I have nothing against John Kelly, but….
It’s of course entirely possible that things would be going even worse if Reince Priebus were still in charge, but on its face Kelly’s experience does not seem to be doing any good. And that should be a stake through the heart of the notion that some stable of “adults in the room” are going to save the country from having picked a spectacularly inappropriate choice to serve as chief executive.
The one thing we can say for sure is that it’s essentially inconceivable that the next objectively difficult crisis that Trump fumbles will be more in Kelly’s wheelhouse than a disaster requiring a military response in the Caribbean. We’re witnessing the Trump administration at peak performance and it’s appalling. Bismarck supposedly said that God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America. If we’re lucky he’ll be proven right and nothing much else bad will happen for the next three years. If not, buckle your seatbelts.
Cermet
The idea is the “deep state” will say us. Strange but the orange fart cloud want’s failure as long as he makes money; his mions are too stupid to see this fact about their leader and that they will suffer far more if it does fail. Tragically, we will all suffer for these fools.
Hunter Gathers
As if having a chief of staff with a bunch of shiny medals on his uniform will keep the leopard from eating your face.
debbie
Is there anyone in the universe who could control this madman? I can’t think of one. Not even Putin.
Baud
I wish someone had warned us that Trump was temperamentally unfit for the presidency.
Baud
Trump’s tweets are disgusting, but I assume he’s not in charge of logistics. I just don’t think he’s all that interested enough in that work. So who is, if not Kelly?
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Excuse me, but apparently you haven’t heard of social fascist deep state totalitarian information controlling neoliberal argle bargle.
Suzanne
@Hunter Gathers: I wonder if Kelly realizes that he has completely destroyed his professional reputation for the rest of his life by working for Dampnut. I hear that he and Mattis may feel that they need to stay close in order to save the country, but that explanation seems increasingly farfetched.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This whole fucking shit show disgusts me. I don’t have words for it. A bunch of assholes were so bitter after eight years of having a foreign-born Black guy lord it over them that they voted for this homunculus out of spite. The one thing that heartens me is that people are watching this guy fellate himself on the golf course while an American territory dies, and they’re getting pissed. I guess maybe it’s just as well that this happened one year in rather than five.
And that’s the only thing that’s going to save the country, driving this creep out of office. I think we’re going to see a whole big shift happening pretty damned quick. I wouldn’t be surprised if this drives his numbers down to the magic 27% within a month. I hope to hell Bismarck was right.
Gin & Tonic
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I wish I shared your optimism that this will make him lose popularity. The fact of the matter is that last November, 63 million of your neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances went into the voting booth and said “you know what, fuck you!” And Fuck You is what they got, and they love it.
gene108
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Actually needs to be Republicans from office. Trump is no different than any Republican, policy wise. He just doesn’t use Luntz-tested code words.
Raoul
I have been harping away on the twitt-box about what the past 10 days have told us about Kelly. The WaPo ‘lost weekend’ story reads to me like the general has no influence on Trump, or no strategic vision to know that he should have been hounding him and every member of the WH (or both).
So spare me all the crap about how Kelly will keep Orangemandias from using the nuclear football. Kelly can’t handle Maria, how can he handle a hot crisis?
Schlemazel
Don’t worry, if nothing else bad happens in the next 3 years the tangerine tantrum will MAKE something bad happen. I thought W had the reverse Midas touch but at least he tried not to make unnecessary situations he could turn to shit.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I would suspect the head of FEMA is nominally in charge, tho the realities have probably been delegated to someone else. Harvey, Irma, and Maria are enough to strain the most competent of individuals.
Corner Stone
You know, even if Kelly was really there to save us, and believed that his only job was to dive between Trump and the nuclear football, he could still have done a little something for 3.5 million citizens on an island.
A lot of people try making the argument that, “Well we don’t know what’s going on in there. Maybe it could have been worse and he stuck his two cents in!” Well, this should demonstrate that to be not true. Because there is no floor lower than how this is unfolding.
someguy
OT (sort of) but what the heck is happening in Catalonia? What fool in Madrid thought that re-enacting 1848 was the response most likely to prevent Barcelona’s independence? And how is that independence not now assured, one way or another? Seems doubtful that any Catalan will be left on the fence after this, and the only question about independence is how bloody the process will be. In the heart of Europe.
