Kelly vs "the Mooch"

Having worked for a few extremely "scattered" bosses who loved to play their subordinates off against each other, I recognize the type in DJT. 

Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of the ancien regime Iranian imperial dynasty once said that "in Iran all the telegraph lines must run to my feet."  By that he evidently meant that he, personally, would run all aspects of life in Iran.  Clearly, he felt that this was the optimal management style. 

President Trump's style IMO resembles that of the first Pahlavi.  He does not have  a team.  He has people whom he sees as adjuncts of his glory as an entrepreneurial "grand master." He is a certain kind of "big businessman."  He believes that capitalism is entirely about personal self aggrandizement and ego reinforcement.   I once worked for a similar character, an entrepreneur with political ambitions.   That man could not formulate a manifesto that expressed his hopes for the people of his country.  He could not do it because he could not conceive of a program that was not about him personally.  In the end he hired a collection of professors to cobble together a collection of trite academic platitudes.  He lost the election.  IMO Trump is much like that man.  He is ego driven and will say or do anything he thinks needed to increase his position.  A corollary of his mentality is that he has no loyalty to anyone who works for him and he sees them all as potential rivals for the future.  We have now seen several examples of the depth of his disregard for those who have been willing to work for him.

To deal with the throng of incompetents and disloyals (irony alert) around him, DJT has now brought in a soul-mate, Anthony Scaramucchi (honest to god that is his name).  "The Mooch" as he is known to his associates is a junk-yard dog armed with a Harvard JD and a record of success at Goldman Sachs among all the other selfish, self-centered junk-yard dogs. 

In the other corner of the ring we will see John Kelly, USMC (ret.) who evidently has chosen to live by a code of self-sacrifice and service.  This man of honor is now going to lie down with the junk-yard dogs in order to serve his country.

I can hear the echo from the future of one of his encounters with "the Mooch."  "Well, solja-boy, who the f--k do you think you are to tell me what to do.?"

I predict that given the choice between Kelly and "the Mooch," DJT will keep his soul mate and discard Kelly.

I favor much of DJT's domestic program.  He probably has adopted that program for selfish, egotistical reasons but it is still a program that I favor.   In addition, his preference for an improvement in relations with Russia seems common sense. 

Nevertheless, I have no illusions about him.  pl

 

Comments

[turcopolier]

tyler

My present position on McMaster is that while he shares the outmoded views on Russia and Iran of many of his peers he is not a neocon. The poseur Harvey was at least an agent of the neocons. pl

[Kathy]

What also didnT hurt--actually, it helped the country immensely--was very high marginal tax rates on the wealthy during that period. Trump, of course, wants to slash tax rates on the wealthy, exactly the opposite of what was in effect in the fifties.

[eakens]

Sorry, both parties are to blame. The power of the printing press has created a situation in which you essentially have an infinite assets chasing finite assets, thus housing may hiccup but will always go up so long as that is the case. If you want to slow it down, you will need to start with a balanced budget.

[MRW]

"I see people who are blind to the fact they are propping up a sociopathic criminal who is a prsent [sic] danger to the Constitution.”

That’s hyperbolic. Have a drink or a joint.

[MRW]

"He just wants to be loved. It's all part of the con.”

Baloney. Dont buy this one bit.

[MRW]

I am perceiving "the Generals" as a wall of WASPs the neocons are going to a hard time penetrating. Let’s see what develops over the next 12 months.

Buy popcorn.

[confusedponderer]

Fred,
"bad joke goes in South Florida. "live like a Mexican"."

Well, I have been to Yucatan once and saw how mexicans live in the villages of the place. They built houses, ran of money and/or time and stopped. They then went on later when they had more time and/or money. I have never seen so many half finished stuff as there. I have seen and built better and cleaner phone lines in the woods when I was in the army than the stuff they built in cities in those places. Also, busses didn't stop for indios.

Having had stuff stealed there (some beach junk jerk had trained his dog to steal bags and bring them back to the master), I went to cops to report the crime. They didn't want to take the case. Eventually, they did make a report (for which they had to stop watching soccer on the tv, which annoyed them), and they wrote their report of the crime down with a *lead pencil*, not with a pen. I.e. they could rewrite it later if they wanted in any way, which means the protocol was utterly useless and meaningless.

