How Sure Are You Trump Is A Fascist-- And Is That News To You Or Have You Known All Along?

With the exception of Putin-puppet Michael Flynn, Trump has now publicly denounced all of "his" generals. Thursday night, in a typically school yard insulting way, he went after his former Chief of Staff, General John Kelly.

Friday morning Kelly slammed back in an interview with former White House communications director and ex-Trump crony, who Kelly had fired. He told the Mooch he agrees with Jim Mattis' assessment that Trump is "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people."

"There is a concern" Kelly said, "I think an awful big concern, that the partisanship has gotten out of hand, the tribal thing has gotten out of hand. He's quite a man, Jim Mattis, and for him to do that tells you where he is relative to the concern he has for our country."

If that won't get Trump running back to his Twitter account, Kelly clearly seemed to be urging people to vote against him in November. "I think we need to look harder at who we elect. I think we should look at people that are running for office and put them through the filter: What is their character like? What are their ethics?"

Trump always polls very poorly on character issues. Last week's YouGov poll, for example, asked respondents if they believe Trump's tweets. 7% said all the time and 17% said most of the time-- that adds up to 24%. On the other hand, 38% said they don't believe anything Trump tweets and 16% said they believe some of it (but less than half), which adds up to 54%.

Later in the survey, respondents were asked if they think Trump is honest and trustworthy. Only 31% responded affirmatively. A majority of Americans say he is neither honest nor trustworthy-- including people in every region of the country.

YouGov never asks people if they think Trump is a fascist. This week, Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen asserted that Trump is an autocrat and that it's up to the rest of us to stop him. He started with 4 questions, each aimed at a different group:

• I have a question for American leftists: Do you finally see the difference between the Democrats and Donald Trump?
• I have a question for American right-wingers: Do you finally see that it is Trump who will take your guns?
• I have a question for American evangelicals: Do you finally see that Trump is the one who will close your churches?
• I have a question for Republican members of Congress: Do you finally see that you will be in the camps too?

I doubt there are any leftists-- not even Democratic Party haters like myself-- who ever missed seeing the difference between the Democrats and Trump, but the other questions make some sense. "Dictatorships," he wrote, "are built on denial. Dictators take over gradually; each incremental step that erodes civil liberties and the rule of law can be justified and explained away. Sometimes a would-be dictator is laughed off as a political buffoon who shouldn’t be taken seriously. While it is happening, no one can quite believe that they are on the road to serfdom. Autocrats often enjoy broad public support for their crackdowns. Initially, they target the 'others,' while the majority cheers. The public doesn’t recognize the threat until it is too late. The supporters who cheered the loudest are often caught up in ideological purges and become some of the regime’s earliest victims. After nearly four years in office, it is impossible to miss what Trump truly is. He is a psychopath who lusts for dictatorial powers. He has jettisoned everyone from the government who might get in his way. He is now surrounded by enablers in jackboots like Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo."

Gen. Mark Milley, a lickspittle who claims to be an American military officer, strolled through the streets of Washington, D.C. on Monday night with Trump and Barr while U.S. military personnel were illegally being used to attack protesters and shove them out of the way so that Trump could pose for a photo holding a Bible in front of graffiti-covered St. John’s Episcopal Church. The men had the look of coup plotters bent on seizing the government in the dark of night.

That same evening, military helicopters hovered low over Washington, just over the heads of demonstrators who were protesting the May 25 murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. The noise and downward air blasts from the helicopters were used to disperse crowds. (Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the Pentagon asked Maryland and Virginia for troops without the knowledge of the D.C. government.) It was one of the most shameful episodes involving the use of the U.S. military in the nation’s capital since 1932, when the Army infamously used tanks and tear gas to attack protesters known as the “Bonus Army,” World War I veterans camped out to demand long-promised bonuses.

Trump gave away his game Monday night. A scheming man of no moral convictions, he figured that holding a Bible would be enough to rally his white evangelical base.

He said nothing as he stood, Bible in hand, for the photographers in front of the church, but it was easy to guess what he was thinking. He was probably thinking that evangelicals are chumps, morons who always fall for his cheap tricks. It’s not hard to discern that Trump looks down on evangelicals, resents them for how easy it is to manipulate them, and will turn on them as soon as he no longer needs them.

Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde readily saw through Trump after his photo-op in front at St. John’s. “The president just used the Bible, our sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus,” she said.

The next day, Trump stood for photos at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, doubling down on his shabby game of exploiting religious iconography. This time, he was going for conservative Catholics, rather than evangelicals, but the act was the same. The Catholic archbishop of Washington quickly attacked Trump’s visit to the shrine, just as Budde had attacked his photo-op in front of St. John’s the day before.

Meanwhile, in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, the president vowed to protect “Second Amendment rights.” Once again, Trump proved that he thinks his supporters are idiots who can be exploited with simple, coded phrases. The gun rights activists who rave enthusiastically about giving Trump expansive powers may soon have troops knocking at their doors as helicopters hover overhead. When that happens, they may feel, too late, an unexpected kinship with the protesters they now disparage.

Trump bared his authoritarian intentions in a conference call with state governors Monday, in which he berated them for being weak in the face of protests, demanding that they “dominate” the demonstrators, while threatening to send troops to their states if they didn’t accede to his demands. Trump also talked that day by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin; maybe he was getting pointers on how to crush dissent.

