Another Inspector General may be getting his pink slip

I'm actually surprised Horowitz still has his job after posting this about the firing of IG Atkinson:

Not to mention his part in the Russian collusion investigation.

Who's being president while this jerkwad is whining about negative publicity?

Get over it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Eye witness to the Lafayette Square attack

Here's an interesting interview with an Episcopal priest who was at St. John's church when Trump's goon squad violently cleared it so he could stand with a Bible for a photo op.

UPDATE 6/1/21:

Nice try, no cigar

The tear gas was used Sunday, so that doesn't count.

Pepper spray isn't a chemical.

Of course it's a chemical. Just because capsicum (active ingredient: capsaicin) is organic doesn't mean it's not a chemical. The chemical formula for capsaicin is C18H27NO3. If you can write out the chemical formula for a substance, it's a chemical.  And were they using the organic or synthetic pepper balls? I'm guessing that's what he's playing on - if it's not synthetic, it's not a chemical.  Wrong.

Technically, it's not a gas, but it will definitely cause tears.  It will fucking burn.  The interviewer should have challenged him.

But that's beside the point, which is: you fired on peaceful protesters with serious - and possibly deadly - irritants and beat them with clubs as well.

Impeach Pompeo.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

The DOJ headed by AG Barr?  That DOJ?

King of Retaliation, right on cue

ALL of his time is executive time.  We have no president.

President Trump on Thursday pledged to campaign against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) when she's up for reelection in 2022 after the senator told reporters she was "struggling" with whether to vote for Trump in November.

"Few people know where they’ll be in two years from now, but I do, in the Great State of Alaska (which I love) campaigning against Senator Lisa Murkowski," Trump tweeted.

  The Hill

"Unrelated" is right.  So why bring it up?  And, btw, HE didn't give Alaska anything.

Right out loud: "Good or bad, I don't care."

"When I saw Gen. Mattis’s comments yesterday I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns we might hold internally and have the courage of our convictions to speak up,” [Murkowski] said.

Really, Lisa? WE have always been at that point. YOU and your fellow Republicans are the ones without the courage of your convictions. Perhaps you have neither courage nor convictions if you have to wait for a former general to give you a signal.

Murkowski is not up for reelection until 2022.

Maybe that helped boost her "courage", too.

I'm going to give Lisa SOME due for voting "present" rather than "yea" on Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court here. It wasn't a "no" though.  Trump is fudging on that.  What a surprise.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

There is no substitute for the ACLU

If you can...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Don't believe your eyes

"Came into contact with..."

See if YOU can readily identify them as journalists. 

That big-ass camera the cop knocks out of the cameraman's hands might have been a clue.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

P.S.  Off topic:  I like the credit on that video.

Hmmm

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

LOLOLOLOL

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday compared President Trump’s photo opportunity in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s examination of World War II bombing damage in 1941.

[...]

“Through all of time, we have seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination,” she said, "Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage. It sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people.”

  The Hill

I guess I don't know my history. Churchill had the RAF bomb London for a photo op?

"And George W. Bush throwing out the ceremonial first pitch after 9/11 and Jimmy Carter putting on a sweater to encourage energy savings and George H.W. Bush signing the Americans with Disabilities Act flanked by two disabled Americans," added McEnany, who looked at notes on her podium as she spoke.

“For this president, it was powerful and important to send a message that the rioters, the looters the anarchists, they will not prevail, that burning churches are not what America is about,” McEnany said.

At this point, I'm beginning to wonder if Jared set that fire.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

When ex-RNC chair Michael Steele learned of this McEnany McInane comment, he laughed and said, "Comparing Trump to Churchill - there IS a drug that will let you do that, and clearly she took it before she went out there."

All for THIS picture?

Honestly, there is nothing at all about the picture that makes him look good or brave or hard-nosed, or whatever he's trying to communicate. Those baggy drawers. The book that could be anything because it has no showing title. The posture and the look on his face is more like a toddler pouting and showing his mommy that somebody did something to his book.

