Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I was promised by every Liberal in the nation that if Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education, she would end public education.
She got confirmed earlier this week. So why were there so many school busses on the road this morning, blocking up traffic? Shouldn’t those kids be sitting at home, stultifying in ignorance?
Joe Doakes
We were also supposed to be at war with the Soviets…er, Russians.
No, wait, that was Hillary. Never mind.
JD: wrote”We were also supposed to be at war with the Soviets…er, Russians.”
The “American carnage” that was referenced in the inauguration speech is really an apt description of the past few weeks. The firing of Flynn is just more evidence for me that this is a White House and administration that is in serious crisis. What’s disturbing about Flynn isn’t that he has an incurable case of stupid, it’s what does it say about Trump bring him into his administration. Three people probably need to go and sooner rather than later. Miller, Preibus and Bannon. If it’s not in free-fall yet, its lurching its way there. There seems to be no one with the stature or influence to finally close Trump’s Twitter Account or otherwise restrain him or tell when one of his unhelpful actions are gong to harm his presidency or the country.
While most of us probably have some fascination with watching a train wreck unfold, this train wreck is our country, not just the Trump administration for us. Anyone with a modicum of patriotism, should want the WH to right itself, hire some really effective, experienced, and professional folks of the highest level of integrity and decency.
Everybody who was wrong about Trump winning the nomination and winning the presidency are certain that they are right about him now.
No one knows anything about the leak. Not what Flynn said about the sanctions.
The MSM, especially CNN, the NY Times, and the WaPo, are absolutely not to be trusted on reporting anything about this White House.
News flash, Emery: Mitch indents and italicizes words to indicate they are mine. The rest of the words in the post are not my words. If you have that much trouble with reading comprehension, it’s small wonder your point is entirely off topic.
Horrors! Russians under the bed, again! Sorry, Emery, but had we really wanted stupid foreign and domestic policy, we’d have voted for Hillary.
C’mon, Merg. Already forgot about the Reset button?
eTASS is using the same tactic to opine on sTrumpet as he did on Brexit. And we all know how that turned out. eTASS, thy destiny is failure.
Wouldn’t you be happier posting in the “Flower Arranger’s Monthly Companion?”
“. . . not that there is anything wrong with that.”
Althouse points us to typical WaPo coverage of the rump White House:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/journalist-says-omarosa-manigault-bullied-her-and-mentioned-a-dossier-on-her/2017/02/13/d852926e-f131-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop&utm_term=.f6d902de7b1d
First WaPo reports the unsubstantiated story that a Trump aide told her that Trump’s people were keeping a dossier on her.
Headline: Journalist says Omarosa Manigault bullied her and mentioned a ‘dossier’ on her
The next day, the aide produces a recording of the conversation. Surprise! It is not confrontational, and no one says anything about a dossier. The journalist responds that recording her — so that we now know that she lied — was ‘nixonian.’ The WaPo’s headline for this story?
‘This is . . . Nixonian’: Reporter was taped by White House in heated exchange
Sure, completely fair, unbiased coverage by the WaPo.
It is all like this.
Here’s alittle gem
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/18/obama.trip/index.html?iref=nextin
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is in Afghanistan on a multistop overseas trip for meetings with international leaders but with an eye on the U.S. presidential race back home.
Sen. Barack Obama is expected to visit several world leaders over the next few weeks.
Sen. Barack Obama is expected to visit several world leaders over the next few weeks.
Obama’s trip, which includes visits to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, is intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials before U.S. voters.
Here is CNN on Flynn:
President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned on Monday night, and his resignation letter cited a conversation he had with Russia’s ambassador during the transition period before Trump took office (and before Flynn had any official authority to engage in diplomatic discussions on behalf of the United States). In the letter, Flynn acknowledges “inadvertently” briefing Vice President Pence with “incomplete information” about that call.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/opinions/did-flynn-break-law-pate-opinion/
Notice any difference in the tone of coverage in the two stories?
And, oh my, this, in the summer of 2008, looks like a clear violation of the Logan act to me. Or anyone, really:
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/did-obama-violate-the-logan-act-during-his-iraq-visit/
‘But Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.”
In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.
In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration’s hands on Iraq.
“Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades,” Morigi said.’
I assume that Trump will spin the resignation as yet another example of a witch-hunt by a biased press against someone dedicated to keeping America safe. This seems to be the default strategy when appealing to the base and appears to work well.
You don’t seem interested in Obama’s Logan Act violations, Emery. Why not?
