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. 

Can we ease up on the inclination to assume a position of hard and fast dismissal of Nikki Haley?

This is the kind of thing that really ratchets up my dispiritedness level.

Nikki Haley's political career trajectory has been gladdening to watch. She went from being a South Carolina governor with a pretty good track record from a conservative standpoint to one of the four outstanding UN ambassadors of my lifetime, the others being Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick and John Bolton. Her ringing defenses of Israel and full-throated defiances of various bad actors were enough to make me believe that Western civilization perhaps had a chance.

I haven't read her new book, but apparently it has launched a speculative back-and-forth as to whether her service in the Trump administration has caused her fealty to core principles to take a back seat :

Haley recounts a closed-door encounter with then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: "Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren't being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country … Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president's decisions was because, if he didn't, people would die. This was how high the stakes were, he and Kelly told me. We are doing the best we can do to save the country, they said. We need you to work with us and help us do it. This went on for over an hour."

O'Donnell asked, "You memorialized that conversation? It definitely happened?"

"It absolutely happened," said Haley. "And instead of saying that to me, they should've been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan. It should've been, 'Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don't like what he's doing.' But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive."

[We asked them to respond. John Kelly tells "Sunday Morning": "If by resistance and stalling she means putting a staff process in place … to ensure the (president) knew all the pros and cons of what policy decision he might be contemplating so he could make an informed decision, then guilty as charged."]

Haley remains a fierce Trump loyalist, including on the issue of his asking the Ukrainian president to dig for dirt on the family of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
O'Donnell asked, "Do you think ultimately the president will be impeached and removed from office?"

Haley replied, "No. On what? You're gonna impeach a president for asking for a favor that didn't happen and giving money and it wasn't withheld? I don't know what you would impeach him on. And look, Norah, impeachment is, like, the death penalty for a public official. When you look at the transcript, there's nothing in that transcript that warrants the death penalty for the president."

"To be clear, it was not a complete transcript. There are still things that are missing from it. And in it, he does say, 'I would like you to do us a favor, though.'"

"The Ukrainians never did the investigation. And the president released the funds. I mean, when you look at those, there's just nothing impeachable there. And more than that, I think the biggest thing that bothers me is the American people should decide this. Why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making that decision?"

Of course, this portion of the interview is going to get both sides of the whether-impeachment-is-something-that-ought-to-happen question up on their hind legs.

CBS News has not helped matters any by inserting the subjective term "loyalist" into its reportage here. I don't think a parsing of her weigh-ins on any controversies impacting her since Trump's been president warrant that label. She's distanced herself when he's gone off the rails.

That said, I'm not pleased with her Mulvaney-esque treatment of the Trump-Zelensky phone call. Squirrel-Hair was definitely signaling that he expected some sniffing for Biden family nefariousness in exchange for busting loose the military aid.

And  given Kelly's response, boldfaced above, it seems there's a real difference in the interpretation of their interactions about this.

Still, I'd caution Heath Mayo, a figure I'd not come across until recently, but who spearheads a group / movement whose aims I am solidly behind, Principles First, to step back and consider the big picture. I don't know that his jettisoning of Haley does anything but create further fissures among a bloc of us who ought to be finding common ground.  He seems ready to completely dismiss her, which strikes me as hasty:

Heath Mayo‏ @HeathMayo

Heath Mayo Retweeted John Hudson

Wow. Now @NikkiHaley is misrepresenting and disparaging the service of her colleagues John Kelly and Rex Tillerson. Good on Kelly for having none of it. Nikki’s nosediving fast—and it’s sad to watch.

Then again, maybe he has some kind of inside insight that spurs him to conclude thusly. Maybe she has been overcome with raw political calculation, making her post-public-service moves entirely based on which side her bread is buttered on.

But this seems to me to be of a piece with some recent beating-up that Rich Lowry has come in for with regard to his new book on how nationalism can be a good thing, or Ted Cruz's maneuverings through the sociopolitical lanscape of the current moment.