Pathetic. 

Disgusting.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Remembering their spines

[General James] Mattis’s dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country. [...] He did add, however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”

That period is now definitively over.

[...]

“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”

[...]

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”

[...]

“Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”

[...]

Mattis makes it clear that the president’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests, triggered this public condemnation.

“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

  The Atlantic

It's a brave new world, Jim.

“We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them."

If Esper finds his spine will hold him up, will we get Bernard Kerik for a Secretary of Defense?

UPDATE:

UPDATE:   Aaaaaaand, that didn't take long:

P.S. He has to lie about EVERYthing.

LOfuckingL!

Donald Trump has claimed to have spent only a “tiny” amount of time in a reinforced security bunker under the White House as protesters clashed with Secret Service agents outside and has insisted his time there was for an “inspection”, not his own safety.

In an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on his radio show on Wednesday, Trump also claimed to have visited the bunker in the daytime, not after dark, when protesters and law enforcement officers clashed outside the executive mansion.

  Guardian

#BunkerBitch really has him tripping.

The New York Times first reported that Trump was taken to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on Friday night, for about an hour. Other outlets, citing White House sources, confirmed it.

It was a thorough inspection.  😆

Trump told Kilmeade: “I was there for a tiny, short little period of time” and said he had visited the bunker “two or three times, all for inspection”.

“And you go there, someday you may need it, but you go there, I went down, I looked at it, it was during the day, it was not a problem. And I read about it like a big thing. There was never a problem, nobody ever came close to giving us a problem.”

Nobody did, but he hid out there anyway. And called in all the federal firepower he could get to come, including helicopters. And made that shameful photo-op (highly protected, surrounded by firepower) walk to St. John's in an attempt to look tough, which, accompanied by attacks on peaceful protesters to clear the way, just got him further ridicule, including by some in his own party.

Kilmeade asked Trump if, as was reported, the Secret Service had told him he had to “go downstairs” in order to protect his welfare. “No, they didn’t tell me that at all,” the president said, “but they said it would be a good time to go down, to take a look, because maybe some time you’re going to need it … I looked, I was down for a very, very short period of time … a whole group of people went with me, as an inspecting factor.”

LOL. I hope they keep asking him more and more detailed questions about his "inspection" of the bunker.

“We walked over to the church it was very fast, it was very symbolic,” the president told Kilmeade, adding: “The fake news makes everything bad no matter what you do.”

No. YOU make everything bad. They just report it.

The Episcopal Church will be interested to hear they're the opposition party.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

There it is...

Republicans who didn't like Trump's stunt will be tweet-shamed by hiim.

Yeah, DJ?  I think we can all watch the videos for ourselves.

Technicality:  The acting US Park police chief (we don't even have anyone named to head THAT office) said it was pepper balls and smoke caniters.  So Trump can claim tear gas reports as fake news.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Look out! Susan Collins has been driven beyond "concern"

Yes, for Susan Collins, that IS a strong rebuke.

Republicans seem to have found their limit.  If only it had come at an earlier Trump crime.

Meanwhile, Trump seems to be watching old Nixon documentaries.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Technicality:  The acting US Park police chief (we don't even have anyone named to head THAT office) said it was pepper balls and smoke caniters.  So Trump can claim tear gas reports as fake news.

When you lose Pat Robertson

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The St. John's Church Fiasco

Trump's Tiananmen Square.

[W]hen the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash at Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments.

[...]

After a weekend of protests that led all the way to his own front yard and forced him to briefly retreat to a bunker beneath the White House, President Trump arrived in the Oval Office on Monday agitated over the television images, annoyed that anyone would think he was hiding and eager for action.

[...]

Mr. Trump was stirred up on Monday morning as he met with national security and law enforcement advisers to discuss what could be done about the street unrest. The advisers told him that he could not let the nation’s capital be overrun, that the symbolism was too important and that he had to get it under control that night.