Trump is speeding down the path toward dictatorship because what remains of the Republican Party is eager for him to grab power. It is now a white identity party, filled with aging white people who fear the demographic trends of increasing diversity. They don’t like America as it now exists, and they want Trump to destroy the rules and laws that protect minorities, the poor, and the disadvantaged.

On Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and Trump acolyte, offered a typical Republican response to the protests when he called for all the lethal tools of the global war on terror to be brought home and turned on American protesters. “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” Gaetz tweeted Monday. Twitter restricted access to the Gaetz tweet, labeling it a glorification of violence.

By advocating for an end to the rule of law, Republicans like Gaetz will find themselves surviving at the whim of Trump. That’s when the jokes about drones and Gitmo won’t seem so funny to them.

Trump vs... John Kelly (Again)

Trump is getting ready for a mud-slinging fest-- this one against Marine General John Kelly, his former chief of staff. On Wednesday, Kelly spoke at Drew University in Morristown, NJ, 23 minutes down the 287 to Trump's dumpy Bedminster Golf Resort. According to Peter Nicholas, reporting for The Atlantic, "Over a 75-minute speech and Q&A session, Kelly laid out, in the clearest terms yet, his misgivings about Trump’s words and actions regarding North Korea, illegal immigration, military discipline, Ukraine, and the news media." Trump, a petty, thin-skinned tyrant, immediately tweeted some bullshit, also claiming he fired Kelly, even though people are aware that Kelly quit.

Throughout the appearance, Kelly laid out his doubts about Trump’s policies. Trump has held two formal summits with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, hoping to scuttle the country’s nuclear program through personal diplomacy. Kelly said the effort was futile.

“He will never give his nuclear weapons up,” Kelly said. “Again, President Trump tried-- that’s one way to put it. But it didn’t work. I’m an optimist most of the time, but I’m also a realist, and I never did think Kim would do anything other than play us for a while, and he did that fairly effectively.”

Kelly didn’t know Trump when, after the 2016 election, he was first offered the job of secretary of homeland security. Watching the contest between Trump and the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, Kelly said he had been “fascinated-- not necessarily in a good way-- but fascinated as to what that election meant to our country.”

He said his wife urged him to accept the position, telling him, “I frankly think he needs you and people like you.” Kelly ran the Department of Homeland Security until the summer of 2017, when Trump tapped him to replace outgoing Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Kelly left the White House early last year.

At times Wednesday, Kelly sounded like the anti-Trump. He said he did not believe the press is “the enemy of the people,” for example. And he sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has steadfastly courted. Kelly described Putin as someone who is “not necessarily a rational actor.” Putin sits atop “a society in collapse,” yet is intent on restoring “the glory days of the Soviet Union,” he said.

At DHS, Kelly was responsible for advancing two of Trump’s top priorities: stopping the flow of illegal immigration, and building a border wall to make unauthorized crossings more difficult. In the speech, he said he disagreed with Trump about the scope of the problem. Trump’s border wall doesn’t need to extend “from sea to shining sea,” Kelly said. He also disapproved of the president’s language about migrants, he said. When Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he famously described some migrants coming into the U.S. from Mexico as “rapists” and criminals.

Kelly said most migrants are merely looking for jobs. “In fact, they’re overwhelmingly good people … They’re not all rapists and they’re not all murderers. And it’s wrong to characterize them that way. I disagreed with the president a number of times.”

Responding to questions from the audience, Kelly faulted Trump for intervening in the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was convicted last year of posing with the corpse of an Islamic State fighter. Trump reversed a Navy decision to oust Gallagher, in a chain of events that led to the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

“The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do,” Kelly said. “Had I been there, I think I could have prevented it.”

The audience applauded.

When a woman in the crowd said that Trump had  “elevated” Gallagher, Kelly looked out at the crowd.

“Yep,” he said.

The Morristown Daily Record had a reporter at the event, William Westhoven, and he explained that the topic was "Governance Versus Politics" and that, after repeated questions from the audience he said "I'm disappointed in myself for leaving, but it was a killer, I mean, no joke." Westhoven, who also reported that Kelly told his audience that Kim Jong un was "playing" Trump... "fairly effectively," noted that "You have to be careful about what you are watching and reading, because the media has taken sides. So if you only watch Fox News because it’s reinforcing what you believe, you are not an informed citizen."

Given A Choice, Nikki Haley Chose To Undermine The Country For Trump

Nikki Haley is a politician-- a former governor of South Carolina-- who would like to be president. She has a new book, With All Due Respect, coming out tomorrow, and her publishing company-- with her consent-- promoted it yesterday by leaking the most sizzling hot pages to the Washington Post. Anne Gearan wrote it up yesterday. Haley seems charming or, in her own words, "bad ass," in the CBS Sunday Morning interview (above). But it would behoove you to remember, she's, first and foremost, a conservative Republican-- a Trump apologist-- whose policies are not any different from the Trump Regime's-- crippling to working families. Fortunately, Norah O'Donnell's personality puff piece also went into the Tillerson-Kelly exposé.