Where I'm going with all this is this: Please, let's not be eating our own at this particular moment. There are not that many of us to begin with. I don't know exactly how we stack up statistically against Trumpism and jackbooted, foaming-at-the-mouth leftism, but we can ill afford to engage in a circular firing squad.

I just don't think there was some moment in the last three years at which Nikki Haley stood in her office or her home dining room and, with eyes bugging out, declared to the heavens above, "MAGA!"

So please ease up. Let's stay serious. Primacy of principles really means respectfully engaging others with a track record of being motivated by just that. 

It's very late in the day. There's not a lot of time to fool with yet another layer of turf battles, especially those that are unnecessary.

"Whatever you do, don't hire a yes man"

In his waning days in the VSG White House, John Kelly felt emboldened to lay some bracing candor on his boss:

John Kelly warned President Trump that hiring a “yes man” to succeed him as White House chief of staff would lead to impeachment and, in hindsight, regrets his decision to resign.

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump less than a year after Kelly departed the administration. The retired, four-star Marine general suggested the blame lies squarely with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other advisers who are unable, or unwilling, to keep the president out of trouble. 

Kelly, 69, said he privately cautioned Trump during his final days on the job that he would be impeached if he did not tap a chief of staff with the fortitude to check the president’s bad impulses. Kelly said he does not believe the president would be in this predicament had he stayed. 

“I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached,” Kelly recalled, in an interview at the Sea Island Summit, a political conference hosted by the Washington Examiner.

How long until the VSG dismisses him as a Never Trumper?

Thursday roundup

It's this kind of garbage:

President Donald Trump’s assertion that the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria was “an incredible, unsung success” fell flat in Puerto Rico, where islanders are still struggling to recover from the devastating storm a year later.

“I was indignant,” said Gloria Rosado, a 62-year-old college professor who watched the president’s news conference on TV late Tuesday from San Juan and was still fuming the next day. “The image of my dead husband immediately came to my mind ... as well as all the lives that were lost.”

Rosado’s husband, who was hospitalized for respiratory and renal complications and ultimately suffered a heart attack, was one of the estimated 2,975 people who died in the Category 4 storm’s aftermath when medical resources were strained beyond the breaking point.

For many, Trump’s boast about “one of the best jobs that’s ever been done” was hard to square with their daily reality: Blackouts remain common; nearly 60,000 homes are covered by only a makeshift roof not capable of withstanding a Category 1 hurricane; and 13 percent of municipalities lack stable phone or internet service. 

Still his drooling, zombie-eyed slavish cult followers base will find a way to spin this.

Secretary Global-Test is way out of bounds here:

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is being slammed for conducting shadow diplomacy with Iran after admitting to multiple meetings with Iranian officials behind the backs of the Trump administration -- including over the scrapped nuclear deal.

An administration official on Thursday told Fox News Kerry’s meetings are "shameful," pointing out what Iranian-backed militias are doing to kill and injure people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Other Republicans suggested it may not even be legal.

“John Kerry is out giving advice to Iran about how to maneuver around what Donald Trump is doing, it's insidious,” Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary for George W. Bush, said Wednesday on Fox News's "Special Report." “I don't know if it's legal or illegal, I don't care about that side of it. It's wrong.”

Kerry, the former Massachusetts senator who worked as the nation’s top diplomat in the Obama administration, made the comments about his interactions with Iran as he promotes his new book, “Every Day Is Extra.”

During an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Wednesday, Kerry acknowledged meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “three or four times” since leaving office, admitting to discussing the scrapped nuclear deal and other issues.

“What I have done is tried to elicit from him what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better,” Kerry said.
Later Wednesday, during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino,” Kerry did not deny the suggestion he’s telling the Iranians to wait out Trump until there is a Democratic president again.

“I think everybody in the world is talking about waiting out President Trump,” said Kerry, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004 and who has not ruled out a 2020 bid. 

