What's the most important qualification for any job in Trumpworld? Loyalty to the VSG

This appointment of Richard Grennell as acting director of national intelligence is not going over well:

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he has named Richard Grenell, a staunch loyalist, as acting spy chief.

"I am pleased to announce that our highly respected Ambassador to Germany, @RichardGrenell, will become the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to working with him," Trump tweeted. 

Trump also thanked outgoing acting director Joseph Maguire "for the wonderful job he has done, and we look forward to working with him closely, perhaps in another capacity within the Administration!"

News of the pick, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes as Trump faces a March 11 deadline to nominate a new director of national intelligence or name a new acting spy chief as federal law prevents Maguire from serving beyond that date.

Even in an acting role, Grenell's lack of intelligence-related experience is likely to unsettle the US intelligence community, which has endured repeated attacks from the President since his 2016 election win over the Russia investigation and later the whistleblower complaint that gave way to the Ukraine impeachment inquiry, which made Trump just the third president in American history to be impeached.

But it does not appear that Trump is looking for someone with deep intelligence experience in the role -- a former senior White House official described Trump's decision as "filling the gaps" following the impeachment acquittal, sensing disloyalty in Maguire, and filling that position with somebody he sees as sufficiently loyal. Trump is "looking for a 'political' who will have his back," the former official said.

However, the move is raising concerns even among Trump allies who have been quick to point out that Grenell's primary qualification appears to be his loyalty to the President. 

One source close to Trump told CNN they were surprised by the pick, noting Grenell has zero intelligence-related experience.

And another Trump adviser described Grenell as "out of his league" for the acting DNI job, adding that some in the administration are "embarrassed by his behavior." Previous holders of the DNI job have served in the intelligence community, the US Senate and senior levels of the military. Grenell, on the other hand, does not boast a resume with similar credentials despite his stint as the US ambassador to Germany. 

"Everybody came into (the DNI job) with a relevant understanding, of which this guy has none," said Bob Litt, former ODNI general counsel, who called the move "extremely dangerous."

"This is a President who has loathed and feared the (intelligence community) since before he was inaugurated and he views them as a deep state hostile to him seeking to undercut him and he'll seek to undercut them," he said. "Clearly the important thing here is the President feels Grenell will do his bidding."

He seems like a sharp enough fellow, and before the Trump phenomenon occurred, he seemed to have a skill for articulating conservative positions on whatever the topic of discussion was. But it's true he has nothing of an intelligence nature on his resume. He's been a political consultant. That's it.

 The above-excerpted CNN story alludes to "[h]is track record in Germany [having] raised some concerns." I wanted to find out a little more about that, and his Wikipedia bio gets into some of the details:

In May 2018, within hours of taking office in Berlin as US Ambassador, Grenell offended diplomats and business leaders when he tweeted that “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”^[29] The tweet was widely perceived as a threat, with the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, commenting that "This man was accredited as ambassador only yesterday. To give German businesses such orders … that’s just not how you can treat your allies.”^[30] The leader of Germany's Social Democratic Partystated that Grenell "does appear to need some tutoring" in the "fine art of diplomacy", while the Die Linke party urged the Merkel government to summon Grenell to explain his comments.^[30]

In June 2018, Grenell stirred controversy by telling Breitbart News, "I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders."^[31] It was viewed as anti-establishment.^[32][33] This was described as a breach of diplomatic protocol and a breach of Article 14 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which requires ambassadors to be politically neutral in the domestic politics of the countries where they serve.^[34][31] Prominent German politicians called for Grenell's dismissal.^{[35][36][37][38]} Martin Schulz, former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, said, "What this man is doing is unheard of in international diplomacy. If a German ambassador were to say in Washington that he is there to boost the Democrats, he would have been kicked out immediately."^[35]

Grenell was a regular contributor on Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight during the first few months of his Ambassadorship in Germany. In November 2018 he made an appearance where he repeated his criticism of Angela Merkel's immigration policies and compared her unfavorably to the recently-elected Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz, whom he claimed "won in a very big way" because of his strict stance on immigration. The magazine Der Spiegel called it a "thinly veiled call for a change of government in Berlin".^[34]

In December 2018, during the affair surrounding Der Spiegel journalist Claas Relotius, Grenell wrote to the magazine complaining about an anti-Americaninstitutional bias ("Anti-Amerikanismus") and asked for an independent investigation.^[39][40] Grenell wrote that "These fake news stories largely focus on U.S. policies and certain segments of the American people."^[41]