[...]

He wanted to send the military into American cities, an idea that provoked a heated, voices-raised fight among his advisers.

[...]

Vice President Mike Pence favored the idea, reasoning that it would allow quicker action than calling up National Guard units, and he was backed by Mr. Esper. But Mr. Barr and General Milley warned against it.

[...]

Several officials came away with different impressions of where Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, stood on the issue, but the discussion grew increasingly heated as voices were raised and tensions escalated. Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence then conducted a conference call with the nation’s governors in which the president berated them for being “weak” and “fools,” advising them to “dominate” the demonstrators. Mr. Esper talked about controlling “the battlespace.”

[...]

The president rhapsodized about the crackdown in Minneapolis once the National Guard moved in. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch,” he said. “It just can’t be any better. There’s no experiment needed. You don’t have to do tests.”

WTF?

[B]y the end of the day, urged on by his daughter Ivanka Trump, he came up with a more personal way of demonstrating toughness — he would march across Lafayette Square to a church damaged by fire the night before.

[...]

Just before noon, an alert went out to every Washington-area agent with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, telling them to prepare to assist with any demonstration, according to an email labeled with a “high” severity. The F.B.I. deployed its elite hostage rescue team, highly armed and trained agents more accustomed to arresting dangerous suspects than dealing with riots. And ICE deployed its “special response teams” to protect agency facilities and be on call for more.

[...]

By midafternoon on Monday, protesters had gathered again on H Street at the north side of Lafayette Square, this time peacefully. The Rev. Gini Gerbasi, the rector of St. John’s Church in Georgetown and a former assistant rector at St. John’s, arrived around 4 p.m. with cases of water for the demonstrators. Joining her on the church patio were about 20 clergy members who passed out snacks.

[...]

“There were a few tense moments,” [Rev. Gerbasi] said. “But it was peaceful.”

[...]

Inside the White House nearby, Mr. Trump was coming up with his plan to walk to the church. Several administration officials said it was his own idea; two officials said that Mr. Meadows credited [Ivanka] Trump during a senior staff meeting on Tuesday. It was crafted during an Oval Office meeting that included Ms. Trump; Mr. Meadows; Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser; and Hope Hicks, another top adviser.

At some point, Anthony Ornato, a Secret Service veteran who serves as deputy chief of staff for operations, was brought in to coordinate the logistics of the visit. Ms. Hicks came up with the visuals for how it would look. But officials privately conceded that little thought was given to what Mr. Trump would do once he actually got to the church.

[...]

Reporters were told a statement would be coming, but the march to the church was kept a secret.

[...]

At 5:07 p.m., National Guard trucks loaded with troops headed north on West Executive Avenue, a lane on the White House compound between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and drove past the visitors entrance, out the gates and turned right onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

Shortly after, two members of the Secret Service counterassault team appeared on the roof of the West Wing with guns and binoculars, peering north toward Lafayette Square. While snipers are stationed on the main roof of the White House from time to time, they are not usually deployed on top of the West Wing, and the sight was jarring for regulars at the building.

The White House press corps was summoned to the Rose Garden at 6:03 p.m. Outside the gates and across Lafayette Square, some of the officers in riot gear kneeled down and some protesters initially thought they were expressing solidarity as the police have done in other cities, but in fact they were putting on their gas masks.

At 6:17 p.m., a large phalanx of officers wearing Secret Service uniforms began advancing on protesters, climbing or jumping over barriers at the edge of the square at H Street and Madison Place. Officials said later that the police warned protesters to disperse three times, but if they did, reporters on the scene as well as many demonstrators did not hear it.

Read: they didn't.

Some form of chemical agent was fired at protesters, flash bang grenades went off and mounted police moved toward the crowds. “People were dropping to the ground” at the sound of bangs and pops that sounded like gunfire, Ms. Gerbasi said. “We started seeing and smelling tear gas, and people were running at us.”

