdown with Trump.

“It was a hold-your-nose solution,” said a source close to Spencer about his effort to broker an arrangement that would allow Gallagher to retire at the end of November with his former rank, an honorable discharge and his Trident pin, as Trump wanted, but without direct presidential interference in the SEAL review process. As so often happens with attempts to work with Trump’s erratic demands, this one ended in disaster.

“The president wants you to go,” Esper told Spencer on Sunday, according to this source. Esper then toed the White House line and announced Spencer’s dismissal.

For Pentagon officials who have wondered whether Esper would have the backbone to resist Trump, Sunday’s events were troubling. The Pentagon, like the State Department under Mike Pompeo, is now overseen by an official whose overriding priority seems to be accommodating an impetuous boss in the White House.

Spencer’s letter Sunday to Trump, acknowledging his “termination,” echoed that of former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned in December because of similar concerns about Trump’s unwise intervention in military and national-security decisions.

“As Secretary of the Navy, one of the most important responsibilities I have to our people is to maintain good order and discipline, throughout the ranks. I regard this as deadly serious business,” Spencer wrote. “The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries.” In a paraphrase of what Mattis wrote 11 months ago, Spencer wrote that Trump should have a Navy secretary “who is aligned with his vision.”

For Navy commanders who have worried about eroding discipline in a SEAL force that’s lionized in movies and television, and protected by presidential diktat, Spencer’s most ominous line was: “I no longer share the same understanding with the commander in chief who appointed me, in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline.”

Trump began lobbying Spencer to exempt Gallagher from Navy discipline back in March, when he ordered the Navy secretary in an early-morning phone call to release Gallagher from the brig and give him more comfortable quarters. Presidential pressure has been relentless, ever since.

Gallagher has become a hero in the Trump echo chamber of Fox News commentary, where he’s seen as a victim of vengeful SEAL commanders. His case may have caught White House attention because his legal team included two Trump friends who are former partners of Giuliani: investigator Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, and Marc Mukasey, who represents Trump.

While Gallagher is celebrated on Fox, current and former senior officers of the SEALs and other elite units told me this weekend that his case has little support within the community of Special Operations forces. One former SEAL commander noted that maintaining discipline among these elite units is so important that the SEAL peer-review panels have removed more than 150 Trident pins since 2011, or more than one a month.

That’s the process of internal accountability that Spencer was trying to defend, and that Trump sabotaged.

 

[fraurosena]

Trump and Melania are standing as far away from Conan the dog as they possibly can and still be in the frame. Scared, much?

Conan seems very happy and content. Too bad. I was having fantasies of Conan suddenly jumping up and biting that silly hooman with the tiny hands and the big butt. 

[Becky]

That a compulsive liar and cheat who avoided military service with a questionable medical condition believes he knows better than a lifelong military leader when it comes to military discipline and justice is simply mind-boggling.  As a the wife of a retired US service member (26 years honorable service), this infuriates me.   Once again he panders to Fox and its troglodytes instead of ACTUALLY supporting the military he commands.

 

Oh dear gourd, enough with the hero dog already!  I like dogs as much as the next person, but this is ridiculous.  "Honor" the hero dog, fire your Secretary of the Navy for upholding military justice.  What a farce.  

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus.

Trump threatens to sic Army dog on reporters during bizarre presentation: ‘If you open your mouths you will be attacked!’

Quote

President Donald Trump warned reporters that a Special Forces dog would attack them in a bizarre event outside the White House.

Reporters were summoned to the Rose Garden for a presentation of Conan, the dog who took part in a raid that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“If you open your mouths you will be attacked,” the president told reporters gathered outside.

Trump did not appear to touch the Belgian Malinois during the event, although Vice President Mike Pence occasionally patted the dog on the head.

“We were going to put a muzzle on the dog, and I thought that was a good idea, but then it gets even more violent,” Trump said. “But no, the dog is incredible, actually incredible. We spent some good time with it. So brilliant, so smart.”

 

[fraurosena]

This is just sick.

Excuse me while I puke.

[JMarie]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is just sick.

Excuse me while I puke.

First, Trump isn't a believing Christian. Second, Perry gave Trump a crib sheet for the Bible?