In January 2019, Grenell told Handelsblatt that European companies participating in the construction of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline are "always in danger, because sanctions are always possible". The Trump administration has long opposed the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 — a pipeline for delivering natural gas from Russia to Germany.^[42] Within that context he also sent letters to German companies involved in the construction of said Nord Stream 2, threatening sanctions.^[43] In response, Angela Merkel's successor as leader of the Christian Democrat Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, stated that "The American Ambassador operates in a, shall I say, somewhat unusual diplomatic manner."^[44]

Der Spiegel published a profile of Grenell on January 11, 2019, using interviews with 30 “American and German diplomats, cabinet members, lawmakers, high-ranking officials, lobbyists and think tank experts". The magazine claimed that "Almost all of these sources paint an unflattering portrait of the ambassador, one remarkably similar to Donald Trump, the man who sent him to Berlin. A majority of them describe Grenell as a vain, narcissistic person who dishes out aggressively, but can barely handle criticism." The profile claimed that Grenell is politically isolated in Berlin because of his association with the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, causing the leaders of the mainstream German parties, including the Chancellor herself, to avoid contact with him.^[34] The sources claimed that Grenell "knows little about Germany and Europe, that he ignores most of the dossiers his colleagues at the embassy write for him, and that his knowledge of the subject matter is superficial."^[34]

A disrupter in the Trumpian mold.

And I doubt that the search for someone to officially fill that position is going to turn up a lot of first-tier possibilities.

Pardon-palooza - initial thoughts

The VSG has been on a tear:

President Trump on Tuesday exercised his pardon power, granting clemency to or commuting the sentences of nearly a dozen people convicted of crimes, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and junk bond pioneer Michael Milken.

Trump also referred to himself as the nation's “chief law enforcement officer,” a title typically reserved for the attorney general.

On Tuesday morning, the White House announced Trump’s pardoning of former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. for his involvement in a 1998 corruption case against former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Ohio pastor Darrell Scott, a longtime Trump supporter, told the Associated Press that he submitted “a package” to the president advocating for DeBartolo’s pardon.

Speaking on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews before boarding Air Force One en route to a fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Trump announced that he had commuted Blagojevich’s sentence. The former governor is serving a 14-year sentence on federal corruption charges.

And this:

A lawyer for Julian Assange has claimed in court that President Trump offered to pardon Assange if the WikiLeaks founder agreed to help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee. 

Assange’s lawyers said on Wednesday that former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after emails that damaged Hillary Clinton in the presidential race had been published. WikiLeaks posted the stolen DNC emails after they were hacked by Russian operatives.

The claim that Rohrabacher acted as an emissary for the White House came during a pre-extradition hearing in London.

Rohrabacher says that White House staffers, including John Kelly, were concerned that if he got direct access to the president to pitch this, is "would look like collusion."

Ya think?

The Very Stable Genius can't get our of his own way.

Still, he's amassed such power since his acquittal that he figures he can knock a few service sets off the shelves as he swaggers his way through the china shop without it being a big deal.

That's scary.

My latest over at Precipice

Here's the link. 

It's entitled "The Inaugural Address I'd Give Next January If I were To Be Elected President This November."

It rocks if I do say so myself.

Barney and Clyde - Season 2, Episode 4

Your fortnight-long wait is over! Episode 4 Season 2 is here! Welcome back to the Libation Station! Pour yourself something bracing and pull up a stool and join us for an hour of examination of matters on the nation’s plate. Clyde provides the libertarian perspective, Barney the conservative view.

In this installment, we discuss

1 - You'll Never Be Woke Enough: Joachin Phoenix's bizarre speech at the Oscars
2 - Meanwhile, Back in Athens: A local property Tax referendum has us pondering the broader implications of property taxes and whether their fundamental existence means that property rights don't exit.
3 - The VSG Unleashed: Trump's behavior since his acquittal
4 - No Room for Moderates: Bernie's rise to become the top contender among the Democrats.
Until Next Fortnight.... Stay vigilant about your freedom!

A short video for the LITD Patreon community

 . . . in which I sort out the gradations within opposition to the Very Stable Genius and within support for him.

"Never Trump" is a useless term for two reasons: one, that horse is out of the barn. He's the president. Two, there are gradations of anti-Trumpism, ranging from leftist opposition, which is because they're mad he beat a Democrat (admittedly exacerbated by his repellant personality) to formerly principled conservatives tempted to support a Democrat because they've put the binary-choice angle front and center to responsible conservative opposition. 