I’m interested in how you justify your double standard.
Emery is wanking furiously. Did Krugman post a new review of his shit taco this morning?
I doubt Trump will choose that tack, Emery. I suspect he’ll stick with the same story he’s already given: I fired him because he had lost my trust. And really, that’s the only reason for a CEO to fire a subordinate that he hand-picked for the job. There’s no question of competence. The blackmail threat is laughable. But if I can’t trust you, then you’re fired.
Having said all that, there IS a concerted effort being waged by Liberals, Never-Trumpers, the media and the entrenched bureaucracy to undermine, subvert, sabotage, obstruct, delay, hinder and thwart the new administration. Everybody knows it, which is why the general public isn’t up in arms about this firing. The guy didn’t work out – can him and move on with the agenda. Because the general public still supports the agenda and they can see more clearly than ever who is preventing Trump from making America great again.
.
Still doesn’t explain why he lied about it, or who directed him to say what he said.
Let me guess, Emery, you work in government or academia, right? Because in any real world situation involving business, if you do something radically stupid like lying to the CEO about what you discussed with the competition, you won’t be around very long. Companies have much shorter fuses, but especially for new hires, and it seems like Trump really is running his administration more like a business than a political machine.
Not that this was hard in Flynn’s case: it’s not like he’s got a monstrous political constituency behind him demanding he be kept. I find it rather refreshing that incompetence in government can be rewarded properly; it’s a pity that wasn’t done in the last administration, but there it was the chief that was particularly incompetent.
So, it took the Trump administration several weeks to come to this conclusion ?
Emery Incognito on February 15, 2017 at 6:12 am said: “What’s disturbing about Flynn isn’t that he has an incurable case of stupid, it’s what does it say about Trump bring him into his administration.”
Flynn earned a BS degree and multiple Masters degrees as well as achieved a rank of Lt. General in the Army with +33 years of service, a rank that paid him about ~ $200K a year. I would hardly equate that to “incurable case of stupid”.
He left O’s NIA and now got squeezed out as Trump’s NSA because his management style pissed off people who want to bring down Trump and his administration as a whole.
I believe that Vice Admiral Robert Harward will be the next pick for the job and he’ll probably bring in all his own people to work with. Very likely it’ll be bad days to come for the leakers out there.
What does it say about Army military intelligence that Flynn was able to make it to O-9?
Flynn, a career military intelligence officer, didn’t realize his phone calls with Russian ambassadors would be recorded? Almost as bad as Patreaus, as head of the world’s most powerful spy operation at the CIA, believed his communications with this mistress were secure because he “saved” them in the draft folder instead of sending them. Right.
Maybe Flynn was great in the field but eventually thePeter Principle has caught up with him.
It took several weeks to come to this action, but we have no idea how long it took to come to this conclusion.
You generally don’t fire a C-level position until you have a replacement ready absent some overriding factor or a monumental public screw-up. Trump may not have viewed the lie as something that merited immediate replacement without a successor in the wings for immediate substitution, but his hand may have been forced when the lie became public. You generally try to manage the situation so that there’s an appearance of continuity and good will on all sides rather than air dirty laundry.
EI, I think it’s safe to say that Flynn knew his calls to a foreign ambassador might be recorded. His mistake was to trust that staffers with loyalties to Obama would respect the law regarding revealing confidential information, not to mention the law regarding monitoring of U.S. citizens.
Big mistake when you consider the Obama attitude towards confidential information regarding Mrs. Clinton, of course.
/You generally try to manage the situation so that there’s an appearance of continuity and good will on all sides rather than air dirty laundry./
So how’s that working out.
I don’t believe this will go away anytime soon. Although I would say Trump is fortunate the Dems don’t control both houses. As Rand Paul said: ‘why would republicans want to investigate republicans?’
bb, eTASS will thoroughly ignore and shun your comment for it is a complete and utter takedown of his talking points and argument. Expect heavy breathing while goal posts are moved and web is scoured for a non-sequitur comment.
At least as well as Holder running interference for Obumbler did. Those who supported O didn’t give a flying *bleep* what O did, and those who support Trump give a similar amount about what Trump does. The difference is that Obumbler had the press running interference at least as much as the DoJ, but that interference has eroded the effectiveness of the press as a weapon such that only the Democrats view the media with any respect and trust.