Gearan's piece is far more savaged effective than O'Donnell's. She wrote that according to Haley, Tillerson and Kelly "undermined and ignored" Trump "in what they claimed was an effort to 'save the country.'" I guess we know exactly what Anonymous was referring to in his original NY Times editorial. "Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly sought to recruit her to work around and subvert Trump, but she refused, Haley writes in a new book, With All Due Respect, which also describes Tillerson as 'exhausting' and imperious and Kelly as suspicious of her access to Trump." Instead, she chose to stick with Trump and help him undermine the country.

“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley wrote.

“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley wrote of the views the two men held.

Tillerson also told her that people would die if Trump was unchecked, Haley wrote.

Tillerson did not respond to a request for comment. Kelly declined to comment in detail, but said that if providing the president “with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”

In the book, which was obtained by the Washington Post ahead of its release Tuesday, Haley offers only glancing critiques of her former boss, saying she and others who worked for Trump had an obligation to carry out his wishes since he was the one elected by voters.

The former South Carolina governor, widely viewed by Republicans as a top potential presidential candidate, has repeatedly sought to minimize differences with Trump while distancing herself from his excesses. Haley, 47, writes that she backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

In a New York City interview with The Post coinciding with the book release, Haley also dismissed efforts by House Democrats to impeach Trump. She said she opposes Trump’s efforts to seek foreign help for political investigations in a call with Ukraine’s president, but that the actions are not impeachable.

“There was no heavy demand insisting that something had to happen. So it’s hard for me to understand where the whole impeachment situation is coming from, because what everybody’s up in arms about didn’t happen,” Haley said.

“So, do I think it’s not good practice to talk to foreign governments about investigating Americans? Yes. Do I think the president did something that warrants impeachment? No, because the aid flowed,” she said, referring to nearly $400 million in sidelined military aid.

“And, in turn, the Ukrainians didn’t follow up with the investigation,” Haley said.

In her book, Haley points to several examples of disagreements with Trump. She said she went privately to the president with her concern that he had ceded authority to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin after the two leaders met in Helsinki in 2017 and with her objection to what she called Trump’s “moral equivalence” in response to a deadly white supremacist march in Charlottesville later that summer.

Haley’s experience as governor during the 2015 murders of nine black churchgoers inside a historic African American church in Charleston by an avowed white supremacist made Trump’s reaction to Charlottesville painful, Haley wrote. Trump said “both sides” had been to blame for the violence.

“A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous,” Haley wrote. “I picked up the phone and called the president.”

Haley did not air any objections publicly, however.

Haley also recounts for the first time that she was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder following the Charleston murders. She described bouts of sobbing, loss of appetite and focus, and guilt for feeling that way when the victims and their families had suffered so much more.

In a CBS interview that aired Sunday, Haley said Trump was “not appropriate” to demand that four minority Democratic members of Congress “go back” to their countries. Three of the women were born in the United States and all are U.S. citizens.

But Haley also defended Trump, saying “I can also appreciate where he’s coming from, from the standpoint of, ‘Don’t bash America, over and over and over again, and not do something to try and fix it.’”

...In writing about the administration, Haley recalls a disagreement she had with Tillerson and Kelly following an Oval Office showdown over her suggestion that the United States should withhold funding for the U.N. agency that supports Palestinians.

Kelly and Tillerson argued that cutting aid could lead to violence, greater threats to Israel, loss of U.S. influence and political problems for Arab allies, she writes. That view is common among Middle East watchers and Trump critics, who say the administration's approach is punitive and shortsighted.

Haley said she had the backing of Trump’s Middle East peace envoys, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, but he was not in the room. She did not spell out the views of then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

In the meeting, Haley wrote, Trump seemed to be swinging away from her view, but told the three of them to go resolve their differences elsewhere. In Kelly’s office afterward, Kelly told her, “ ‘I have four secretaries of state: you, H.R., Jared, and Rex,” she wrote. “’I only need one.’”

Tillerson and others had an obligation to carry out the president’s agenda because he had been elected, not them, Haley wrote. If they disagreed strongly enough, she said they should quit.

“I was so shocked I didn’t say anything going home because I just couldn’t get my arms around the fact that here you have two key people in an administration undermining the president,” Haley said in The Post interview.

On another occasion, Haley said Kelly stalled and put her off when she wanted to get in to see Trump. When she went around him, he complained. Kelly also made it clear that he thought Trump’s decision to make Haley a full member of the Cabinet, and have her attend National Security Council meetings, had been “terrible,” and that he would ensure the next U.N. ambassador did not carry that rank, she wrote.

Trump gave Haley a warm send-off last fall, while Kelly’s departure was announced in chillier terms weeks later. Haley’s successor, Kelly Craft, who assumed the U.N. job in September, does not carry the same rank Haley did. Tillerson, meanwhile, was fired by Trump via Twitter in March 2018.

“I have found in politics that when you are a woman in politics you encounter two types of people,” Haley said in the interview, conducted at her publisher’s offices in Lower Manhattan.

“You encounter people who respect you for your skill and your knowledge and the work that you’re trying to do, and support you in that process. Or you encounter people who disregard you and see you as in the way. That would happen at times,” Haley said.

Asked whether she was calling Kelly sexist, Haley said she had no personal quarrel with the retired four-star Marine general, whom she called a patriot.

“It’s a way of saying that sometimes he was not as conscious of the job I was trying to do,” Haley said.

Trump liked her direct approach and was respectful when they disagreed, Haley said.