Um, if that's what they are, why is there a problem with the terminology?

Twitter rejected four tweets from a Washington-based immigration research center’s advertising campaign as “hate speech” Tuesday because they used the legal terms “illegal alien” and “criminal alien.”

The rejected tweets by the Center for Immigration Studies, proposed for its Twitter Ads campaign to attract more followers, generally provided a statistic or factual statement and pressed for an immigration-related policy.

One tweet included a video from The Daily Caller news organization depicting immigrants illegally crossing the border and said the video “reminds us why we need a wall” and “the best defense is always to prevent individuals from entering in the first place.”

The relentless march of the climate jackboots - today's edition:

Gov. Jerry Brown . . . signed into law a King Canute-style bill requiring California to get 100 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources by 2045.

Now, for you and me, that ought to be totalitarian enough, but the thirst for tyranny going on at a Global Climate Action Summit currently underway is such that they are coming at him with just about the level of viciousness they bring to bear against normal people:

 They’re attacking him for the sin of not plunging California immediately into the dark ages . . . 

Seriously:

Here’s the bill of particulars, as reported in the Chronicle:

Activists point to 20,000 new oil and gas exploration permits issued on Brown’s watch, including 238 for offshore state waters. Thousands of other state and federal offshore leases that predate Brown’s administration remain on the books.

Consumer Watchdog and other groups also point out that Brown has taken $9.8 million in fossil fuel industry money for his various campaigns, causes and initiatives since he began running for governor in 2009. . .

About 800 environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, Californians Against Fracking, Breast Cancer Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, have signed on in support of the “Brown’s Last Chance” website campaign. It calls on the governor to commit the state to a policy of “no new fossil fuels and … real action on climate change and healthier communities.”

My very favorite of the story is this bit about Greenpeace official Annie Leonard meeting with Brown:

Leonard says Brown has been willing to talk. The two had a 2½-hour sit-down in April to go over their differences, but she said that “there are no answers he gave us that will satisfy us.”

Comedian Norm MacDonald is facing the ire of the Freedom-Haters for acknowledging that the #MeToo movement has run its course and is now in the witch-hunt phase:

Jimmy Fallon canceled Macdonald's scheduled Tonight Show appearance last night, and well he should have. Fallon remembers what happened when he tousled Trump's hair instead of screaming in his face, like he was supposed to, apparently. He's not going to make that mistake again. (And Macdonald actually defended Fallon's interview with Trump, which just makes it even worse.)

MacDonald caved and apologized on Twitter.

 

Squirrel-Hair is quite the team-builder

Dressed down one of his first and most loyal supporters:

Shortly after learning in May that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate links between his campaign associates and Russia, President Trump berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Oval Office meeting and said the attorney general should resign, according to current and former administration officials and others briefed on the matter.
The president blamed the appointment of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, on Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation — a move Mr. Trump believes was the moment his administration effectively lost control over the inquiry. Accusing Mr. Sessions of “disloyalty,” Mr. Trump unleashed a string of insults on his attorney general.
Ashen and emotional, Mr. Sessions told the president he would quit and sent a resignation letter to the White House, according to four people who were told details of the meeting. Mr. Sessions would later tell associates that the demeaning way the president addressed him was the most humiliating experience in decades of public life.

Echoes rather closely another recent Oval Office scene:

President Trump was in an especially ornery mood after staff members gently suggested he refrain from injecting politics into day-to-day issues of governing after last month’s raucous rally in Arizona, and he responded by lashing out at the most senior aide in his presence.
It happened to be his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly, the former Marine general brought in five weeks ago as the successor to Reince Priebus, reacted calmly, but he later told other White House staff members that he had never been spoken to like that during 35 years of serving his country. In the future, he said, he would not abide such treatment, according to three people familiar with the exchange.

Why these distinguished Americans would ever put themselves in the position where they might be subjected to this is beyond me. I daresay one of these days someone's going to tell S-H, to his face, to f--- himself.