Then there are gradations within Trumpism, ranging from those similarly motivated by the binary-choice scenario through the his-good-moves-outweigh-his-bombast viewpoint, to to slavish cult worship.

You'll find it here. 

The UN needs to be dismantled yet this afternoon - today's edition

They're not often this blatant about it:

The depraved totalitarians, nefarious barbarians, two-bit gangsters, odious scoundrels, and bigoted scum who run the United Nations recently set up a new “database” to help anti-Semites around the world target Jewish businesses in the disputed territories of Judaea and Samaria — businesses that offer economic opportunities for Palestinians that pay higher than most other jobs in the West Bank.

In no other international dispute — and there are hundreds of them — does the United Nations target peaceful civilians or institutions. Certainly in no place do they work to destroy the businesses of noncombatants based on their ethnicity or religion. The 112 companies on the U.N.’s list are run and staffed, no doubt, by people with diverse viewpoints, at least some of whom likely support the creation of a Palestinian state. All of them create jobs, products, and services that foster cooperation.

None of this matters to the U.N. The “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) campaign, now supported by the U.N., is a coordinated international effort committed to the elimination of the Jewish state, bringing together dictators, theocrats, terrorist organizations, Communists, the “international community,” and at least one of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s top surrogates. The movement targets Jews under the guise of anti-Zionism, which remains the predominant justification for violence, murder, and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East. 

That is one warped worldview.

Trump administration folks usually wait to get this candid until they leave

Wednesday, in the course of a post on the double whammy of the Roger Stone sentence-reduction controversy and Trump "musing" that the Pentagon might want to take disciplinary action against Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, I sad this about Attorney General William Barr:

I'd tried hard to see Barr as one of the few remaining principled figures in the Trump administration. I was mightily impressed with his speech at the Notre Dame Law School last October, in which he defended our society's Christian underpinnings against militant secularists. He was well-regarded around Washington. His confirmation hearing for his first stint as Attorney General in 1991 went smoothly, with both Democrats and Republicans speaking well of him.

But he seems to have come under the VSG's sway. Trump's been leaning on him just like he did Jeff Sessions. And now a precedent has been set. The independence of the Justice Department is always going to be in question.

But maybe not. He showed some noteworthy spine in this ABC News interview:

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News on Thursday that President Donald Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case” but should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Barr’s comments are a rare break with a president who the attorney general has aligned himself with and fiercely defended. But it also puts Barr in line with many of Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill who say they support the president but wish he’d cut back on his tweets.

“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.

When asked if he was prepared for the consequences of criticizing the president – his boss – Barr said “of course” because his job is to run the Justice Department and make decisions on “what I think is the right thing to do.”

Most folks wait until they've left the administration to talk like that.

I just don't think he's an out and out lapdog.

People love to come to immediate conclusions and then filter everything else that they encounter through that confirmation bias.

Another such conclusion is that the jury was tainted because the fore-lady, Tomeka Hart, a former school-board chair in Memphis, has been found to have strong objections to Trump.

Not so fast, says David French in his newsletter, which I get in my email. He sets the table by acknowledging that she does indeed have some pretty strong views:

One of the jurors, a woman named Tomeka Hart, wrote a Facebook post defending the four prosecutors who withdrew from the case in protest after their superiors at the Department of Justice reversed their sentencing recommendation (more on that below).  The instant Hart outed herself, conservative journalists combed through her social media history and found that she’s not just a Democrat, she’s a former Democratic congressional candidate, a frequent donor to Democratic campaigns, and before the trial tweeted multiple times not just against Trump but also about the Mueller investigation.

But check out the exhaustive questioning Hart went through when she was being selected:

Neither the law nor the known facts support the claim. At least not yet. The law does not require judges to sideline potential jurors who have strong political beliefs. Democrats can sit in judgment on Republicans, and Republicans can sit in judgment on Democrats. The key question isn’t whether a person is partisan but rather whether they’re capable of setting aside political bias to decide questions of fact fairly and impartially. And, believe it or not, this happens all the time in the United States of America. It’s happened in my own cases. Moreover, the jury selection process (called voir dire) provides attorneys with a limited number of peremptory challenges—which permit attorneys to strike jurors without showing cause—and ample opportunity to challenge jurors for cause. In the Stone case, the trial court struck at least 40 jurors for cause (38 in response to the defense team’s initial requests and two more after a request for reconsideration).  The voir dire process is vitally important. If the prospective juror discloses all relevant material facts in response to questions from the judge and/or opposing counsel, and the judge is still satisfied that the juror can set aside any political bias to render a fair verdict, their decision will rarely be reversed. If, however, the juror is deceptive in voir dire, then the defendant may well be denied a fair trial. In a 1984 case called McDonough Power Equipment v. Greenwood, the Supreme Court succinctly explained the standard: We hold that to obtain a new trial in such a situation, a party must first demonstrate that a juror failed to answer honestly a material question on voir dire, and then further show that a correct response would have provided a valid basis for a challenge for cause. The motives for concealing information may vary, but only those reasons that affect a juror's impartiality can truly be said to affect the fairness of a trial. Did Hart truthfully answer every material question on voir dire? If so, then these “revelations” aren’t revelations at all, and the likelihood that they could form the foundation of a new trial are slim to none. Fortunately, there’s a transcript of the oral voir dire, and the transcript does not help Roger Stone.  Hart (identified only as Juror 1261, but identifiable by her statement that she ran for Congress and other biographical details) was questioned by the trial judge and by defense counsel. After first asking questions about Hart’s prior service on a grand jury, the judge asked a series of key questions: THE COURT: You've also indicated a fair amount of paying attention to news and social media including about political things? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. THE COURT: And when we asked what you read or heard about the defendant, you do understand that he was involved in Mr. Trump's campaign in some way? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. THE COURT: Is there anything about that that affects your ability to judge him fairly and impartially sitting here right now in this courtroom? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Absolutely not. THE COURT: What is it that you have read or heard about him? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: So nothing that I can recall specifically. I do watch sometimes paying attention but sometimes in the background CNN. So I recall just hearing about him being part of the campaign and some belief or reporting around interaction with the Russian probe and interaction with him and people in the country, but I don't have a whole lot of details. I don't pay that close attention or watch C-SPAN. THE COURT: Can you kind of wipe the slate clean and learn what you need to learn in this case from the evidence presented in the courtroom and no other source? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. THE COURT: You actually have had some interest in Congress yourself? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. THE COURT: Does the fact that this case involves allegations of not being truthful to Congress, is that something that you think that the nature of the allegations alone would make it hard for you to be fair? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: No. The prosecution declined to ask Hart any questions. Then, defense counsel had its turn: MR. BUSCHEL: Did you ever work for anyone in Congress? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: No. MR. BUSCHEL: You've worked on campaigns for Congress people running for Congress? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I ran for Congress. MR. BUSCHEL: You ran for Congress? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I worked on my own campaign. MR. BUSCHEL: And you have friends who worked for other congressmen? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. MR. BUSCHEL: Do you have any political aspirations now? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I don't know, not federal. MR. BUSCHEL: What might they be? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: My home state in Tennessee. No local. MR. BUSCHEL: Just recognize that there might be some media— What are your aspirations? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I served, can I just say I served in political office in Memphis in a local office on the school board. So I, one day I wake up and say I run for, you know, office again in Memphis to impact education. One day I wake up and say no way in the world would I do that. So I don't have an immediate plan to run for office. MR. BUSCHEL: The fact that you run for an office, you're affiliated with a political party. Roger Stone is affiliated with the Republican party, Donald Trump. You understand what I'm saying and getting at? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I do. MR. BUSCHEL: How do you feel about that? MR. KRAVIS: Objection. THE COURT: Can you make that question a little bit more crisp? Is there anything about his affiliation with the Trump campaign and the Republican party in general that gives you any reason to pause or hesitate or think that you couldn't fairly evaluate the evidence against him? PROSPECTIVE JUROR: No. MR. BUSCHEL: Thank you, ma'am. THE COURT: All right, you can step out. R. BUSCHEL: Thank you, ma'am. THE COURT: All right, you can step out. (Prospective juror leaves courtroom.) THE COURT: Mr. Buschel, you have a motion? MR. BUSCHEL: No. THE COURT: Okay, let's bring in the next juror.

So it's a little early to shout "Bingo! She was biased!", which is what Trump basically did via Twitter, which is what has Barr irritated.

And so it goes in VSG world.