She wrote that each had taken the other’s measure during the Republican primary, when she first backed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and publicly called on Trump to release his tax returns. Trump tweeted that “the people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!”

“Trump had been kicked, and he was hollering. But what he didn’t know then was, when I get kicked, I holler too,” Haley wrote.

She fired back with what she describes as “Southern-woman code.”

“Bless your heart,” she tweeted.

The book’s title is a reference to Haley’s comment last year publicly refuting an assertion by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow that she had suffered “momentary confusion” about forthcoming U.S. sanctions on Russia.

In a detailed blow-by-blow account, Haley wrote that she had gone on television at the request of the White House to address the U.S. response to a deadly April 2018 Syrian chemical weapons attack and the U.S. view that Russia was complicit. When asked about punitive sanctions, Haley said she answered with the latest information she had, which was that Trump had approved new sanctions that would be announced shortly.

But Trump had changed his mind and no one told her, Haley wrote, and then White House staffers hung her out to dry. The Post reported at the time that Trump changed his mind after Haley spoke.

Haley said when a promised White House statement holding her blameless failed to materialize later that day or the next, she gave Kelly a deadline of the close of the following day-- a Tuesday-- before she went public. Kudlow’s remark to reporters on that Tuesday afternoon was evidence that Kelly did not intend to “fix this,” she wrote.

Bucking some members of her staff who urged her to let it slide, Haley told a reporter: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”

Kudlow called within 15 minutes to apologize, and then went public with a mea culpa.

“Women are cautious about politics, for good reason,” she wrote. “It’s not a pretty business. It’s often hateful. It would be wonderful if we could change our politics in America to make it less nasty and less personal. But until that happens, especially if you’re a woman, you have to stand up for yourself. Always.”

The book leaves the door open to a potential return to politics, but is silent about any White House ambitions. In the interview, Haley waved off the question. She will evaluate her next steps year by year, she said.

“I’m not even thinking that way. I’m thinking more of, we need to do all we can to get the president reelected. And then from there, deciding how I will use the power of my voice,” Haley said.

“I know I’m too young to stop fighting, I know that. And I know that I need and want to be involved in some way that’s helpful.”

Haley is hardly the only slimy Republican residing in a cesspool of shit and treason against our country. Former Republican Congressman David Jolly of Miami-Dade was on MSNBC explaining just exactly who his old congressional colleagues are... you know... as people, as human beings: "These are, in today's Republican Party, spineless politicians rotten to the core without virtue. Without any level of human integrity, devoid of self-respect, self-reflection, without courage and without the moral compass to recognize their own malevolence." But at least Haley got something for her defense of the indefensible-- a swell tweet for her book yesterday evening:

Remember When Señor Trumpanzee Loved "His" Generals?

I think Trump finally figured out that none of the generals love him and that none would fit into his schemes. It appears that Michael Flynn testified against him and his crooked offspring. And he wound up firing James Mattis, John Kelly and H.R. McMaster after dragging each one of them through the mud and tarnishing their careers with their proximity to his stench. They're all gone now-- replaced by an ambitious Nazi with bad hair who wormed and flattered his way into Trump's good graces and now pretty much sets all U.S. policy emanating from the White House.

No more "moderate" adult generals with steady hands on the till. "I see my generals-- generals are going to keep us so safe. These are central casting-- if I'm doing a movie, I pick you, general." Now the clown has faced the reality that there are some generals who don't get sucked into treason by the jingling of a little cash and that "Mad Dog" Mattis isn't a mad dog the way Trump expected him to be.

Yesterday, the L.A. Times published an interview with John Kelly defending his time at the White House by "arguing that [his tenure at the White House] is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly was at his side." Kelly was referring to Trump's desire to please Putin by pulling out of NATO and by with withdrawing from Afghanistan. Commenting on the two kidnapped Guatemalan children who died in Trump's custody, Kelly seemed to separate himself from Trump, while blaming the whole family separation policy. I can imagine Trump didn't like this: "Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people. I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids." Trump's official response to the same question had Miller's paw prints all over them:

Kelly, who doesn't leave Trump's employ until later in the week, seemed to castigate him by reminding him that "If you want to stop illegal immigration, stop US demand for drugs, and expand economic opportunity [in Central America]." Remember, last week Trump had a different idea that he tweeted, threatening to cut off all aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if they don't stop the refugees from leaving their countries.

Meanwhile we have Marco Rubio tisk-tisking that "It makes abundantly clear that we are headed toward a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our adversaries." Has he retired from the Senate to become an observer and casual commenter on current events? As far as I know, he's still a united States Senator. Unfortunately, his Trump adhesion score is 94%. Maybe if it were 74 or 64% Trump would notice when he says something.

Another big name retired General, Stanley McChrystal (4 stars) went after Trump on This Week yesterday in no uncertain terms, characterizing him as an immoral liar, a sentiment that is shared by most Americans but is which is pretty heavy to say about a commander-in-chief. When Martha Raddatz asked him if he thinks Trump is a liar he said, "I don’t think he tells the truth."

“Is Trump immoral, in your view?” Raddatz asked.

“I think he is,” he said.

