First Draft

Short one today, as recurring #^@#& back issues preclude sitting for very long.

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First up – it’s good not to be da king!

Former White House counsel Don McGahn must obey subpoena to testify before Congress, judge rules
NBC News ^ | November 25, 2019 | Pete Williams

Posted on 11/25/2019, 5:15:37 PM by Coronal

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled late Monday that former White House counsel Don McGahn must obey a subpoena for his testimony issued by the House Judiciary Committee.

Federal District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said McGahn must appear before Congress but retains the ability to “invoke executive privilege where appropriate” during his appearance. The judge did not put her own ruling on hold, but the Trump administration will likely seek one to put the effect of her ruling on hold while it pursues an appeal.

“It is clear to this Court for the reasons explained above that, with respect to senior-level presidential aides, absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist,” Jackson said in her ruling

(Inexplicably left out of the above excerpt by the poster, for some reason 🙂

Judge Jackson also explicitly said the president “does not have the power” to stop his aides from responding to subpoenas from Congress – adding that “presidents are not kings”.

1 posted on 11/26/2019, 12:46:25 AM by Berlin_Freeper

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Ok – “Obsession” is officially getting too long-winded, so some short takes this week:

First up – He sounds GAY to me!

Audio tape reveals Richard Spencer is, as everyone knew, a racist
Vox ^ | Nov 4, 2019, 5:20pm | Jane Coastonjane

Posted on 11/5/2019, 5:12:10 PM by FewsOrange

In audio first put online by right-wing pundit and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos on Saturday, white nationalist Richard Spencer can allegedly be heard ranting about Jewish people and mixed-race people.

The audio — purportedly from an emergency meeting that took place on August 13, 2017, the day after the far-right “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, disintegrated into violence, resulting in the murder of a counterprotester named Heather Heyer — features Spencer screaming racist and anti-Semitic slurs he has generally avoided using in public in an effort to more politely argue for “the creation of a White Ethno-State.”

… We are coming back here like a hundred f*&^ing times. I am so mad. I am so f*&^ing mad at these people. They don’t do this to f*&^ing me. We are going to f*&^ing ritualistically humiliate them. I am coming back here every f*&^ing weekend if I have to. Like this is never over. I win! They f*&^ing lose! That’s how the world f*&^ing works.

Little f*&^ing kikes. They get ruled by people like me. Little f*&^ing octoroons … I f*&^ing … my ancestors f*&^ing enslaved those little pieces of f*&^ing shit. I rule the f*&^ing world. Those pieces of f*&^ing shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. That’s how the f*&^ing world works. We are going to destroy this f*&^ing town. …

1 posted on 11/5/2019, 5:12:10 PM by FewsOrange

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Well, this was an extremely interesting week over at Free Republic, I must say.

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

(composite thread)

REPORT: Turkish War Planes Strike Kurdish Targets in Northern Syria
GP ^ | 10/07/2019 | Cristina Laila

Posted on 10/7/2019, 4:16:25 PM by mplc51

Turkish war planes carried out airstrikes against Kurdish targets at the Semalka border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

Shortly before the air strike, US defense officials shut down Northern Syria airspace to Turkey in a statement to Anadolu.

“DOD spokesperson confirms the CAOC has pulled Turkey off the air tasking order and stopped the ISR feed, meaning Turkey is effectively cut out of the airspace along the border with Syria.”

“Turkish artillery bombards PKK/YPG targets in Malikiyah,” reported Israeli journalist Amichai Stein.

President Trump earlier Monday morning warned Turkey, a NATO ally, that he would destroy their economy if they did anything Trump “considers to be off” in a pair of tweets.

TRUMP: As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

1 posted on 10/7/2019, 4:16:25 PM by mplc51

Aaand – we’re off!

To: mplc51

“… I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!”

Smells like a pile of bovine excrement.