And all of this is why I laugh so loud at those who insist Trump will be impeached. To get impeached, the GOP will have to lose the House which is extremely unlikely given GOP control of most state legislatures, and to be convicted there would have to be an absolutely monumental crime proven and a hugely unlikely swing in election results in 2018. We’ve had the example of a sitting President who committed perjury to a court of law to avoid civil conviction on charges of sexual assault and rape that wasn’t viewed as a “high crime or misdemeanor” and another who killed American citizens without due process.
I really wonder if anything other than betraying your own party’s electoral prospects counts as a high crime anymore. Even then I doubt that that will be the standard because Nixon showed that even partially admitting that your party has someone deserving of being removed from office is a sentence to the political wilderness. The GOP may well view it as less bad to have a crooked Trump running things than to shoot themselves in the foot for the next few presidential cycles. But honestly? I’d rather have Pence as President than Trump. As my wife said after watching the debates for the first time ever, he looks like the only sane adult in the race so why can’t we just elect him instead of these other losers?
The rest of the story.
This story, from the Jan. 12, 2017, edition of the New York Times, was little-remarked upon at the time, but suddenly has taken on far greater significance in light of current events: In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws.
JPA, like I said elsewhere, the NSA caught the info, but the FBI was the only one with legal cover to use it, hence this chain in how the information was leaked.
Obumbler really has done his best to weaponize the government against the citizenry, and too few folks paid attention to that massive invasion of privacy that our former “Constitutional Law Professor” committed. If the ACLU wants to challenge this expansion of powers, I’ll cheer them on heartily!
The Dimocrats will regret giving that sort of access to someone who has their ethics and ruthlessness now running the country, especially as the Obumbler holdovers get replaced. You think that as more and more of these “intelligence” intercepts get to the FBI that Sessions won’t have an excess of targets? I really don’t like Trump, but I’ll give him grudging respect that I don’t think anyone else could have done what he’s done in making the Democrats look as foolish as they actually are.
Since this conversation happened in December, before Trump took office, the better question might be how much did Obumbler know and when did he know it? After all, Flynn worked for him in two different capacities. I think that it may have been a setup by Oblahblah.
“I think that it may have been a setup by Oblahblah.”
Yes, Bosshoss, it would be interesting to determine if the outgoing administration was spying on the incoming administration.
Most of these incidents are unforced errors on the part of the Trump Administration. It’s a case of the ‘coverup is worse than the crime’ when it comes to Flynn lying to Pence. Voters wanted change and to disrupt the status-quo, but is this what they had in mind?
You have a very strange view of “unforced error”, or haven’t you noticed that Trump is a little busy with a few other things like changing executive orders and trying to get his Cabinet in place?
And how is the “coverup is worse than the crime” accurate in this case? Exactly what coverup? Flynn’s? By all accounts none of the reported contacts between the Russians and Trump staffers have raised any hint of suspensions according to the leaks from the FBI. It’s far more interesting that to note that there’s been an admitted conspiracy of Obama holdovers out to get Flynn, reportedly to keep him from releasing the dirt on the Iran deal. Finally, and more tellingly is that Obama himself used communications with Iran of a far more direct and sinister nature during the campaign, and yet those communications never leaked until recently.
Still, lying to the FBI and to Pence should have been enough to get Flynn fired, and it was. But the Obama communications trouble me far more than the Flynn communications simply because there was a provable, direct link to Obama’s communications with Iran and the link between Trump and Russia is at best tenuous and the substance less directly threatening to the safety of the US.
Saudi is a once-rich,oil-depleted desert Sheikdom with little civilization and a very poorly educated, parochial population. While it houses Islamic holy places, its influence over modern Islam flowed from its checkbook not from its spiritual and intellectual leadership.
The Persians will be with us in a thousand years The Arabs of the Hijaz will be largely forgotten in half a century. If America has staying-power in world affairs, we will be dealing with Iran in far more substantial ways than with the Saudis.
Can’t we just agree that Flynn beat himself to death? And did it in a record 24 days.
Can’t we just agree that Flynn beat himself to death?
No.
You appear to be more comfortable with lying leaders than I am.
No, he didn’t do it alone, he had a lot of help from Obama holdovers. He gave “The Resistance” the stick and they used it, but he didn’t do it all himself.
Fired once for insubordination and fired a second time for “trust” issues. Which is an interesting term for lying.
You appear to be more comfortable with lying leaders than I am.
Where did I say I was comfortable with lying leaders? I sure as hell was not comfortable with 0bumbler (you can keep your doctor) and sHrillary (landing under enemy fire). Proven liars YOU supported. Hypocritical? Why, yes you are!