As for the cops and their equipment, those who I saw IMO likely used US gear they bought second hand, likely older stuff sold off when US forces newed equiment, that or it was stuff they had confiscated. They used various shotguns, various revolvers and auto handguns - but there was no standard equipment. Everyone had his own stuff.

I saw a bunch of mexican cops guarding the US consulate in Cancun standing near the road. Notably was their equipment: They were armed with a fancy mix of AK47, shotguns and M16. There was a lot of firepower but no standard, not even in ammunition used.

In contrast I saw mexican army folks walk around the islands before Yucatan. They were heavily armed with G3 rifles and mashine guns, and, however dubious that visit was IMO, that was the first time there I saw equipment standarity down there.

That said, Yucatan was a beautiful place well worth a visit. As for lawfulness, well, beware. They have beautiful old architecture there, and of course, the wonderful maya ruins all over the place. I recommend quickly drying clothes, since when it rains down there, it rains a lot.

To my surprise, they had good local beer in Yucatan. I am still amused about myself when I see that guayabera shirt I bought there back then - daringly bought in a mexican shop on my very limited spanish.

[Fred]

Ked,

You must have been reading "The Constitution, as interpreted by Sally Yates" op-ed in the NYT:

"The president is attempting to dismantle the rule of law, destroy the time-honored independence of the Justice Department, and undermine the career men and women who are devoted to seeking justice day in and day out, regardless of which political party is in power.

If we are not careful, when we wake up from the Trump presidency, our justice system may be broken beyond recognition."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/sally-yates-protect-the-justice-department-from-president-trump.html

I especially liked the nice lines: "President Trump’s actions appear aimed at destroying the fundamental independence of the Justice Department. " followed quickly by "The Justice Department is not just another federal agency. It is charged with fulfilling our country’s promise of equal and impartial justice for all."

Obviously Sally hasn't kept up with the seperate and very unequal treatment meated out of college campuses (recipients of massive federal subsidies) where accusaltion is guilt and due process of law does not include adhereing to the constition. For example see the results of the UVA rape hoax/ Rolling Stone shelled out a almost $2 million to the fraternity defamed by thier article. The President of UVA and the State of Virginia still stand by their collective punishment of the innocent because "equal and impartial justice for all" is our country's promise, just not that of the current politicians leading the commonwealth or the university.
https://jezebel.com/two-fraternities-accuse-uva-of-unfairly-punishing-gre-1679856391
http://www.insideedition.com/headlines/19266-uva-dean-opens-up-on-campus-rape-article-firestorm-i-was-afraid-i-was-going

Other examples include the Columbia University:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/07/15/columbia-settles-lawsuit-with-student-accused-raping-mattress-girl.html

The University of Missouri, where protest matters and the "rule of law" does not:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/us/missouri-football-players-protest-presidents-resigns/index.html

Evergreen State College:
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/the-evergreen-state-college-no-safety-no-learning-no-future/

There are pleny of other examples.

[Lemur]

this hysterical cat lady narrative the left is pushing is going to reap them a bitter harvest in the mid-terms. It only mobilizes blue ticks on twitter, not the democratic base.

The left portrayed Trump as an opportunistic attention seeker during the campaign. Turned out he ran a military operation that calculated exactly whose votes he needed and where. The longer that meme animates the left the better. The more they point and laugh at Trump, the less attention they're paying to what he's actually doing.

Example. Trump banned the trannies, to the outrage of assorted twitter snowflakes. But his real demarche was removing the bickering over the LGBTQ issue holding up the bill containing a tranche of funds for the wall...

[dilbert dogbert]

Re: Unfinished Houses in Mexico
Think taxes.
The tax does not change till the house is finished. Therefore, none are finished. We make the occasional trip down Mexico Way and unfinished houses are the same everywhere.

[dilbert dogbert]

Me too. High School, football, girls, cars, doing stupid things and not getting a criminal record. I remember running around free as a bird carrying guns on the handlebars of our bikes and no one giving a care about that. Don't try that today. That said, drugs were available if you wanted them. Young people fought with fists not guns.
As the old saying goes: "You can never step in the river in the same place"."

[dilbert dogbert]

California made a huge investment in education during that period. Starting with the Community Colleges, State Colleges and the University of California system. If you had the gumption to take advantage of it it was almost free. Not so anymore. I think California spends more on prisons now than education.

