Empty Desks at the NSC by Larry C Johnson

Looks like President Trump finally realizes that he is working in a snake pit. When he took office on January 20, 2017, he left an enormous cadre of Obama/Hillary sycophants in place. He could have (and should have) moved them out and reassigned them to the bureaucratic equivalent of Siberia. But he did not. Take the case of Tina Kaidanow, who headed up the Bureau of Counter Terrorism when Trump took over. Rather than asking for her resignation she was put in as the number two person in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs. 

In September 2018 Kaidanow got another promotion:

Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, a longtime State Department official and a key player in recent reforms to America’s arms sales process, is heading to the Pentagon.

Kaidanow will be crossing the river and entering the Pentagon as the next director of international cooperation, an office under the department’s reconstituted Acquisition and Sustainment office.

Tina Kaidanow

Tina is emblematic of the Deep State. I would not be surprised if her name surfaces in the Ukraine matter. She will do everything in her power, in my opinion, to sandbag Donald Trump.

Under President Obama the number of CIA officers "detailed" for temporary duty at the National Security Council swelled to around 200. That makes for an enormous number of bodies walking the halls of the Old Executive Office Building. When Donald Trump was inaugurated the CIA boosted the number to closer to 300. Gone are the old days when CIA officers eschewed partisan politics and focused on serving the elected President. The current crew is heavily politicized and most have an anti-Trump bias.

Starting last week President Trump began shedding CIA detailees. The CIA officers who counted on showing up to work at the Old Executive Office Building aka OEOB were told their services were no longer required and they should go back up the river to their offices in McClean, Virginia.

If you get a chance to visit the OEOB their are lots of empty, unoccupied desks this week. This is not a temporary change. It is a long overdue move. President Trump finally realizes he is surrounded by partisan seditionists and is eliminating their access and influence. About time.

Comments

[Bob Saccamanno]

Maybe they don't like the fact that his very first act as president was to rant about his crowds and paint the members of the community as his fanboys after only a glancing moment to notice those stars whose sacrifice should have been his focus. And the myopic malignant naval gazing never ceased from that moment. Whatever problems with group-think in Washington does not excuse this hollowness at the top. There's an Arabic expression "رجل فارغ" that describes him perfectly.

[Bob Saccamanno]

*navel

[confusedponderer]

Factotum,
re "Trump is a chess player. I admire that quality about him, not obvious with first or superficial impressions. Stand back a bit and get off the soapbox."

Trump is a chess player? Is he indeed? I am a little surprised. But then, there are a couple ways to play chess and some may fit his observable preferences. What comes to my mind immediately ...

(1) defeat the enemy tactically (requires attention)
(2) then there is brute force (pawn roller)
(3) strict offense (requires attention)
(4) strict defence (requires attention)
(5) demanding immediate unconditional complete surrender
(6) fight the the opponments's mind and so his will and skill in fight
(7) threaten the enemy with truly great and unmatched wisdom
(8) hit the enemy with the the chessboard on the head
(9) fire the opponent
(10) tweet the opponent away

Trump IMO is a (2) (5) (7) (8) (9) and (10) type.

I for my part got along ok with (1) (2) (3) (4) and occasionally (6).

As for "Give Trump another 4 years, another 150 new judges and a few more SCOTUS picks and then report back here."

You're an optimist I see. You're really sure you'll like that and do you understand what that will mean practically?

I read that a few weeks ago a black man in the US was released from prison after a dozen or so years in jail for repeated crimes. His third crime was iirc stealing chocolate. I am conservative but still think that life jailtime for, say, a triple chocolate thief, is a little excessive.

It's not so much about punishment but about retaliation.

I doubt that more helps more. That doesn't work wih alcohole, let alone drugs, and it doesn't work with jail time. In that future such things will be normal.

Trump pardoning Joe Arpaio, found in trial to be guilty of criminal contempt, is an indication here. But then, who's right per se has no requirements for trivialities like civil rights or fair trials.

[Fred]

CP,

He cheats at golf! My, I wonder if he lies about fishing and women? At least he didn't tell us "They'll great us as liberators" or "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." As to his health, according to the Social Security life expectancy calculator he's got, wait for it, 12 years! So, just like the rest of us, he's doomed.
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/longevity.cgi

[confusedponderer]

Fred,
you don't get the point.

It's that difference in lies and reasons, or, more simple - between idiocy and vanity.

#1# Idiocy:
BoJo some time ago blathered that he had "ended terrible EU tyranny with rules about how to treat fishes". Well, such rules about how to treat fishes usually have reasons beyond arbitrary whims of Eurocrats.

There for instance is a rule in the Netherlands and Germany for Matjes - that it must be frozen. It's not because we like freezing fish but it's for a good reason: It is so because freezing will kill off worms and other likely inhabitants of the fish, an important point since Matjes is usually eaten raw.

The reason for that rule is health protection. Few sane people are so lonely that they want the company of worms. That's facts part 1.

Facts part 2, lost on BoJo, is that the rule he 'liberated the EU tyrannised UK from' to was actually a UK fish & health stuff rule. Oopsie.

It also means that without these rules eating fish in BoJo land will be less safe. There was no "liberation from EU rule tyranny", just stupid blathering and needlessly re-creating an actually solved health risks for britons, and then lie about it.

It does not come as a surprise to me given that as a reporter BoJo was fired three times for freely inventing B***S*** stories from nothing.

#2# Vanity:
When Trump cheats at golf that's likely because he needs to which then means he doesn't play that well after all. Why does he do that? Because he wants to, perhaps needs to, win. He wants to be seen as playing golf well.

When Trump writes a health assessment of himself and lets it sign by his doctor, then he wants it to, perhaps needs it to express him as being super healthy and all that (when he isn't?).

Trump doesn't want anyone to see his tax and business numbers, while of course he was an extraordinaire business superb big deal grand master, despite being bankrupt five or six times. Likely he really likes that image and perhaps needs it emotionally.

Now I presume that when one does such things that way there is is something to compensate for.

As a result of Trumps recent letter, Sultan Erdogan has today insulted Trump. Trump sent Erdogan a letter announcing that Mike Pence and Robert O’Brien are to, damn it, "negotiate" with Erdogan over syria.

Ankara answered that Erdogan would only talk with Trump, not with surrogates like Mike Pence and Robert O’Brien, and that the letter after reading had been throwed straight into the garbage.

Well, in effect both idiocy and vanity leads to be people getting laughed at, but the similar dysfunctional side effect comes from different reasons.