I can only imagine the result if the UK sent troops into Scotland to stop the referendum there…
Schlemazel
@Baud:
Yeah, why didn’t Hillary try to warn us? That would have been more helpful than pointing out his support was built on a lot of truly awful people and ideas.
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel: Apparently he’s just been tweeting about telling Rex to stop NK negotiations. So yeah, he’s going to find a hot mess even if he has to create it.
Schlemazel
@someguy:
Chalk up another big win for Putin.
“War? Good. That means more food for my family. All 78 million of them. That’s a lot of mouths to feed, Highness.”
– Edgar, MIB
oldgold
Today:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…
…Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!
Schlemazel
@Corner Stone:
Wish I were surprised
Another Scott
My opinion hasn’t changed that – anyone who would take a political appointment with Trump’s administration isn’t somehow going to save us. Good people are fighting Trump, not joining him.
Beautiful cool, crisp day here in NoVA.
Flipping channels on the TV and ended up stopping on BeIn Sports looking at FC Barcelona and Las Palmas. The stadium apparently holds 90,000 and is absolutely empty. Apparently the authorities think it’s a good idea to have 90,000 people milling around outside getting upset that their expensive tickets are worthless, on a day when Catalonia is voting on independence, rather than letting them in to watch the match.
Weird.
0:0 so far.
Have a good Sunday, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
scottinnj
Remember Kelly was the head of the US Southern Command i.e it is responsible for all military and security arrangements in Central and South America and the Carribean. In other words there are not many other people with in depth knowledge of the US Military Resources in that area than John Kelly and if this was a unexpected crisis there are few people better qualified than Kelly. And still it is FUBAR.
OzarkHillbilly
@someguy: Catalans hate Madrileños. Or so says my Majorcan wife.
Radiumgirl
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Obama was born in Hawaii, the 50th state. But certainly a lot of Americans in the lower 48 don’t think of Hawaii or any of the territories as being part of America.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
All tweets aside, the fact that Kelly’s instinct (apparently) was to not upsell this POTUS on being competent about this crisis should put paid to any notion Kelly is a decent man. I’ve never been a general, never been in the chain of command. But one of my overriding principles has always been, “Do not make the Boss look bad”.
Wapiti
@Baud:
CoS is in charge of controlling access to the President, staffing the White House, etc. He negotiates with Congress and others to achieve the President’s agenda. Disaster crisis management is supposed to be done by FEMA (and DHS). It’s not Kelly’s job.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Trump himself gave plenty of warning. But as it turned out, a temperamentally* unfit man was exactly what too many American voters preferred.
*And he was hopelessly unfit by so many other criteria as well.
sylvania
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): LOL…just like how “real” Americans learned their lesson after 8 years of Bush? Yea, that never happened either.
Corner Stone
Looks like somebody slipped a little Essence of Maddow into Joy Reid’s coffee this morning.
MattF
@scottinnj: Kelley is chief-of-staff, and stays out of policy questions. Now, of course, Trump could cast a glance in Kelley’s direction and say ‘Hey John, do you know anything about the Caribbean?’ But that would suggest a degree of Trumpian managerial competence, and so, isn’t going to happen.
Kay
“Gratuitous nastiness” is the best 2 word description of the Trump Administration. I’m sick of being told some of them are “good”- it doesn’t matter. It’s not my job to figure out their internal motivations. Nasty, mean-spirited, incompetent people, as evidenced by their actions or inaction.
It will get worse.
Schlemazel
@Wapiti:
and the clown did not fill the FEMA job for 6 freaking months. No matter how good Brock Long might be he has not had time to get familiar with the tools and people he has at his disposal. Add on the GOP gutting funding and hamstringing the agency and you have a perfect recipe for a mad-made disaster that will fail to properly respond to the natural one.
Good job, Orangie!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: the sports and anthem stuff? I thought that was useful, if anything I thought she should’ve gone into more detail about the way it was all ramped up post-9/11 by the Rumsfeld pentagon, what John McCain of all people called IIRC “purchased patriotism”
gene108
@someguy:
I wonder, if the independence movement in Catalan is funded by Putin. The pro-Brexit parties definitely are.