[...]

As he prepared for his surprise march to the church, Mr. Trump first went before cameras in the Rose Garden to declare himself “your president of law and order” but also “an ally of all peaceful protesters,” even as peaceful protesters just a block away and clergy members on the church patio were routed by smoke and flash grenades and some form of chemical spray deployed by shield-bearing riot officers and mounted police.

[...]

[T]he president emerged from the White House, followed by a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents as he made his way to the church, where he posed stern-faced, holding up a Bible that his daughter pulled out of her $1,540 MaxMara bag.

[...]

The scene of mayhem — barely 1,000 feet from the symbol of American democracy — that preceded the walk evoked images more commonly associated with authoritarian countries, but that did not bother the president, who has long flirted with overseas strongmen and has expressed envy of their ability to dominate.

[...]

By 6:30 p.m., [Rev. Gerbasi] said, “Suddenly the police were on the patio of St. John’s Church in a line, literally pushing and shoving people off of the patio.”

Julia Dominick, a seminarian with the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., and a former emergency room nurse, was tending to a hurt protester when a police line advanced.

“There was not a warning,” she said. “I’ve never been in a war. I’ve never been shot at. I’ve never been afraid in that way. Those sounds and the gas, it will be with me.” (No police agency acknowledged using tear gas, but reporters and protesters on the scene said there was clearly a chemical irritant of some kind.)

At 6:43 p.m., Mr. Trump made his statement in the Rose Garden, finishing seven minutes later, and then headed back through the White House to emerge on the north side and walk out the gates and into the park. Mr. Barr, Mr. Esper, General Milley, Mr. Meadows, Ms. Trump, Mr. Kushner and others followed him, but Mr. Pence and his staff hung back as the building emptied and watched on television instead.

Pence is no dummy. There would be no pictures of HIM in the fiasco. He might want to be president some day.

The president’s movement surprised nearly everyone, as he intended, including law enforcement. The Washington police chief said he was notified only moments beforehand. Park Police commanders on the scene were as surprised as everyone else to see the president in the park.

Which, in itself, is a foolish move.

When he reached St. John’s, Mr. Trump made no pretense of any intent other than posing for photographs — he held up the Bible carried by his daughter, then gathered a few top advisers next to him in a line. He made no remarks and then, having accomplished his purpose, headed back to the White House, passing in front of a wall with new graffiti saying, “Fuck Trump.”

The police and other forces pursued demonstrators around the capital the rest of the evening, with military helicopters even swooping low overhead in what were called shows of force. Mr. Barr and General Milley at different points roamed the streets.

[...]

By Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump boasted of success. “D.C. had no problems last night,” he wrote on Twitter. “Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great (thank you President Trump!).”

By Tuesday afternoon, the crowds were back and even bigger.

[...]

Mr. Trump and his inner circle considered it a triumph that would resonate with many middle Americans turned off by scenes of urban riots and looting that have accompanied nonviolent protests of the police killing of a subdued black man in Minneapolis.

But critics, including some fellow Republicans, were aghast at the use of force against Americans who posed no visible threat at the time, all to facilitate what they deemed a ham-handed photo opportunity featuring all white faces.

[...]

Arlington County in suburban Virginia withdrew its police from those assembled to guard the White House and other federal sites after the Lafayette Square clash. Even beforehand, Democratic governors in Virginia, New York and Delaware refused to send National Guard troops requested by the Trump administration.

[...]

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington sharply objected on Tuesday and said the federal government had even privately broached the idea of taking over the city’s police force, which she pledged to resist. “I don’t think the military should be used in the streets of American cities against Americans,” she said, “and I definitely don’t think it should be done for a show.”

[...]

The spectacle staged by the White House also left military leaders struggling to explain themselves in response to criticism from retired officers that they had allowed themselves to be used as political props. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put out word through military officials that they did not know in advance about the dispersal of the protesters or about the president’s planned photo op, insisting that they thought they were accompanying him to review the troops. 