[steve]

Hard to believe that he really wants better health care for all. After saying during his campaign that he opposed decreasing Medicaid coverage, he supported the GOP plan that put millions off of Medicaid, and many other off of any insurance coverage. He was largely absent from the health care debate. He may have said some stuff, but his actions so far do not substantiate what he said.

Steve

[FourthAndLong]

The America of "Make America Great Again" is never going to return, assuming it ever existed in the first place. The 1950's middle class efflorescence of the US was a post war phenomenon. The industrialized economies lay in ruins and bomb craters, so the US industrial economy was the only game in town until the early 1970's by which time Europe and Japan had rebuilt.

That's not to say that improvements could be made. For instance the College debt scam which reduces the youth who don't fall into gang and hip-hop culture to life-long peonage. The country is in need of political entrepreneurial genius. But the country is too ethnically fragmented for anything other than political opportunism. It's been conquered and ruled by division since inception.

[Babak Makkinejad]

That was a fluke, never to be repeated with all those intellectual refugees from the Great Depression into the profession of teaching.

[different clue]

dilbert dogbert,

My understanding is that house prices in the "nice" parts of California go up because of too many people with too much money chasing too few houses. In the greater Silicon Frisco area it is because of all the Silicon Yuppies and the Digital MillionBillionaires spending floods of money on a trickle of houses.
In Greater Elll Ayyy it is too many people altogether, and well paid persons of the Entertainment Industrial Complex.

And fire hoseloads of Chinese flight capital is vacuuming up every loose house in both places.

How would good solid Republican government bring those prices down in the teeth of all that?

[Matthew]

Tyler: But if McMaster is fired, won't we get John Bolton, which means war against Iran and Hezbollah is guaranteed?

[Matthew]

TGG: When I came to the USA as child, I remember that people just seemed more self-confident about being American--as distinct from being arrogant.

I've now been a Southerner for more than 40 years, and I've watched the ebbing of this attractive side of our national character. Has this been your experience as well?

[ked]

hyperbole?! that never occurs in comments on SST... I nominate you Hyperbole Detector.
so tell me, what ARE "his generals" doing for the nation?
beyond that, I don't need help picking poisons, but thanks for nothing anyway.

[ked]

nope, that did not inform me, but thanks for the tinted research.

[mike]

WASPs, I don't think so? Kelly and Dunford are Irish Catholics. McMaster sounds Celtic to me, certainly not an anglo-saxon name. Mattis? Perhaps on his father's side, his mother's maiden name was Proulx, a famous name in Quebec and in the Catholic diocese of Maine.

[ked]

I think it's far too early to consider the mid-term party & ideology alignments, esp since the prez remains transfixed by his election over a half-year ago. I think those most paying attention to what he's actually doing happen to be in the GOP, and it's out of concern for the "soul of the party" more than anything else.

[Dr.Puck]

Trump did say numerous times during the campaign that he would replace the ACA with healthcare reform that would deliver:

(1) lower premiums
(2) lower co-pays
(3) lower deductibles
(4) much better coverage
(5) cover those with pre0existing conditions

During the last weeks of the rubber hitting the road he shifted to support anything that would end the ACA, irrespective of the harm the reform would evoke.

The promises were about better healthcare, but what Trump actually wants was verified by the GOP majorities, and his actions, the last few weeks, TTG, imo.

[Fred]

confusedponder,

Now you understand why millions of Mexicans head North of the Rio Bravo.

[Stephanie]

Ivana actually warned Trump against investing too heavily in Atlantic City and went there at his behest. Trump was in full charge of all construction projects there. Trump was failing in Atlantic City before anyone else was failing in Atlantic City:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

"By December 1990, when Mr. Trump needed to make an $18.4 million interest payment, his father, Fred C. Trump, sent a lawyer to the Castle to buy $3.3 million in chips, to provide him with an infusion of cash. The younger Mr. Trump made the payment, but the Casino Control Commission fined the Castle $65,000 for what had amounted to an illegal loan."

He humiliated the mother of his children brutally and publicly with his flagrant affair with Marla Maples. It was also hard on his kids away at school, with Dad's embarrassing conduct all over the tabloids.