Corner Stone
@Wapiti:
For myself, that is not the argument I am making. Taking over and running crisis response was not the angle I was “hoping” for. Much more along the lines of using his access to the POTUS to give him options on how he can be The Man and master of this crisis. Sell to his ego if nothing else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and if Kelly said, “Sir, I have some experience that might be relevant here. If you like, I can coordinate with my successor at DHS and my old friend Jim Mattis to address this situation.” “Yeah, great, John, go on and do that, I’m going to go practice my short game. Call Jared if you have any questions.”
The Yglesias piece addresses this right before the part DougJ quoted
Schlemazel
@gene108:
Yes, they have found the exact same Putin MO, Facebook ads & stories designed to heighten tensions and enflame passions to make compromise impossible.
schrodingers_cat
I have been saying from the beginning that the Generals are not going to save us, just like the generals did not save Pakistan.
Angrifon
@Amir Khalid:
A guy I know told me just after the election that yeah, Trump’s an asshole, but we need an asshole. Just watch, he said. He doesn’t talk a whole lot about Trump anymore.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Your memory is correct, which if I hadn’t just read that over at Think Progress, I would never have remembered.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I liked the British guy’s run through better.
schrodingers_cat
Kelly seems to be a standard issue wingnut in a uniform.
1. He thinks that Mexico is going to be next Venezuela.
2. DACA is unconstitutional
3. Most important DHS under Kelly was like Miller’s wildest dream come true.
He is not going to save us.
Corner Stone
Beyond the lack of crisis management, I think the fact that Trump left to go golfing tells us pretty much everything about this WH we need to know. Not stayed somewhere a day or two longer than he should have. But in the middle of an evident humanitarian crisis he leaves the WH to go to *his* golf resort. I mean, on the scale where you rank W flying over NO and looking down after attending McCain’s birthday party, where does going golfing while PR dies fit?
O. Felix Culpa
Trump and crisis management? How about crisis creation?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/10/01/trump-says-tillerson-is-wasting-his-time-trying-to-pursue-negotiations-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.26cda6223b51&outputType=default-article&deferJs=true
Jim, Foolish Literalist
every day, several times a day, my brain starts spinning all over again that this man is President of the United States. Mattis and Kelly and McCain and Corker and Collins and Ryan all co-signed these tweets.
bystander
@Schlemazel:
If only Hillary had written an email warning us about Trump or Debbie Schultz had emailed Podesta that Trump gave her the creeps.
Gvg
I don’t understand the Kelly bashing. Chief of staff just isn’t that kind of job nor does it have the power to do much of anything to do with a crisis like this even under a normal President. Under this one I bet he has little influence. Maybe some in letting certain people see the President who can tell him what to do…maybe. Trump is the responsible one, not Kelly.
If Kelly annoys the boss to much to fast he’ll be out faster. Sooner or later he’ll get fired because Trump always blames others for things. Really all I hope for from Kelly is some heading off thoughts of using nukes on someone.
Among other things, Trump just doesn’t understand the job and refuses to do things he dislikes.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Great minds. Or maybe terrified souls. I want these horrible people to go away. Where is that meteor when you need it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
according to his official schedule: He’s hosting something called “The President’s Cup” at a golf course he owns, he is participating in the trophy ceremony, then going back to the White House. I’d love to know what the registration fees for that club/tournament are. Jesus fucking christ. Lives at risk, deliberately provoking a war, and the grift goes on.
Yup.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: While he does that, chef José Andrés (who declined to open a restaurant in the DC Trump hotel) is in Puerto Rico, feeding people.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
What if the boss is demonstrably, utterly bad? If he’s making himself look bad? I don’t think any employee has a responsibility to proactively make the boss look good contra the facts.
That philosophical point aside, Kelly has not appeared to shine in his role as chief of staff. I didn’t think he was very good at Homeland Security either.