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TW3, everyone… (hopefully the BBC won’t sue me)  – and what a week it was!  I’ve quit trying to count the wheels that have come off the Trump Train, and am just concentrating on dodging them as they fly by.

First up – He’s Bolton! (composite thread) :

Trump says he fired national security advisor John Bolton-JB says he “offered to resign”
cnbc ^ | Sept 10, 2019 | Mangan/Breuninger

Posted on 9/10/2019, 11:02:18 AM by janetjanet998

Trump says he fired national security advisor John Bolton

1 posted on 9/10/2019, 11:02:18 AM by janetjanet998

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OK folks – slack-off time is over, with means it’s time to don our ISO suits and push open the airlock!

First up? Leaking on The Darnold!
( I know it’s a long article, but bear with me)

Leak Plugged? Trump’s Personal “Gatekeeper” Hits The Exit
Hotair ^ | 08/30/2019 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 8/30/2019, 9:17:32 AM by SeekAndFind

In any White House, discretion is a prized value in staffers, and perhaps even more so in the Donald Trump era. As Trump’s personal assistant in the Oval Office, Madeleine Westerhout should have known that better than most. Yet Westerhout has been shown the door, as multiple news organizations reported overnight, for sharing personal information about the First Family with reporters:

President Trump’s personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout resigned from her job abruptly, a White House official and another person familiar with the situation told NBC News late Thursday night.

One of the sources said that Westerhout left the job because she shared personal information about the president’s family and Oval Office operations at an off-the-record dinner with reporters earlier this month in Bedminster, N.J., where a Trump-owned golf club that the president often visits in summer months is located.

All of the outlets reporting this departure call it a resignation, but they all also strongly suggest that the resignation came under considerable duress. The New York Times first reported it and noted that the sequence of events started when Trump found out she was leaking information to reporters, and that she’s already persona non grata anywhere in the White House. Needless to say, that’s not a departure on mutually agreeable terms.

The Times’ Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman also take note of Westerhout’s political pedigree:

“Ms. Westerhout, a former Republican National Committee aide who also worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, reportedly cried on election night because she was upset over Mr. Trump’s victory. As such, the president at first viewed her warily, as a late convert to his cause who could not be trusted.”

(snip)

Ms. Westerhout’s power in the White House came almost entirely from proximity. She is not a name-brand White House aide and has never appeared on television, unless it was an accidental shot of her hovering behind her boss. But while she was not a decision maker, she enjoyed unique access to Mr. Trump.

Trump tends to be a little paranoid about working with other Republicans, but in this case his first instinct might have been correct. Karni and Haberman hint at Westerhout’s state of mind in the last paragraph of the above excerpt. Politico later reported that Westerhout was attempting a little empire-building in the White House, which might have led to a slap-down or two from more senior officials:

“In the past six months, Westerhout had tried to expand the boundaries of her job to encompass a broader set of tasks and to include foreign travel, said one adviser close to the White House, who suggested Westerhout had tried to act like a de facto chief of staff. This irked several White House officials and Cabinet secretaries who thought she should stick to her primary task of serving as the president’s personal secretary with a desk just outside the Oval Office. …”

(snip)

The close White House adviser called this “the final straw” for someone who did not have many allies left in the building.

Under those circumstances, one has to wonder whether Westerhout got set up by rivals within the White House. That’s the kind of games that get played when low-level staffers try acquiring power at the expense of others with better connections. It’s just as likely, if not more so, that a lack of success led Westerhout to lose her sense of discretion and/or attempt to gain more power by manipulating the press against her real and perceived rivals.

At least, those are the fun explanations. If this turns out to be just the mundane circumstance of a secretary with trouble keeping her mouth shut after having a couple of drinks, it’ll be a disappointment. Even so, Westerhout’s exit will serve as a warning to others to keep their mouths shut whatever the circumstance might be.

1 posted on 8/30/2019, 9:17:32 AM by SeekAndFind

To: SeekAndFind 

This is appalling  appealing.

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