McChrystal said he couldn't tell any of Trump's supporters "that they are wrong," but added, "What I would ask every American to do is... stand in front of that mirror and say, 'What are we about? Am I really willing to throw away or ignore some of the things that people do that are-- are pretty unacceptable normally just because they accomplish certain other things that we might like?'



"If we want to be governed by someone we wouldn't do a business deal with because their-- their background is so shady, if we're willing to do that, then that's in conflict with who I think we are. And so I think it's necessary at those times to take a stand."

...McChrystal, who recently published a book on leadership styles throughout history called, Leaders: Myth and Reality, criticized Trump for not embodying effective leadership.

“The military talks about would they come for you. And what that means is if you're put into a difficult military situation, would that leader sacrifice himself, put himself and others at risk to come for you? I have to believe that the people I'm working for would do that, whether we disagree on a lot of other things. I'm not convinced from the behavior that I've seen that that's the case here,” said McChrystal.



He also cautioned anyone who might fill the vacancy left by Defense Secretary James Mattis’ departure, to consider if their values sufficiently align with those of the president.

"I think maybe it causes the American people to take pause and say, wait a minute, if we have someone who is as selfless and as committed as Jim Mattis resign his position, walking away from all the responsibility he feels for every service member in our forces and he does so in a public way like that, we ought to stop and say, 'OK, why did he do it?,'" McChrystal said on This Week.

“I would ask [potential candidates] to look in the mirror and ask them if they can get comfortable enough with President Trump's approach to governance, how he conducts himself with his values and with his worldview to be truly loyal to him as a commander in chief and going forward,” McChrystal said. “If there's too much of a disconnect then I would tell him I think it’s-- it would be a bad foundation upon which to try to build a successful partnership at that job.”

McChrystal said he would not take a job in the Trump administration if he were asked.

"I think it's important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest, who tell the truth as best they know it," he said. "I'm very tolerant of people who make mistakes because I make so many of them-- and I've been around leaders who've made mistakes ... but through all of them, I almost never saw people trying to get it wrong. And I almost never saw people who were openly disingenuous on things."

He also disagreed with Trump’s approach to his visit to Iraq last week to address troops, saying the president was wrong to politicize a usually non-political occasion. In addition to talking extensively about domestic political issues in his speech to troops, Trump autographed troops' “Make America Great Again” hats. The president said in a tweet that the hats were not provided by the White House.

McChrystal said he understood why many young troops would want signed memorabilia from the president, comparing it to meeting a celebrity, but also warned that it “violated the spirit” of the military code and that the military’s apolitical status should be preserved.

“If we encourage young military members to be Republicans or Democrats or anything particular, you start to create schisms in an infantry platoon,” McChrystal told Raddatz on This Week.

“I never knew who was a Democrat or Republican and even when we were generals, when you got in a room, you never talked about politics because it was just considered bad form," he said. "I think if we allow it or encourage it, I think we are going to create something that could be a slippery slope.”

McChrystal also disagreed with Trump's announcement to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, warning it would lead to "greater instability" in the Middle East.

"What difference does it make-- does it really make, if those 2,000 U.S. forces leave?" Raddatz asked.

“If you pull American influence out, you're likely to have greater instability and of course it'll be much more difficult for the United States to try to push events in any direction. There is an argument that says we just pull up our stuff, go home, let the region run itself. That has not done well for the last 50 or 60 years,” McChrystal said.

In announcing the withdrawal from Syria earlier this month, Trump touted victory over the Islamic State, or ISIS, there, declaring, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”

McChrystal disagreed, citing the continued threat of ISIS’ ideology.

“I don't believe ISIS is defeated,” McChrystal said. “I think ISIS is as much an idea as it is a number of ISIS fighters. There's a lot of intelligence that says there are actually more ISIS fighters around the world now than there were a couple of years ago.”

ABC News has also reported that Trump plans to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan by half, about 7,000 troops. In a statement to Bloomberg Friday, Garrett Marquis, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said Trump "has not made a determination to" to withdraw troops from Afghanistan or "directed the Department of Defense to begin the process of withdrawing" troops. Marquis did not respond when ABC News requested further comment.

"Do you see that as a problem?" Raddatz asked McChrystal.

“I think the great mistake in the president's leaked guidance is that just when we were starting to sit down with the Taliban, just we were starting to begin negotiations, he basically traded away the biggest leverage point we have. If you tell the Taliban that we are absolutely leaving on a date... their incentives to try to cut a deal dropped dramatically,” McChrystal said.

McChrystal added that the decision could have a lasting impact on the trust in the alliance between the United States and the democratically-elected Afghan government it supports.

“Of course I was worried about the confidence of the Afghan people because at the end of the day, that's what determines who wins in Afghanistan,” McChrystal said. “And I think we probably rocked them-- we rocked them in their belief that we are allies that can be counted on.”

2018 In Review: Gen. John Kelly Is Out. Mick Mulvaney Is In. Who’s Next? The Whole World Is Watching, Part 2

by Noah

Gen. John Kelly is gone. Trump's former Chief of Staff, a man of such low character that only the character of Trump himself could make his look better by comparison, had finally had enough. Working with the criminally insane has to be one of the most stressful jobs imaginable and as bad as he is, and was, who knows what horrors Kelly might have managed to derail. Imagine how bad an act has to be for someone like Kelly to disapprove of it.

