Tag: fired

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Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen The Latest Target Of “Reputation Killer” Trump

Everyone is talking about the sudden departure of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen this past weekend.
Kirstjen Nielsen

Everyone is talking about the sudden departure of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen this past weekend.

She showed up for a meeting at the White House with Donald Trump on Sunday, and before she could even make her resignation public, Trump beat her via Twitter.

According to the New York Times:

“I have determined that it is the right time for me to step aside,” Ms. Nielsen said in a resignation letter. “I hope that the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse.”

Ms. Nielsen had requested the meeting to plan “a way forward” at the border, in part thinking she could have a reasoned conversation with Mr. Trump about the role, according to three people familiar with the meeting. She came prepared with a list of things that needed to change to improve the relationship with the president.

Mr. Trump in recent weeks had asked Ms. Nielsen to close the ports of entry along the border and to stop accepting asylum seekers, which Ms. Nielsen found ineffective and inappropriate. While the 30-minute meeting was cordial, Mr. Trump was determined to ask for her resignation. After the meeting, she submitted it.

This morning, folks believe Nielsen’s tenure in the Trump administration could be a “reputation killer.”

“Kirstjen Nielsen I think is a great example of what happens when you go to work for Donald Trump,” said CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin. “He is the great reputation killer. Here is this woman who was a reasonably admired bureaucrat. For the rest of her life people will look at her and think, ‘Oh, that’s the woman who put children in cages. That’s the woman who broke up families across the border.’ You know what? They’ll be right.”

The NY Times also notes that Trump reportedly urged Nielsen to take illegal actions to tamp down what he saw as the immigration ’emergency.”

The president called Ms. Nielsen at home early in the mornings to demand that she take action to stop migrants from entering the country, including doing things that were clearly illegal, such as blocking all migrants from seeking asylum.

She repeatedly noted the limitations imposed on her department by federal laws, court settlements and international obligations.

Those responses only infuriated Mr. Trump further.

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Conservative Writer Fired For Homophobic Twitter Rant

Denise McAllister (image via Twitter)

A conservative writer has been fired by the right-wing websites The Daily Caller and The Federalist after going on an anti-gay rant on Twitter this weekend.

The issue began when Denise McAllister tweeted that she had “slipped” by trying to talk to her husband during a basketball game Friday night.

“Trying to talk to my husband while Carolina is playing. He looks at me and says, ‘Woman, you know better than this. The game in on.’ He’s right. I slipped. Commercial comes on. I fetch him a beer. He grabs me. Deep kisses. Patience and timing, ladies. That’s the lesson.”

Openly gay journalist Yashar Ali, who writes for New York Magazine and HuffPost, retweeted the post highlighting the words ‘He’s right. I slipped,’ and commenting, “Oh Denise” with an unhappy emoji.

McAllister responded to Ali writing, “A gay man commenting on a heterosexual relationship is just. Sad. Pathetic really.”

Ali retweeted that post adding, “I guess Denise is not happy that I’m worried about how her husband treats her.”

McAllister escalated the back and forth telling the world Ali “doesn’t know his purpose as a man” or “as a human being.” She added that Ali “wallows and tries to find himself in another man’s asshole.”

In a since-deleted tweet, she also claimed that Ali might have a crush on her, adding, “Maybe I’m making him doubt his love of penis.”

Ali came back sharing that, as an Iranian, a gay man and a Catholic, he’s never felt ashamed and wouldn’t change who he is.

About an hour later, Ben Domenech, editor in chief of The Federalist, tweeted that McAllister would not be writing for his publication any longer.

In a deleted tweet, McAllister later shared that she “quit” The Daily Wire after Ben Shapiro, the site’s editor in chief, had reached out and informed her she was “no longer welcome” because of her anti-LGBTQ Twitter rant.

In an email Sunday afternoon to HuffPost, Shapiro reportedly confirmed that The Daily Wire has “no plans” for McAllister to write for them. He also underscored that McAllister had been a ‘contributor,’ and not an employee.

