Thursday, April 26, 2018

The fat guy with the funny hair sure can pick 'em: "And while the White House put on a full-scale defense of Jackson, spokesman Raj Shah said aides are "of course" preparing for the possibility that he might withdraw. "This is, as the president said, Dr. Jackson's decision," Shah said on CNN. Jackson huddled late Wednesday evening with top White House press staff. They declined to comment on the situation. A former colleague who spoke to The Associated Press described Jackson as a gregarious, Type A charmer who knew how to position himself for success — attentive to bosses but also causing unnecessary grief and consternation among colleagues. He said Jackson became known as "Candyman" because of the way he handed out drugs. The ex-colleague spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation. The "Candyman" nickname was also cited in the summary released by the Democrats. In a section on Jackson's prescribing practices, the summary said that in one case, missing Percocet tabs threw members of the White House Medical Unit into a panic — but it turned out he had prescribed a "large supply" of the opioid to a White House Military Office staffer. The allegations also referred to multiple incidents of Jackson's intoxication while on duty, often on overseas trips. On at least one occasion he was nowhere to be found when his medical help was needed because "he was passed out drunk in his hotel room," according to the summary."

Headline from an AP carry; Candyman - an apparent VA problem, so if you're a jackass knowing another one you decide t put the other one, the VA problem atop the VA? Fat guy with funny hair, what's between the ears besides blarney and mush? Action Jackson does not cut it.

Interestingly, in opening that item, "16 hrs ago" the search return noted. Now, SacBee this morning carries an AP follow-up, "Ronny Jackson withdraws from consideration for VA chief." With a photo showing central casting might send him to a studio set to play an admiral in some third rate movie - a role Reagan would have gotten back in his Hollywood days.

Buyers' remorse yet, among the "deplorables?" Or would it take Hegseth to get there? Aside from Trump and Koch love toward Hegseth, there is counter-opinion:

Should the Trump administration forge ahead with this privatization scheme, Glastris noted that it would be a classic example of the dynamic we’ve witnessed very often from this administration—”the working class GOP base (in this case veterans) being sold down the river by the conservative Washington political class to advance its free market ideology and enrich its corporate cronies.”

Deplorables of the VA unite. You have nothing to lose but your benefits. A clown nominated a clown who withdrew, with a "Joker" in the wings to promote havoc and disaster; and is that what he did while in the service, assigned to duty at Gitmo?

UPDATE: There are a host of MDs Trump could choose, his type, while Hegseth lacks such a degree and has managed nothing beyond a chicken-shit dinky little "Minnesota PAC" he formed after getting out of the service years ago when he was with an earlier wife and he doubtlessly hopes it is forgotten:


Which is deplorable. That PAC was in play back in 2012 when the butt was up to nonsense. In a since-scrubbed True North post, this was said:

State legislative candidates selected for assistance by former senatorial candidate Pete Hegseth’s “Minnesota PAC” (MNPAC) slightly outperformed those selected by former gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer’s “A Stronger Minnesota” on election night. Where all four of Emmer’s PAC selections fell short, two of Hegseth’s twelve candidates were able to claim victory. Yet for conservatives, there may have been a more concerning aspect to Hegseth’s choices.

In a September 10 e-mail to Minnesota Republican delegates announcing his MNPAC, Hegseth asked for money and time to help out six candidates he had chosen for the House and six for the Senate. For the House, it was Deb Kiel (1B), Carolyn McElfatrick (5B), Ben Wiener (11B), King Banaian (14B), Dan Kaiser (24B), and Russ Bertsch (42A). For the Senate, the candidates were Steve Nordhagen (SD1), John Pederson (SD14), Ben Kruse (SD36), Pam Wolf (SD37), Daivd Gaither (SD44) and Ted Lillie (SD53). The only two to win on Tuesday were Deb Kiel and John Pederson.

An October 4 e-mail to delegates from A Stronger Minnesota soon followed Hegseth’s with an announcement that Tom Emmer had joined the PAC. The group selected four candidates for the Minnesota House to assist. They were Chris Kellett (10A), Melissa Valeriano (25B), Andrew Reinhardt (36B), and Mandy Benz (37A). All four lost.

As many Republicans remember, Hegseth ran an intense campaign for the party’s 2012 senatorial nomination against Rep. Kurt Bills. Many establishment Republicans were supportive of Hegseth; the co-chair for Romney’s Minnesota campaign, Anne Neu, served as his campaign manager. One loud complaint those establishment folks made during the campaign was that they were afraid that neither conservative members of the party nor Ron Paul supporters would support Hegseth if he won the nomination.

One April 18 e-mail from Ms. Neu said that Ron Paul supporters were not supporting some (unspecified) legislative candidates. The e-mail stated, “This is not what the Republican Party is about,” and went to on to suggest that this description included Kurt Bills, saying, “It appears that Kurt Bills was hand-picked by the Ron Paul establishment to be the face of the movement in MN.”

After the party endorsed Kurt Bills in an endorsing convention that saw Hegseth come in third with fifteen percent of the vote, many in Hegseth’s camp refused to support Bills. In the Republican primary, Bills lost to a nameless candidate in the first and seventh congressional districts of Minnesota. He did, of course, win the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth.

The idiot had no voter traction and should stick to FOX BS, where he fits like a hand in a glove. Trump going so second-rate in phone consultations, DEPLORABLE.

FURTHER UPDATE: This Wikipedia page on 2012 election matters:

Republican primary

The Republican Party of Minnesota held its nominating convention in May 2012 and held its Senate primary on August 14, 2012.[1]
Candidates
[...]

Withdrew
Joe Arwood, St. Bonifacius city councilman; withdrew before May 2012 convention
Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom; withdrew after May 2012 convention

It appears the so-called "Vets for Freedom" was a trial balloon the Koch brothers noticed and paid for a reincarnation as "Concerned Veterans for America," i.e., astroturf begetting Koch subsidized astroturf all the while masquerading as grass roots. A BS spielmeister has no place imperiling the future of the nation's veterans, who mostly are several cuts above FOX blather mongering. Privatizing the VA into non-existence may be a keen thought to Trump, who never served, but what do most veterans think? The Hegseth effort undermining the aims of most veteran groups should singularly disqualify Hegseth from any Senate confirmation for which he concievably might inadvisedly be nominated; now that Jackson's withdrawal has again put things into limbo.