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Little hands can’t fiddle. Hence, the golfing.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: True and no one can make T look good. Its an impossible task.
trnc
@Baud:
There’s one person with authority over the military and FEMA. That person would leave the logistics and details of disaster relief to the respective agencies, but he’s the only one who can say, “What the fuck is taking you assholes so long? If you motherfuckers can’t get it down, get the hell out of the way and I’ll find someone who can!”
Having a working understanding of the gov’t agencies under your command is the difference between the responses to Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: I was speaking from my experience of communicating appropriately with my boss so if something came up, good or bad, they were not caught by surprise.
Another Scott
@trnc: This.
Trump thinks that he was elected King and that his job is to be family cheerleader and national figurehead. He has no understanding of what the job of President actually is, and has no interest (or ability) to learn.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
One wonders whether Lying Littledick knows or believes that Puerto Ricans are not illegal aliens, but Americans. [Yeah, I know the answer.]
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Interesting how Kim Jong-un went from “Rocket Man” to “Little Rocket Man,” similar to Rubio becoming “Little Marco.” Lying Littledick apparently thinks that tactic will make the other person cry or something.
And THAT is why I keep referring to that motherfucker as “Lying Littledick”: I figure it’s all projection with him, and if more people start calling him “Littledick,” he might cry. Of course, the unintended consequence is that his “man”hood would be so threatened, that he might start nuking NK, even after Kim starts having rational discussions with Tillerson or whomever. Shit.
Frankensteinbeck
The response to Houston was minimally competent. The response to Puerto Rico was not. Given Kelly’s tenure in DHS, the simplest and most obvious explanation is that both Trump and Kelly want Puerto Ricans to die. Don’t shy away from an explanation just because it involves malice you personally could not imagine having. In a White Supremacist administration, this fits evidence, history, and context.
@Angrifon:
I have been saying this. Trump was supposed to prove Your Racist Uncle has been right all along.
Study pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Chyron HR: Ask for it by name!
patrick II
Trump himself doesn’t bother me as much as the idea that Trump could actually be president and institutions like the republican congress, the right wing media, and nearly 40% of the American people support him as he bangs around various crisis and every day events made into crisis like a mean, stupid drunk. And he doesn’t drink, so that makes him just mean and stupid.
But he is at the top of the right wing pile now so they will support his idiocy no matter what-including the racist trashing of Puerto Rico and Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, for honestly and emotionally saying the response to Maria is not a “good news story”. People are hungry, thirsty, sick, and dying. So as a result of Ms. Cruz’ complaint the right wing media put on its megaphone and, in its misogynistic, victim blaming way, informed it’s evidently proto-tribal audience of their latest target for thoughtless hatred. It was a trick that until recently I did not think could be done, or at least, not to this degree, but here we are. We live in a country where a woman begging for help for her dying people can be cast as the villain and the man who informs her she is on an island where the brown people who don’t know how to help themselves and are poor besides, get what they deserve, and that horrible man is cast as the good guy.
schrodingers_cat
@patrick II: You can’t wake people up who are just pretending to be asleep.
J R in WV
@patrick II:
Well said. I’m astounded by the outpouring of bitter hatred on the part of the vast majority of Republican-leaning citizens of this formerly great nation. Hatred of their fellow Americans, of all things.
I don’t know what to wish for. I’m not a hater kind of guy, but these folks are giving me something to despise.
SFAW
@J R in WV:
When it comes to Rethug voters, and Rethugs in general, I’ll be happy to give you lessons in how to do it.
SFAW
Here’s a thought exercise:
What would it take for the Republican-majority House to begin the impeachment process. Outside of Shitgibbon vetoing their “tax breaks for the top 1 percent, fuck everyone else” bill, what would it take to get Paul Ryan to say “Enough, already.”? I’m really having a tough time conceiving of something, since Peak Shitgibbon appears to be a myth.
[Starting World War III does not count, because the House would “suspend the regular order of business” forever.]
Daniel
Kelly is making it worse. He’s trying to control a dominance obsessed septuagenarian with the emotional skills of a child. The man is clearly rebelling from being handled.
sharl
Test on an old & presumably dead thread: does the {code}{/code} tagging still work in comments?
This sentence is bracketed by the code tags.ETA: Yep, apparently this tag option is still available as a function.