Sigh.
You know the story. It has surely been covered here. I don’t care, I am covering it, too. The Dailey Beast is on it.
The senators tasked with vetting Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan say they were unaware of the accusations of domestic violence in his family that led to his resignation Tuesday. The altercations never came up during Shanahan’s 2017 confirmation hearing for the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense, lawmakers told The Daily Beast, nor did it arise as he was preparing to assume the role of Pentagon chief permanently.
What?
Truly awful:
Shanahan announced Tuesday that he would no longer seek to be confirmed as Defense Secretary and would be resigning from his post at the Pentagon. The news came as reports surfaced that he had downplayed his son’s assault on his ex-wife, and that both he and his ex-wife had both claimed, back in 2010, that they had been punched in the face by the other after drinking. . .
“My husband is throwing punches at me,” Shanahan’s ex-wife Kimberly Jordinson told a 911 offcer, according to USA Today. “He’s been hitting me… I don’t need a medic, I need you guys to get him out of the house… He’s just swinging punches at me.”
Holy shit!
Let’s all bet on something here. I suspect this is as safe a bet as stating that Trump lied.
There is NO f*cking way the FBI “missed” the incident in their background check. Not a single chance. We can safely presume that the FBI checks out Nannies 15 years after the fact, bank accounts since age 18, indeed everything you can possibly think of (this was Sec of Defense, pffftt.) NO way did they “miss” it.
It had to be suppressed by … well, who could order it suppressed? I suppose the FBI director, or Attorney General. The latter one is worth real consideration. And do you think that even the Attorney General can order a background check suppressed without at least telling the president some shade of the truth?
No, he couldn’t, because otherwise Trump’s people might ask; “Where the hell is the background check so we can jam this through the Senate?” And then they hear.
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Pattern is a feature not a bug.
Which is terrifying because there now almost has to be a link between Trump’s “loyal type” and the type of people that beat other people senseless, generally the ones living in the same house, if you know what I mean.
In the case of high level appointees like secretary of defense, FBI investigators are able to marshal more resources for a more detailed background check than most civil servants would normally get. “They do up to about 40 face-to-face interviews,”
Forty face to face interviews and not a one on an “ex-wife”? Additionally, if interviewing the ex-wife, is it even conceivable that the FBI would not ask: “Describe your relationship, was it quite good, quite bad, does anything stick out?”
And we were sort of having to expect that a person who got her face punched in wouldn’t bring up the senseless beating at a man’s hand, husband’s hand that is?
Yes, yes we are, and we are supposed to accept it suppressed in an FBI background check bc ...ah, they don’t miss things like that and keep their jobs.
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The FBI mid-level career special agents are notably apolitical in doing their jobs. They have absolutely no fcks to give in their bag on who the person is, and what their politics might be.
Especially for secretary of the most powerful military force ever devised.
No.
That didn’t happen.
So who suppressed it within the administration? Does that person still have a job? Or does that person still have a job precisely because he or she demonstrated “true loyalty” in a big F-You to the ex-wife victim.
I realize she was also noted to have thrown some punche3.
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I don’t care fi she, too, threw punches.
She is not asking to be permanent Sec. of Defense.
She is also a woman, meaning that men are to bear the blame even if they simply “hit back.”
He did.
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Is there a link between Trump supporters and domestic violence?
Not a strong one. Most people, no matter their politics do not beat their wife, and that’s just a fact. So it’s not a strong link, nor an obvious one.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t something there.
I suspect the “link” is only that this administration tries to suppress each one, thus making huge news when it does leak. That makes the problem seem even more substantial. But still … You know?
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Good-bye Shanahan.
You wanna play at this level? Don’t pay an undocumented immigrant $5.00 hour to be nanny or mow the lawn, and definitely don’t beat your ex spouse for godsake!
Because it may be something that doesn’t bother Trump officials. It doesn’t bother them, that is, until it’s out as a fact among the public. Then it does bother them.
I am bothered by wife beaters, you know?
EDIT TO ADD, from the essential VClib, we have a little background, bordering on the ...troubling?
NPR radio they said that when the wife called the police to the house the only one they arrested was the wife. Shanahan refused to support the prosecution of his wife, and she was released and the charges dropped.
I don’t know what to make of that. The background up top makes it clear that for whatever she did, he was also involved in the fracas.
Good stuff, just doesn’t really let any heat off Shanahan.
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Thanks for checking in.
Bye y’all
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