 

That didn't take long

In the roundup below, one of the items is the Atlantic article about John Kelly's candid remarks at Drew University regarding aspects of Trump's handling of policy that he observed during his time as chief of staff - North Korea, immigration, Ukraine, Lt. Col Vindman. As I read the article and included it in my post, I just knew the Very Stable Genius would take to Twitter about it sooner than later.

And, alas, he has:

President Donald Trump blasted his former chief of staff John Kelly on Thursday after the ex-top aide said Lt. Col. Alexander Vindmandid the right thing in reporting his concerns about Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president.

"When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head," Trump tweeted. "Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do."

"His incredible wife, Karen, who I have a lot of respect for, once pulled me aside & said strongly that 'John respects you greatly. When we are no longer here, he will only speak well of you,'' Trump continued. "Wrong!"

I don't think it means I have any special powers of prediction to assert here that it also won't be long until his throne-sniffers chime in, saying that Kelly was always a deep-state cuckservative. If you find examples before LITD does, let us know.

Thursday roundup

State's Attorney Kim Foxx has done an about face re: the six new charges the special prosecutor has brought against Jussie Smollett - sort of. She's still saying that she "certainly hope[s] [the] decision made in this case was based on facts evidence & the law."

John Kelly treated an assemblage of students and guests at Drew University to some bracing candor the other night, letting loose on his view on how the Very Stable Genius has handled North Korea (saying the summits were pointless and merely bought Kim some time), made unrealistic generalizations about immigrants, intervened in the Eddie Gallagher case, and dealt with Ukraine. Kelly had this to say about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman notifying his superiors when he became disturbed about the July 25 call to Zelensky:

“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly told the audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”

Although Trump has long insisted his call to Zelensky was “perfect,” Kelly made clear that Trump indeed conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s help digging up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

That amounted to a momentous change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine — one that Vindman was right to flag, because other federal agencies needed to know about the shift, Kelly said.

Madeleine Kearns at National Review points out how cowardice among Republicans in the South Dakota Senate advances civilizational rot.  A bill called the Vulnerable Child Protection ace has been  making its way through that state's legislature and three Pub Senators joined the Dem majority in basically killing it. The bill would . . .

. . . make it easier for gender-confused minors to attain financial compensation later in life — should they realize, before age 38, that the doctors who stunted their puberty, destroyed their fertility, and permanently impaired their sexual function had failed to meet the acceptable standards of (what are we calling it these days?) health care.

Witnesses in favor of the bill include some people who had had their crotches mutilated and had been pumped full of hormones not natural to their bodies and later gone through hell as a result.

Here's a taste of what the bill's opponents put forth as representative of their view:

A lobbyist for the ACLU began by greeting everyone with a “handshake from [her] heart,” introducing herself as a “queer indigenous two-spirit nonbinary” person. Another witness spoke on behalf of “Julian Bear Runner” of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, informing the Senate that Mr. Bear Runner (whose relevance and absence wasn’t explained) takes “great offense when our civil liberties come under fire by government officials [and] when laws are used as weapons to prohibit the movements and prosperity of [his] people.” 

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are in talks with Goldman Sachs about how they can serve as "brand ambassadors" for the financial giant. Last week, they gave a speech to a hoity-toity JP Morgan event for which they were paid around $1 million. Here's some sharp reaction to the first moves post-"stepping back" that the power couple has made:

The British morning TV host Piers Morgan, a former friend of the Duchess’, wrote in the Daily Mail of the JP Morgan appearance that “it’s hard to imagine a more ludicrously inappropriate first gig for them to take in their brave new progressive, planet-saving royal celebrity world. Sadly, this appears to be just the start of the Sussexes’ shameless nose-in-trough descent into banking ‘partnerships’.”

The revelations come after noted author Germaine Greer went on Australian television and offered her view that Meghan was “faking love” with Harry as she pursued a “glamorous life” according to The U.S. Sun’s account of the interview.

The provocative feminist told Australia’s version of “60 Minutes” that the outcome of Meghan and Harry’s marriage was “likely to be disastrous”. 

“If she’s been faking it all this time, oh boy, what misery. How many orgasms will it take? How many fake groans will get her through this?”

“She’ll bolt. She’s bolted before,” she continued, making a reference to Meghan’s first failed marriage to a Hollywood talent manager. 

What do leftists do when they encounter something that doesn't fit their narrative? They bolt in a huff:

Virginia state Democrats on Tuesday stormed out of the House chamber after a local black minister led the body in an opening prayer that openly and strongly condemned abortion and gay marriage.