To review the troops! What? Were they playing war? And didn't we learn a bit earlier that Esper was backing Trump's idea of calling up active duty military personnel and "controlling the battlespace"? It went badly, so he decided he actually didn't know anything about it?

By Tuesday afternoon, demonstrators had returned to the edge of Lafayette Square — where new tall fences had been erected overnight — and shouted their discontent at the line of black-clad officers.

“Take off the riot gear, I don’t see no riot here,” they chanted.

Stick around. I'm sure the president can work one up for you.

Aides on Tuesday defended Mr. Trump’s walk to the church, given that a small fire had been set in its basement during demonstrations over the weekend. “The president very much felt when he saw those images on Sunday night — that crossed a terrible line, that goes way beyond peaceful protesting,” Kellyanne Conway, his counselor, told reporters.

But she distanced him from the decisions on how to disperse the crowd. “Clearly, the president doesn’t know how law enforcement is handling his movement,” she said.

She's a big help. Clearly, the president doesn't know jack shit.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he was given no notice before President Donald Trump led him and other senior administration officials to St. John's Episcopal Church for a widely criticized photo opportunity.

"I thought I was going to do two things: to see some damage and to talk to the troops," Esper said Tuesday night in an exclusive interview with NBC News.

[...]

"I wanted to go out and thank these young men and women," Esper said.

[...]

Esper said he believed they were going to observe the vandalized bathroom in Lafayette Square, which is near the church.

"I didn't know where I was going," Esper said. "I wanted to see how much damage actually happened."

  NBC

The Secretary of Defense, and he didn't know where he was going. Pathetic.

Also, for this interview, he'll be getting his pink slip.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

I didn't notice you WERE defending us, Ron.

Just what he intended, I'm sure.

UPDATE:

UPDATE June 4:

That would sit better coming from someone other than Trump toadies.

UPDATE 6/5:  A "mistake"

UPDATE 9/9: THIS is what it was all about:

New first verse: Jesus wept.

Despicable.

P.S. Whoever said "Next he's going to claim to have written" the Bible wasn't wrong.

UPDATE 6/1/21:

Time to resign in protest - Part 2

One senior aide was exuberantly telling friends the photograph of [Trump] holding a Bible in front of the church that had been attacked by vandals was an “iconic” moment for the president.

But a senior White House official told Axios that when they saw the tear gas clearing the crowd for Trump to walk to the church with his entourage: "I’ve never been more ashamed. I’m really honestly disgusted. I’m sick to my stomach. And they’re all celebrating it. They’re very very proud of themselves."

  Axios

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Time for Milley to resign in protest

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Smug prick

And shame on them for doing it.

Republicans seeing Trump's ratings going down the drain seek to abandon ship

The Bible stunt at St. John's seems to have backfired. Who could have guessed?

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Tuesday he disagreed with the decision to forcefully clear protesters from around Lafayette Square for a "photo op" and accused President Trump of using the Bible as a "political prop."

"There is a fundamental—a Constitutional—right to protest, and I'm against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop," Sasse, who won his Senate primary last month, said in a statement.

[...]

"Every public servant in America should be lowering the temperature and that means saying two basic truths over and over: (1) police injustice—like the evil murder of George Floyd—is repugnant and merits peaceful protest aimed at change; (2) riots are abhorrent acts of violence that hurt the innocent. Say both things loudly and repeatedly, as Americans work to end the violence and injustice," he added.

[...]

While a handful of Republican senators, including Sens. Tim Scott (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), have broken with the White House, several others have sidestepped by saying they haven't seen footage of the incident or defended it because it followed nights of protests and riots around Washington, D.C.

  The Hill

Haven't seen it is the GOP's favorite excuse.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Technicality:  The acting US Park police chief (we don't even have anyone named to head THAT office) said it was pepper balls and smoke caniters.  So Trump can claim tear gas reports as fake news.