Mick Mulvaney is the new White House Chief Of Staff, make that Acting Chief Of Staff. It’s Mulvaney’s third administration job in less than two years. He’s reportedly not even leaving his Office Of Budget Management job. Why? Simple; Trumpanzee is his own Chief Of Staff because he is immune to management. That, together with the stench of corruption that comes with the Chief Of Staff job is good reason not to give up your day job. Oh, and he better lawyer up. That need comes with the job.

Trump was having trouble getting anyone to take the job so he just drafted Mulvaney over from the Office Of Budget Management. Las Vegas is probably already adjusting the odds as to how long Mulvaney will last but one can only shudder at what Mulvaney will prove to be like. It's a case of how low can you go. After all, this White House Chief of Staff thing hasn't exactly been going in the right direction. If you remember, Trump's first Chief of Staff, before Kelly, was former Republican Party head Reince Priebus. We thought that was sick and it was, but then came a man who, unlike Priebus, made absolutely no attempt to disguise his evil. Kelly most blatantly revealed it in his white supremacy, but that's a big reason why he got the job in the first place. That is the nature of the Trump White House. Rest assured, it will remain so.

As I write this, Kelly still has never apologized for his race-based attacks on Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson but why would we expect the kind of cretin Kelly is to do so? As soon as Kelly announced he was leaving, questions abounded. Why did he quit? Did he quit or was he fired? Was he fired in a petulant screaming fit? Does it matter? Who will change the Diaper Don's diapers now?

Before Mulvaney took the job, Mike Pence’s Chief Of Staff, Nick Ayers was “the new Chief Of Staff” for Trump but he didn’t even make it to the first day.

I have to admit that the question of who will soon replace Mulvaney has set my mind in motion. Who wants to be invited down to the oval bunker? How much of a masochist do you have to be? Better BYOCC (Bring your own cyanide caps).

The first name that comes to me is Jared Kushner. He’s family and Trumpanzee already has him sticking his face into just about everything. But what about Kellyanne Conway? Could it be the return of Spicy or The Mooch? A team of Spicy and The Mooch? Mike Huckabee? Some screaming FOX loon like Jeanine Pirro? Sean Hannity already lives up Trump's fat ass. How about a waitress from Mar-A-Lago? Rudy Giuliani? Carl Spackler?Ann Coultergeist? Annette Haven? Annie Sprinkle? Some Russian who doesn't speak a word of English? Borat for real? He’d get along great with Trump. Stay tuned!

Ready For Putin-Gate II? Is The Kremlin Targeting The Midterms?

When I read Tuesday evening that Trumpanzee chief of staff John Kelly had been calling members of Congress and telling them to feel free to criticize Trump for his treasonous behavior in Helsinki, I assumed Kelly had cleared that first with Señor T and that, for once, Trump was thinking strategically instead of like a self-obsessed 4 year old. But I was wrong. Trump had no idea what Kelly was up to. Gabriel Sherman explained for Vanity Fair readers what actually did happen: "THIS WAS THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO": THE WEST WING REVOLTS AFTER TRUMP EMBRACES PUTIN

Trump was furious that Americans weren't overjoyed by his supine posture towards Putin and that no one in the political universe was defending his treason. "The mood among West Wing advisers," wrote Sherman, "was downright funereal. 'This was the nightmare scenario,' another Republican in frequent contact with the administration said. This was viewed as much worse than Access Hollywood, Charlottesville or the "shithole countries."

While National Security Adviser John Bolton, according to a source, thought Trump’s remarks were ill-advised, he believed that walking them back would only add fuel to the outrage pyre and make the president look weak. But Chief of Staff John Kelly was irate. According to a source, he told Trump it would make things worse for him with Robert Mueller. He also exerted pressure to try to get the president to walk back his remarks. According to three sources familiar with the situation, Kelly called around to Republicans on Capitol Hill and gave them the go-ahead to speak out against Trump. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan held televised press conferences to assert that Russia did meddle in the election.

Trump was boxed in. With seemingly only Rand Paul, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson in his corner, Trump decided to backtrack. Appearing before reporters this afternoon, Trump blamed his comments on a grammatical mistake. “I would like to clarify, in a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” he said, reading from a statement. “The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’”

To those who know Trump best, the 24-hour reversal is a sign that he’s unnerved by the intensity of the backlash he provoked. “The president sent a very clear message [that] his worldview is in sync with his base and members of his party,” former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told me. “Any of these other kerfuffles, if he had addressed it the next day, we wouldn’t have had that many days of things like shithole countries.”

But Trump's been tripping all over his messaging ever since. CNN reported that by yesterday he was contradicting his own intelligence agencies again. His latest was that even if the Russians did it in 2016 they've stopped. If you follow the way Trump's tiny and venal brain works you know what he said-- that means the Russians are absolutely doing it again and, again, colluding with Trump and his team. He messed up the messaging by declining "an opportunity to clarify his remarks when questioned by reporters on the White House South Lawn. It amounted to another day of shifting stories and confusing positions for a President whose ties to Russia are under scrutiny, and whose deference to Russian leader Vladimir Putin has garnered widespread condemnation."

Speaking during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump was asked by a reporter if Russia was still targeting the US.

"No," he responded, looking directly at the reporter. The President's answer was the latest in a series of changing statements about whether he endorses the US intelligence community's conclusions about Russia's interference in the 2016 election and its continued efforts to disrupt future US elections.