Rev. Robert M. Grant Jr., who pastors The Father’s Way Church in Warrenton, used his few moments at the microphone addressing the newly Democrat-controlled House of Delegates to decry abortion, advocate for traditional marriage, and warn against God’s wrath if the state legislature goes against Biblical principles.

“I pray that you may understand that all life is precious and worthy of a chance to be born. God is the giver of life and people have no right or authority to take life. The unborn have rights and those rights need to be protected. They should never be denied the right to exist, the right to develop or the right to have a family,” he said from the podium.

“The word of God has given us a warning: woe to anyone who harms an innocent child," he added, telling state lawmakers that “every one of you sitting here today can guarantee these rights to these little innocent children of Virginia."

“Please do not ignore their little voices. I pray for a heart change today, and may the Lord God have mercy upon this leadership,” he went on.

Grant then switched to gay marriage.

“We should never rewrite what God has declared,” he continued, praying that the state would “always protect the biblical definition of marriage” between one man and one woman.

Big-bucks Dem donors are bailing on Joe Biden.

Eric Kaufmann at Law & Liberty on why the Left is losing in Europe. 

The Very Stable Genius unrestrained

This:

The Justice Department submitted a new sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone on Tuesday, overruling career prosecutors who requested in a court filing Monday that the former Trump adviser serve 7–9 years in prison.

Driving the news: President Trump acknowledged in a Wednesday morning tweet that Attorney General Bill Barr had intervened in the matter, congratulating him for "taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought."

What they're saying: The new sentencing memo states, "While it remains the position of the United States that a sentence of incarceration is warranted here, the government respectfully submits that the range of 87 to 108 months presented as the applicable advisory Guidelines range would not be appropriate or serve the interests of justice in this case."

• It argues that the witness Stone was convicted of attempting to intimidate, Randy Credico, claims that he "did not perceive a genuine threat."
• It also points to Stone's "advanced age, health, personal circumstances and lack of criminal history" as mitigating factors.
• The department did not offer a specific sentence recommendation, noting that it would defer to the court.

Why it matters: The downgraded sentencing recommendation is sure to prompt allegations of political interference. All four prosecutors who tried Stone in November — Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis, Adam Jed and Michael Marando — withdrew from the case on Tuesday afternoon. Zelinsky and Kravis resigned from their positions as special assistant U.S. attorney and assistant U.S. attorney in D.C., respectively.

The big picture: Trump tweeted early Tuesday that the recommendation is a "miscarriage of justice" that he "cannot allow," claiming that the "real crimes were on the other side." He later told reporters that he didn't speak to the Justice Department about the case, but that he would have "the absolute right" to.

• Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec told The Daily Beast that DOJ officials did not consult with the White House and that the decision to change the recommendation came before Trump's tweet.
• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general requesting an investigation into the reduced sentencing recommendation, writing: "This situation has all the indicia of improper political interference in a criminal prosecution."
• The president posted a tweet later criticizing the judge presiding over Stone's case, Amy Berman Jackson, after it was pointed out that she had dealt with cases involving the Mueller investigation — including that of the now-imprisoned former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Background: Stone, one of several Trump associates to be indicted as a result of the Mueller investigation, was found guilty in November on seven counts related to his attempts to learn more about when WikiLeaks would publish damaging emails about 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

• The self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" was convicted of crimes that include obstruction of justice, lying to Congress and witness tampering.
• The Justice Department's original memo, which recommended that he be hit with a sentence in line with the advisory guidelines, accused Stone of displaying "contempt for this Court and the rule of law."

And this:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Pentagon could look at disciplinary action against U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key figure who testified in the Ukraine impeachment saga.

On Friday, Vindman, a former National Security Council staffer, was escorted out of his third-floor office across from the White House. The Senate had acquitted Trump of two impeachment articles, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, on Wednesday.

“We’re going to have to see, but if you look at what happened, they’re going to certainly, I would imagine, they’re going to take a look at that,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday, when he was asked whether the Defense Department would seek disciplinary action against Vindman.

“He is over with the military,” Trump added from the Oval Office. “We sent him on his way to a much different location and the military can handle him any way they want,” Trump said, referring to Vindman’s reassignment from the White House to the Department of the Army.

I'd tried hard to see Barr as one of the few remaining principled figures in the Trump administration. I was mightily impressed with his speech at the Notre Dame Law School last October, in which he defended our society's Christian underpinnings against militant secularists. He was well-regarded around Washington. His confirmation hearing for his first stint as Attorney General in 1991 went smoothly, with both Democrats and Republicans speaking well of him.

