The Moral Demise of General John Kelly

John Kelly with Der Trumpenführer.

White House Chief of Staff and former general John Kelly was supposed to moderate Donald Trump's impulsiveness and more dangerous inclinations.  Instead, it would appear that Trump has sucked what little moral fibre Kelly may have possessed completely out of the man.  Kelly's conduct and statements have become increasingly problematic and have included outright lies about a black congresswoman, slurs against the wife of a murdered member of America's armed forces, attacking immigrants to now defending a wife beater.  Kelly is a glaring reminder that one cannot serve a morally bankrupt master without surrendering one's own morality.  It's a lesson lost on vast numbers of Republicans that have prostituted themselves to the foul and toxic Trump/Pence regime.  Vanity Fair looks at the latest debacle involving Kelly in the wake of the resignation of White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter in the wake of seemingly substantiated claims of spousal abuse.  Here are article excerpts:

For weeks, Donald Trump has been souring on his Chief of Staff John Kelly because of his controlling ways and rising public profile. And now Kelly is in the midst of a bonafide crisis, one that exacerbates the president’s own #MeToo problems. On Tuesday, Kelly strongly defended White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter against disturbing allegations, first published in the Daily Mail, that he abused his ex-wives. . . . . On Wednesday afternoon, Porter resigned. Axios reported Kelly wanted Porter to “stay and fight.”

Yesterday, Porter’s second wife, Jennifer Willoughby, told the Mail that Porter called her a “fucking bitch” on their honeymoon, and once pulled her naked out of the shower. In response, Kelly put out a statement calling Porter “a man of true integrity and honor” and a “trusted professional.” But shortly after Kelly rallied behind his colleague, Porter’s first wife came forward with additional harrowing allegations. Colbie Holderness, who married Porter in 2009, told the Daily Mail that Porter punched her in the face and choked her, among other alleged abuses. The article included a photo of her with a black eye.

Kelly’s decision to go to bat for Porter deeply frustrated White House staffers, sources told me. He was supposed to be the West Wing’s resident grown-up, but staffers are increasingly questioning Kelly’s judgment, four Republicans close to the White House told me. “It’s beyond disbelief. Everyone is trying to figure out why Kelly is leading the charge to save him,” one former West Wing official said. Sources said Kelly was so quick to defend Porter because the two have grown very close since Trump appointed Kelly chief of staff last summer. Porter, a Rhodes scholar, has helped Kelly instill discipline in the West Wing. Kelly has told people that Porter has a “calming effect” on White House operations. For instance, it’s Porter who screens all the information that gets to Trump’s desk. Porter also helped Kelly conduct a West Wing organizational study that provided Kelly with a cudgel to sideline Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, . . .
 Until now, Porter has been a low-profile player, publicly absent from the West Wing dramas. But last week, he emerged when the Daily Mail reported he’s dating White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. Then, on Tuesday, the paper contacted the White House with questions about Porter’s alleged battery. According to one person briefed on internal White House conversations, Kelly let it be known he wanted to defend Porter publicly. Even before the blowback from the Porter statement, the White House was struggling to walk back Kelly’s inflammatory comments on immigration. Yesterday, Kelly said on Capitol Hill that some undocumented immigrants were “too lazy” to sign up for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

If Kelly is the "resident grown up" in the Trump regime, the nation is in real trouble. 

GOProud to Shut Down

Having once been a Republican activist and a precinct seat holder on the City Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach I have always thought that the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud were delusional if they seriously thought the GOP could be "changed from within."   To me, their entire relationship is akin to that of an abused spouse who continues to go back to the abusive spouse out of lack of self-esteem or some other psychological need that is detached from objective reality.  I have long maintained that the only way the GOP will change is through successive electoral defeats that force it into a permanent minority status.  A post at The Bilerico Project looks at GOProud's final succumbing to reality and disbanding.   Here are excerpts:

In 2004, GOProud was born when Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron split from the Log Cabin Republicans. Fast forward to today: both have stepped down from the organization and it is shutting down for good.

GOProud has been mired by several controversies since the departure of their founders. The group has bled donors since the widely reported departure of Jimmy LaSalvia from the Republican Party earlier this year. His departure was so loud, but it focused primarily on his shift of ideology and thus projected a new image onto the organization that he helped found. 

Finding it difficult to continue without securing more funding, GOProud will be shutting down immediately - an homage to an era gone by. The shuttering is undoubtedly necessary as the organization's full effectiveness has been tarnished. 

The organization may rebrand and regroup later, but for now, the organization will no longer be functioning. Co-director Matthew Bechstein stated in an interview that the "brand is broken" and a rebrand is necessary. 

It will be interesting to see if this potential organization will be solely focused on the Republican Party or if it will start to appeal to a broader range of conservative ideologies, such as the Libertarian Party.

Ken Cuccinelli Wanted to Make Divorce Harder for Women

Too many voters I fear still do not fully understand the extent of Ken Cuccinelli's extremism.  Yes, he wants to reinstate Virginia's sodomy statute which has been historically used to persecute gays.  He wants to end all abortions (even in cases of rape) and wants a "personhood" provision added to Virginia's Constitution that would outlaw many forms of contraception.  But many do no realize that he wants a 18th century approach to women's rights and would make it far more difficult for women in abusive marriages to divorce.  Women are in short to be near chattel property of their husbands.  A piece in Slate looks at this aspects of Cuccinelli's anti-modernity, anti-woman agenda.  Here are excerpts:

As reported in the Huffington Post, when Cuccinelli was a state senator, he filed not one but two laws that were aimed at eliminating Virginia's no-fault divorce law—which would make Virginia the only state in the country not to have a law protecting its citizens’ ability to unilaterally end a marriage without giving a specific reason—though the legislation died in committee.

McAuliffe's campaign is right to be suspicious of Cuccinelli's gendered intentions. It is true that Cuccinelli has been pointedly gender-neutral in his public statements about the bills, defending his attacks on no-fault divorce by saying, "This law has everything to do with the breakdown of the family. The state says marriage is so unimportant that if you just separate for a few months, you can basically nullify the marriage." No doubt that's how he'd like it to appear to female voters.

However, a deeper look suggests that his desire to eliminate no-fault divorce is about more than a gender-neutral concern for the "breakdown of the family." The bills Cuccinelli drafted were specifically about empowering spouses who resist the divorce. As the Washington Post reported, Cuccinelli has ties to the "fathers rights" movement, a group of men who agitate to give men more power over divorce proceedings. These groups supported Cuccinelli's bid to end no-fault divorce presumably because they saw it as a way to make it harder for women to end their marriages.

[W]hen relationships are abusive, it's very often the case that the victim wants out but the abuser wants to hold it together. Even though there was technically an exception for abuse in Cuccinelli's bill, those victims—who are largely female—would have had to cobble together evidence that would be necessary to meet Cuccinelli's standards for the exception, a process that would require many to stay in the marriage and endure abuse while gathering proof. Cuccinelli may not see this as a problem, but McAuliffe is right to bring it to voters' attention.

Cuccinelli's world view - and that of his religious extremist backers at The Family Foundation - is both antiquated and frightening.  Gays, women, blacks and others who are deemed "other" by the white Christofascists who make up most of Cuccinelli's support need to turn out in force on November 5th and not only make sure that Cuccinelli loses but that he loses big time.  The GOP forces of hate and bigotry need to be sent a resounding message.

Spousal Abuse Around the World

I cannot help but wonder how much of these shocking statistics derive from patriarchal religious belief systems that subjugate women to men. It is very sad. Very sad, indeed.