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, JMarie said:

First, Trump isn't a believing Christian. Second, Perry gave Trump a crib sheet for the Bible?

Does he need to be though? If God has indeed chosen him there are plenty of roles for Trump as harbringers of the End Times which don't require him to be Christian and in fact fit him better if he's not. Given Perry is mostly interested in the End Times coming so he can gloat at all the lake of hellfire-cast non-Real True Christians of course he is all in favor of Trump as President. Can't have Armageddon without ticking all the boxes!

[Becky]

Oh yeah, that's the way to bring me over to your religion - claim a cruel, misogynist, lying sack of shit as your god's chosen one.  Gag.  

[thoughtful]

21 hours ago, Becky said:

I like dogs as much as the next person, but this is ridiculous.  "Honor" the hero dog, fire your Secretary of the Navy for upholding military justice.  What a farce.  

I adore dogs, and I agree. It's just taking advantage of something people are fond of to make himself look good, while actually having no respect for our country or the world.

Those videos show the most humanity I've ever seen from Pence, though. Either dogs asking for affection bring out his better side, or the particular kind of robot he is has been programmed to pet dogs when they offer their heads.

 

[fraurosena]

Trump would love for everybody to testify, but... he's fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Yep. For once, I actually believe that. Only, the future Presidents he is fighting for are his kids, and the Office of the President will be a hereditary authoritarian dictator's one. And that, in Trump's view, is very much worth fighting for. 

 

This is not Trump's tiny hands tweeting, btw. The language is much too sophisticated and grammatically almost sound for it to be his.

[formergothardite]

6 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

This is not Trump's tiny hands tweeting, btw. The language is much too sophisticated and grammatically almost sound for it to be his.

They created an excuse for him but he will probably ruin soon. He tends to do that. 

[apple1]

4 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Those videos show the most humanity I've ever seen from Pence, though. Either dogs asking for affection bring out his better side, or the particular kind of robot he is has been programmed to pet dogs when they offer their heads.

(I am not a Pence fan, at all, but...) Pence and his family do have dogs and seem to be responsible pet owners and do understand how to interact with dogs.

As for Trump - in addition to the other indicators - never trust a person that the dog can't trust.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump keeps claiming he’s a king. The courts keep telling him he’s not."

Spoiler

Between now and the 2020 election, all of us — Congress, the courts, the voters — are going to have to answer this question: Is the president a king?

Donald Trump’s answer is yes, the president is a king. Or, at least he is while the president is Donald Trump.

Whenever accountability begins nipping at his heels, Trump makes some version of this argument. It’s absurd enough when it comes out of his mouth, but it’s even more striking when it emerges in court. Again and again, Trump’s lawyers have made alarmingly sweeping claims of his authority and immunity from accountability, and again and again, he loses. Not only that, judges in these cases have expressed outright shock at the claims Trump makes.

In his suit trying to quash a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney to his accounting firm, Trump’s lawyers argued that while he is president he is not just immune from prosecution, he’s immune from investigation. The judge in the case ruled against him, saying the argument that the president is above the law was “repugnant” to American values.

And in trying to prevent the former White House counsel Donald McGahn from testifying to Congress, Trump has once again been rebuked by a judge:

Former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena, a federal court ruled Monday, finding that “no one is above the law” and that top presidential advisers cannot ignore congressional demands for information. The ruling raises the possibility that McGahn could be forced to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry.

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington found no basis for a White House claim that the former counsel is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony,” setting the stage for a historic separation-of-powers confrontation between the executive and legislative ­branches of the ­government.

What’s striking about this case is that the administration didn’t assert executive privilege. Instead, it made the much more sweeping claim of “absolute immunity.” Had the administration made a different argument, it might have been on firmer legal ground, but this may be a tactic to maximize delay. In other words, Trump officials may be happy to lose in court, so long as doing so eats up the clock.

What the House Judiciary Committee is after in this case relates to what we already learned about in the special counsel’s report on the Russia scandal, especially Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice — which could become another article of impeachment.

McGahn testified to Mueller about how Trump ordered him to fire Mueller, and he resisted. Then Trump tried to get him to lie publicly about it. Not surprisingly, Democrats would like McGahn to answer some questions about this.