...On Monday, Trump's director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, emphatically said that Russia's attempts to attack the US were ongoing.

"We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy," Coats wrote in a statement released after Trump appeared to side with Putin, rather than US intelligence agencies, on who was to blame for the election interference.

Two days earlier, Coats was more forceful in his warnings that Russia and other countries would continue their attempts to breach US systems.

"The warning signs are there. The system is blinking. It is why I believe we are at a critical point," Coats said on Friday. "Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack."

He compared the "warning signs" to those the United States faced ahead of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and named the "worst offenders" as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea-- with Russia the "most aggressive foreign actor, no question."

"They continue their efforts to undermine our democracy," Coats said.

...Trump's appearances over the past two days were meant to quell the outcry, however, his assertion that Russia is no longer targeting the US did not help.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a confidant of Trump's, said on Twitter that there was "A BIG discrepancy between President Trump's statement and DNI Coates' warning," and expressed disagreement with Trump, saying, "My personal view: the Russians are at (it) again."

And Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer quickly criticized the President's comment, tweeting, "Mr. President. Walk this back too."

How Dangerous Are Trump's Severe Mental Illnesses To America? Why Not Give Him The $25 Billion Hew Wants To Steal If He Promises To Resign?

They also have a problem with him overseas

Yeah, yeah, we all know Trump is a lying sack of shit. The idea that this man is president is more disgusting and unpalatable by the day. The idea that the latest job approval poll shows that 39% of Americans actually approve of the way he's doing his job-- and only a mere 54% disapprove-- makes me worry if my country can actually survive as a beacon of hope and a decent place to live. The Washington Post ran another Trump's the Biggest Liar in History piece yesterday. The compulsive liar-in-chief and the I-was-just-doing-what-I-was- told-Nazis who populate his ghastly regime "say U.S. laws or court rulings are forcing them to separate families that are caught trying to cross the southern border. These claims are false... It’s strange to behold Trump distancing himself from the zero-tolerance policy ('the Democrats gave us that law') while Nielsen claims it doesn’t exist ('it’s not a policy') and Sessions defends it in speech after speech."

For Trump, the family-separation policy is leverage as he seeks congressional funding for his promised border wall and other immigration priorities, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Top DHS officials have said that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the rising number of illegal crossings.

The doublespeak coming from Trump and top administration officials on this issue is breathtaking, not only because of the sheer audacity of these claims but also because they keep being repeated without evidence. Immigrant families are being separated at the border not because of Democrats and not because some law forces this result, as Trump insists. They’re being separated because the Trump administration, under its zero-tolerance policy, is choosing to prosecute border-crossing adults for any offenses.

Meanwhile Eliana Johnson and Annie Karni have written a shocking report for Politico on how frustrating Trump's family separation agenda has become inside his own Regime. Towards the end of a long piece on how hapless Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is caught up in Trump's horrifying actions towards children, they mention that her sponsor, Chief of Staff John Kelly-- himself the former Homeland Security Secretary-- is flipping out entirely.

"Kelly’s status in the White House," they wrote, "has changed in recent months, and he and the president are now seen as barely tolerating one another. According to four people close to Kelly, the former Marine general has largely yielded his role as the enforcer in the West Wing as his relationship with Trump has soured. While Kelly himself once believed he stood between Trump and chaos, he has told at least one person close to him that he may as well let the president do what he wants, even if it leads to impeachment-- at least this chapter of American history would come to a close." (Trump's deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin bailed yesterday afternoon. He had wanted to quit long ago but Kelly had persuaded him to stay on.)

Standing between Trump and chaos is not something Trump approves of or finds supportive of his ultimate ambitions. Trump is certifiably insane on several levels-- from Narcissistic Personality Disorder to traits that are far more dangerous to the country. On Tuesday he exploded during a private meeting with Senate Republicans over the one thing he's trying to accomplish that will outlast his miserable time in office: the Great Wall of Trump. He threatened to shut down the government in September-- so right before the midterms-- if they don't give him the $25 billion he wants to build the wall, much of which, no doubt, will line the pockets of his friends and family. This defines a kleptocracy. The senators fear that shutting down the government will shut down their careers.

In a private meeting regarding the wall Monday, Trump fumed to senators and his own staff about the $1.6 billion the Senate is planning to send him this fall, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Trump wants the full $25 billion upfront and doesn’t understand why Congress is going to supply him funds in a piecemeal fashion-- even though that’s how the spending process typically works.

...GOP lawmakers are loath to see a government shutdown on their watch just weeks before the midterm elections.

“It’s probably an overwhelming belief in the House and the Senate, especially the Senate, that government shutdowns aren’t good for anybody,"[Alabama Senator Richard] Shelby said.

The Appropriations Committee, which is led by Shelby, began working to pass its Homeland Security bill on Tuesday. Democrats seem unlikely to change course and agree to add more border security money for the president.

"We've got the bill and we're moving forward and I think we're going to get good bipartisan support for it. I think it's a good bill that will keep our borders safe," said Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), the ranking member of the Homeland Security appropriations committee.

On Monday, GOP Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Shelby both tried to explain to Trump that the Senate is merely meeting Mulvaney’s request and has to cut a bipartisan deal with Democrats. The Senate needs 60 votes to pass a spending bill, so Republicans would have to find at least nine Democratic votes.