But he seems to have come under the VSG's sway. Trump's been leaning on him just like he did Jeff Sessions. And now a precedent has been set. The independence of the Justice Department is always going to be in question.

And the same principle applies regarding the Pentagon. How unseemly is it for the VSG to be commenting on military personnel matters? And just what has Vindman done that would warrant some kind of punishment?

This is the level of scorched-earth vindictiveness that is going to be routine going forward. Anything less than total loyalty is going to be grounds for ruination, and demonstrations of loyalty, no matter how illegal, are going to be rewarded.

A look back at the November prez-candidate choices we've had over the last 50 years

I've come across two pieces today - one by Erick Erickson at The Resurgent, and one by S.E. Cupp at The New York Daily News -  that examine the same basic theme: the parallels between where the Democrats seem to be headed in 2020 and how things unfolded for the Republicans in 2016. In each case, an overcrowded field of presidential contenders would not winnow itself down due to the stubbornness of candidates who surely realize(d) they don't / didn't have a chance, so that the party was left with a candidate that much of the country found completely unpalatable. Erickson's focus is on how the looming specter of Bloomberg keeps the prevailing of Sanders from being a certainty, but leaves Dems with the possibility that the former New York mayor, who greatly alarms most kinds of contemporary Democrats, may shake out to be their man. Cupp doesn't seem to think the Bloomberg factor is that significant, but points to Trump's ascendancy going from a remote possibility to a reality, suggesting that Sanders may have a similar successful trajectory.

It got me to thinking about the way primary season has shaken out to give the country the choices it has had in all the elections since 1972.

That year, Richard Nixon's popularity was proven by his landslide victory. Yes, the Watergate scandal had broken that summer, but the Dem choice, McGovern, was the first candidate to represent the faction within that party that spoke plainly about its view that US involvement in Vietnam was dishonorable. The radicals who had come off the streets to commence a Gramscian long march through the institutions threw their support behind him. The voting public had no appetite for a pivot in that direction.

In 1976, the Republican candidate was the first in a line of what I call afflictees of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome. That's a term I used to use a lot here at LITD and still occasionally find useful. A Reasonable Gentleman is the kind of Republican politician / officeholder who cannot or will not speak of the stark difference between the collectivist ideology of the Democratic Party and the worldview that at least ought to inform Republican politics. Gerald Ford just wasn't up to the task. The Reasonable Gentleman is basically what a lot of people call RINOs or squishes. The Dem candidate, Jimmy Carter, intrigued the public with his mix of Baptist faith, grits-and-gravy Southern sensibility, concern about the energy situation, and support from the rock stars of the day.

By 1980, Carter had proven such a miserable failure, with inflation and economic indicators generally out of hand, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the spread of Marxism-Leninism in Central America, that the contrast between him and the towering Ronald Reagan was the clearest contrast any of us now alive have ever see. Ronald Reagan's three-pillar conservative bona fides were in impeccable order. He'd been recruited into politics by none other than Bill Buckley.

By 1984, Reagan had proven that tax cuts can turn around a troubled economy. He didn't do detente with the Soviet empire, much less impeachment. He spoke of that empire's demise as a reality within the world's grasp. He forthrightly supported the right to life movement. And he did it all with a cheerfulness, an optimism, and a dignified bearing that  mightily impressed the nation. Mondale? He was basically cobbling together a platform of elements from both the ever-more-radical left wing of the Democratic Party and its "establishment," for want of a better term (and there surely is one).  He proclaimed that he was a feminist and that he would raise taxes. He didn't stand a chance against Dutch.

By 1988 the Soviet Union was so plainly on its last legs, and the economy so good, and Michael Dukakis exuding doofusness at every turn, that Vice President George Bush's run was a walk in the park.

Bush deftly managed the US role in the actual collapse of the Soviet empire, and commanded Desert Storm superbly. But he made the fatal mistake of trusting Democrats, and it cost him Republican support. He'd come across so resolute when he said "Read my lips: No new taxes!" and then he sent Richard Darman up to Cpitol Hill to negotiate spending cuts in return for - you guessed it - tax increases.

That was Bill Clinton's opening. He had a heaping helping of that Southern charm - even a thicker accent than Carter's - a bit of a wonky air about him (he'd given a stemwinder of a speech at the 1988 DNC convention), and spoke of a Third Way effectively enough that it looked like something other than a mushy middle. There were hints that he was a rascal, but his machine was able to sufficiently tamp down those who tried to make it a full-blown issue.