So what happens now?

The administration will probably appeal, and it could take its absolute immunity claim all the way to the Supreme Court — and resolution would be further delayed. But at some point, if the administration loses, the question will become: What will McGahn do?

He could testify. Or he could decide that now he’s going to assert executive privilege. According to the experts I’ve spoken to, in order to do that he would probably have to show up in Congress and then refuse to answer questions one by one.

If Democrats wanted to press the issue, they could then sue to force him to answer, but that would require starting over with another lawsuit (or lawsuits) that would have to wind their way through the courts again, all of which would continue running out the clock as we get toward the election.

By the time the whole thing was settled, the 2020 election could be in the past. In other words, Congress might ultimately have the law on its side, but if the administration plays the system by dragging things out, Trump could prevent his aides from testifying until a point at which it might not matter anymore.

None of this is to say that how the Supreme Court will rule doesn’t matter. A great deal is at stake, especially since we do know that the conservative majority on the court is inclined to expand the president’s powers (particularly when that president is a Republican).

And the high court will have to decide not just whether the president can claim absolute immunity from having his aides testify; it will also decide whether he has the right to keep his financial records hidden; on Monday, the court agreed to an expedited review in one of the cases concerning Trump’s tax returns.

The nature of the tax-return cases makes it harder for Trump to stall; those returns could well find their way to the public in the middle of next year. But when it comes to impeachment, the administration seems to have figured out that, even if the courts are telling him he isn’t a king, losing is no worse than winning, if you can delay long enough.

 

[47of74]

Even the birds don't like fuck face

Quote

A "slow-moving blob" that may have been a flock of birds triggered a lockdown of the White House and caused the US Capitol to be placed on "restrictive access" Tuesday morning.

Senior national security officials across the agencies convened to coordinate and monitor the situation after the mysterious "blob" was seen on radar at the Capitol Police command center flying just south of the National Mall, according to a law enforcement source.

Military aircraft were scrambled in response.

Initial assessments indicated that the "blob" was an unauthorized aircraft entering restrictive airspace, leading to the brief lockdown.

 

[fraurosena]

Good grief.

 

[smittykins]

At rally, Trump vows to supporters “no name change for Thanksgiving.”

 

Spoiler

President Trump claimed at his rally Tuesday night that some people want to rename Thanksgiving, telling supporters "we're not changing it."

"You know, some people want to change the name Thanksgiving," Trump told the crowd in Sunrise, Fla., without offering specifics. “They don’t want to use the term 'Thanksgiving.'”

“And that was true also with Christmas, but now everybody’s using Christmas again. Remember I said that?” he continued, echoing a common refrain from past rallies.

Listen, Bozo.  No one is forcing you to “change” the name, but if others don’t want to celebrate it, or choose to call it something else due to its effect on their culture, that’s NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

[fraurosena]

Oh no. Please let this be a tragic suicide and not Putin's influence on how to deal with problems. 

Deutsche Bank Executive Who Signed Off On Trump Loans Kills Himself

Quote

Thomas Bowers, a former Deutsche Bank executive and head of the American wealth-management division, killed himself in Malibu, California, on Tuesday, November 19th, according to the coronor’s initial report.

First reports of his death were reported by the New York Times David Enrich.

Bowers was the boss of Trump’s personal banker Rosemary Vrablic, according to a New York Times article in early 2019. Vrablic’s other clients have included Jared Kushner and Stephen M. Ross.

Vrablic reportedly attended the Trump inauguration in the VIP section, and expects to be called before Congress regarding Trump’s relationship with the bank.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner/Coroner reported that Bowers died by suicide by hanging at his residence on the 19th.

One source who has direct knowledge of the FBI’s investigation into Deutsche Bank said that federal investigators have asked about Bowers and documents he might have. Another source who has knowledge of Deutsche Bank’s internal structure said that Bowers would have been the gatekeeper for financial documents for the bank’s wealthiest customers.

 

[thoughtful]

As I've said before, no argument about Trump can be dismissed as a "Godwin" any more. He looks and sounds more like Hitler and Mussolini every day.