"We're going to do make a down payment on that working together," said Capito, chairwoman of Homeland Security spending panel.

But Trump has not been mollified. He raised his voice several times in Monday's meeting with Mulvaney, White House staffers and the senators, insisting he needs the full $25 billion-- an unlikely outcome in the narrowly divided Senate.

Shelby said he views $1.6 billion as a floor in negotiations, which could increase if Democrats want to do some horse-trading.

Horse-trading-- like in rescuing the children Trump has put in concentration camps?

This is a letter the American Psychological Association sent to Trump last week:

On behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA), we are writing to express our deep concern and strong opposition to the Administration’s new policy of separating immigrant parents and children who are detained while crossing the border. We previously wrote to then Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly on April 5, 2017, about this matter. Based on empirical evidence of the psychological harm that children and parents experience when separated, we implore you to reconsider this policy and commit to the more humane practice of housing families together pending immigration proceedings to protect them from further trauma.

APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. Our membership includes researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. APA works to advance the creation, communication, and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives. We have 115,700 members and affiliates across the United States and in many other countries, many of whom serve immigrant youth and adults in a wide range of settings, including schools, community centers, hospitals and refugee resettlement centers.

The current policy calls for children to be removed from their parents and placed for an often indeterminate period of time in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Decades of psychological research have determined that it is in the best interest of the child and the family to keep families together. Families fleeing their homes to seek sanctuary in the United States are already under a tremendous amount of stress. Sudden and unexpected family separation, such as separating families at the border, can add to that stress, leading to emotional trauma in children. Research also suggests that the longer that parents and children are separated, the greater the reported symptoms of anxiety and depression are for children. Adverse childhood experiences, such as parent-child separation, are important social determinants of mental disorders. For children, traumatic events can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health disorders that can cause long lasting effects. Furthermore, immigration policies, such as separating families at the border, can also adversely impact those immigrants who are already in the United States. They can suffer from feelings of stigmatization, social exclusion, anger, and hopelessness, as well as fear for the future.

As a tragic example of the current policy’s serious potential for harm, a Honduran man who was separated from his wife and 3-year-old son after he crossed the border into Texas recently took his own life while detained in a holding cell, according to the Customs and Border Protection officials, public records, and media reports. There are also reports of detained immigrants foregoing legitimate claims for asylum by pleading guilty to expedite the return of their separated children and reports of parents being deported while their children, including infants, remain in custody. These incidents serve to highlight the mental health crisis for many families caused by the Administration’s policy.

Given these considerations, a change in immigration policy regarding the detention of immigrant families at the border is desperately needed-- from separating parents and children to housing them together and providing needed physical and mental health services. As psychologists, we have documented multiple harmful effects of parent-child separation on children’s emotional and psychological development and well-being and urge that the current policy of family separation be reversed. Should you have any questions regarding these comments, please contact Serena Dávila, J.D., with our Public Interest Directorate.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

How does one explain Trumpanzee's Chief Of Staff John Kelly? Mentally defective? Obviously. Bigoted to the core? That too. He met the qualifications for the job. When Kelly made the following statement about immigrants last week, Kelly was demonstrating both characteristics:

They're not criminals. They're not MS-13. Some of them are not. But they are also not people that would assimilate into the United States, into our modern society. They're overwhelmingly rural people in the countries they come from- fourth, fifth, sixth grade educations are kind of the norm.

I noted the use of the word 'some' as in some of them are "not criminals." How magnanimous of him! Some. I suppose I could say that some of the Trump administration are not criminals but it sure isn't looking that way. I was also struck by what was either Kelly's complete lack of self-awareness, perhaps contempt for his own origins, or, was it just that he thought he could get away with uttering such bullshit and no one would call him on it, certainly not those who, drenched in hate, support his boss. So, that said, let's take a quick look at John Kelly's ancestors.

John Kelly's Irish and Italian ancestors came to this country, like any immigrants, looking for a better life and more importantly to them, a better life for their children and future generations to come. They also bore the assaults dealt out to Irish and Italian immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were ghetto-ized and ostracized. Assimilation comes slowly. Seeking employment, Irish immigrants encountered signs in windows and newspaper help wanted ads that said "Irish Need Not Apply," a sort of polite way of saying "Don't even think about it." Italians were treated even worse, and not solely because they often didn't speak English. Even those few who achieved success in their field had to bear the insults. None other than Joe DiMaggio, now considered an American hero, was referred to in LIFE Magazine as "The Dago Yankee."

There was nothing wrong with Kelly's forebears, but Kelly seems to have, at the least, in his rush to poisonous anti-immigrant hypocrisy, glossed over the fact that his great-grandfather, a day laborer named John DeMarco, had, even after 47 years here, according to the 1930 U.S. census records, not bothered to become a U.S. citizen, was also illiterate and did not speak English. John DeMarco's wife had been here 37 years and still spoke no English. Kelly's family background is full of similar stories, just like the family backgrounds of most of us. No doubt he knows this but he's such a bigot that he either can't help himself or it just gets in the way of the Republican agenda. Civilized people, however, don't look down upon our ancestors, and we don't condemn people like our ancestors. That's for bigoted assholes.