By 1996, however, much more about that rascal streak had come to light, as had various scandals dating back to his time as governor of Arkansas. His wife's utter unlikability and power-hunger was becoming obvious. Congress had gone to the Republicans in the 1994 midterms. It was becoming clear that the whole reason he'd gotten into politics was Still, his opponent was a Reasonable Gentleman of the first order. I mean, Bob Dole? Really?

2000 was a hot mess. The final decision extended considerably past early November, and the nation was subjected to the grind of magnifying-glass examinations of hanging chads and David Boies appealing every court decision that didn't go the Dems' way. Al Gore finally exited the stage, to the relief of an exhausted nation. George W. Bush seemed like a healthy mixture of humanity ("compassionate conservatism") and firmness. He was of east-coast pedigree, but, due to his father's oil-business career prior to getting into politics, had grown up in Texas, and had that charming folksy drawl.

In 2004, even though no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq - a concern not only of the Bush administration at the time, but of Democrats such as Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Bob Graham and Sandy Berger as far back as 1998 - the US had achieved the mission of removing Saddam Hussein from power in that country, thereby bringing relief to a terrified Iraqi populace. US domestic life was stable. John Kerry, whose persona was another mixture of radical-wing and Dem-establishment, seemed out of tune, and he lost to George W. Bush.

In 2008, a totally new political creature appeared on the scene: Barack Obama. The racial angle allowed a lot of Dems to support him so as to indulge in that classic Dem emotion, self-congratulation. That angle's unprecedentedness went far in obscuring Obama's radicalism. Here was the first true candidate who came out of that hard-left wing. He'd been mentored as a kid in Hawaii by Communist Frank Marshall Davis. John Drew recalls how, at Occidental College circa 1980, Obama had advocated revolution. He wandered into a socialist convention in New York City while at Columbia University and became a fan of the thought of Saul Alinsky and Cloward and Piven. As a community organizer in Chicago, he was under the tutelage of such radicals-who-came-in-off-the-street-to-subvert-the-system-from-within as Heather Booth, Greg Galluzzo, Robert Creamer, and Bill Ayers. He attended Trinity Church, the pastor of which was liberation-theology proponent Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright. He gave a talk, oozing with lavish praise,  at the farewell dinner for Rashid Khalidi, who was leaving Chicago for the east coast. Khalidi was fiercely anti-Israel. Obama said he'd learned a lot sitting at Khalidi's kitchen table.  He was on record supporting single-payer health care. In his autobiography The Audacity of Hope, he wrote of feeling like a sellout for going to work for a private-sector law firm.

But he was undeniably charming and glib. He knew how to play all the cards he'd been given. And, again, the Pubs put up a ridiculously squishy Reasonable Gentleman, John McCain.

21012 was a repeat, with Mitt Romney standing in in the Reasonable Gentleman role.

So that's the series of choices we've had over the last half-century.

What stands out to me is that Dems have fairly consistently offered solidly leftist candidates. Sometimes they won, sometimes they didn't. Only once in that time span did Republicans put forth an actual conservative. He won handily twice.

And now we're going to get a Dem candidate even further to the left than Obama (there are no moderates in their field; people need to stop applying that term to any of them) and the Republican candidate is going to be - well, you know.

I think it's pretty clear that retrospective such as I'm putting forth here a half-century hence will deem this the age of cacophony and incoherence. That is, if there's still a United States of America at that point, if the infantilism that has beset both parties has not so thoroughly degraded our political life that we've morphed into something having nothing to do with freedom, dignity, prosperity, strength and reverence.

The first head on a pike

The VSG is in full Michael Corleone mode:

Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, the top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council, was pushed out of his role Friday months earlier than expected, according to a statement from his attorney. Vindman was not slated to leave until July, but had been telling colleagues in recent weeks he would likely leave soon. 

Vindman, a decorated veteran who was born in Ukraine, was escorted out of the White House by security and told his services were no longer needed, according to Vindman's lawyer, David Pressman.

His twin brother Yevgeny Vindman, a National Security Council attorney, was also fired and walked off the White House grounds alongside him. 

National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said: "We do not comment on personnel matters."

There is no jobs number, GDP number, trade deal or infrastructure plan that can counterbalance the damn scary stuff happening now.