Gen. Kelly takes second swig of the Kool-Aid

Remember when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron”? And then was forced to walk it back?

“He [Trump] loves his country. He puts America and Americans first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable for whether they have done the job he has asked them to do.”

Hey, Rex: that was some serious groveling!

Now on to General John F. Kelly, current White House Chief of Staff. It had looked to us here in the Bitecastle like Kelly had brought some much-needed order to the chaotic Trump White House. Then the poor guy started hitting the Kool-aid, and hitting it hard.

In October 2017, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) criticized Trump for his phone call to the widow of a slain U.S. soldier, saying his remarks had been insensitive. A few days later, Kelly held a press briefing where he defended Trump’s phone call, which he had overheard, saying Trump “expressed his condolences in the best way that he could.” He harshly criticized Wilson, calling her “the empty barrel that makes the most noise” and stating that in a 2015 speech she had “stood up” to inappropriately claim credit for securing federal funding for an FBI building in her district. Video of her 2015 speech showed his description to be inaccurate. [Wikipedia]

Then Kelly took his second swig:

In an October 2017 interview with Laura Ingraham, Kelly claimed that “the lack of ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

. . .  Two historians of the Civil War described Kelly’s remarks as ignorant, a misuse of history reminiscent of Lost Cause mythology, and they broadly reject that a failure to compromise led to the war, noting that a number of compromises on slavery were made in the lead-up to the war. [Wikipedia]

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly whines that Occupy Wall Street protests cost city $17M  in overtime

Trying to justify the police department’s over half billion dollar overtime bill, the Commish tries to blame Occupy Wall Street.

Let’s assume he’s telling the truth about the numbers. OWS cost $17 million and the total overtime tab was $585 million. That works out to less than 3% for OWS. In other words, the OWS share is probably less than the margin of error in the department’s overtime figure.

For trying to pawn off his management failure (overtime is up almost 6% this year) on OWS, Ray Kelly can Bite Me.

Occupy Wall Street protests cost city $17M  in overtime: NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly  – NY Daily News.

NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly lashes out at critics of stop-and-frisk policy

It sure seemed like a “Bite Me” moment when the Commish was grilled at a City Council hearing about the city’s barely constitutional stop-and-frisk policy.

First some background. According to the Daily News, “In 2011, the NYPD stopped more than 684,000 people, a record high. The stats, obtained by the NYCLU, show about 10% of those stops resulted in an arrest or a summons. About 53% of the people stopped were black, 34% were Hispanic and only 9% were white.” Note: under Giuliani, only about 1/6 as many were stopped.

When challenged about the policy, Commissioner Kelly “fired back at elected officials who criticized the stop-and-frisk program and pushed them to offer another solution to curb gun violence. Not one could cough up an answer. . . . ‘I asked you for a solution to the problem of violence in these communities of color,’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard it.’ ”

Kelly’s ripost apparently caught the council members flat-footed. In a later email, however, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito said that her office had helped write just such an anti-violence plan in late 2011.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly lashes out at critics of stop-and-frisk policy – NY Daily News.