Eventually, McAllister returned to Twitter with an apology for Ali saying she had reacted out of “a perceived attack” on her family.

She also bemoaned the fact that she was fired for criticizing a gay man, but no one stood up for her when she defended “masculinity.”

Charlotte Clymer, who works for the Human Rights Campaign, pointed out that gay folks can be fired just for being who we are in 30 states. #Touché

By the way, before you think these right-wing sites were suddenly standing up for LGBTQ people, it’s worth noting that Domenech is married to The View co-host, Meghan McCain, who McAllister recently had a Twitter dust-up with as well.

McAllister called the gabfest “a roundtable of delusional mental midgets,” and McCain clapped back, writing, “You were at my wedding Denise…”

So, her firing by McCain’s husband may not have been all that altruistic.

Life in the Twitterverse, kids.

(h/t HuffPost)

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Hideous Human Of The Day

A hideous woman literally spit and hurled racial slurs (you know which ones) at a black family in a Shop Rite in East Haven, Connecticut.

Wait until you see this. And she does all of it in front of her children.

And it appears the woman has been ‘separated’ from service at Hamden High. #good.

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6th White House Comm Director (Abruptly) Resigns

CNN is reporting on the 'abrupt' departure of White House communications director Bill Shine.

CNN is reporting on the ‘abrupt’ departure of White House communications director Bill Shine.

This comes just days after The New Yorker detailed the more-than-close relationship between Fox News and Donald Trump.

Shine worked as a Fox News executive until he was pushed out for his handling of numerous sexual harassment lawsuits at the network.

Shortly after Shine’s resignation was made public Friday, the Trump campaign announced Shine will be joining Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign as a “senior adviser.”

The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker write that sources say the campaign assignment may be an effort to help Shine save face.

Shine was the 6th communications director (so far) in the Trump administration.

In related news, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson also tendered her resignation to take a position in academia. According to reports, Trump had been considering firing Wilson for months due to what he considered slow progress on his proposed ‘Space Force.’

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News Round-Up: February 23, 2019

Austin Wolf (via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Self-professed ‘fitness obsessed’ InstaHunk Austin Wolf pumped up his arms. I wrote about it. That’s why he looks like he does and I look like me LOL… #HappySaturday

• New York state prosecutors are reportedly prepping a new set of charges against Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, should the president decide to pardon him. Presidential pardons only help those convicted of federal – not state – crimes.

• R&B star R. Kelly has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Chicago, Illinois.

• Billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was charged Friday with two counts of soliciting prostitution in a Florida massage parlor. Kraft, a huge Donald Trump supporter, says he’s innocent of all charges although police say there is video evidence of Kraft on two occasions.

• This bisexual teacher came out to help a suicidal student, and then his school fired him.

• I often get questions about how I like living in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I do love it. But, this surprised us this week:

A post shared by Randy Slovacek (@randyslovacek) on Feb 21, 2019 at 8:17am PST

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions Resigns ‘At The Request’ Of Donald Trump

Jeff Sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned at the request of the president.

Isn’t that like being fired?

Via Buzzfeed:

Sessions’ resignation comes a day after the midterm elections, which was long seen as the expiration date for Sessions’ tenure as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Trump made clear his displeasure with Sessions early on, but wasn’t expected to make any major changes in his cabinet before the election.

Trump later confirmed in a tweet that he had accepted Sessions’ resignation and thanked him for his service. An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Kelly called Sessions before the president held a press conference midday Wednesday to ask for his resignation.

Session’s chief of staff Matthew Whitaker will take over as acting attorney general, while the White House seeks a permanent replacement, Trump tweeted shortly after Sessions’ letter became public.

Whitaker, who will be sworn in on Wednesday, will take on oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, assuming there are no ethics issues that would prevent him from doing so.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who was still in his job as of Wednesday afternoon — had taken on responsibility for the probe after Sessions recused last year.

Under Justice Department regulations, Mueller can only be removed from office “for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause.”

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Megan Kelly Fired From NBC After Blackface Controversy

TMZ is reporting that TODAY show host Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News, has been let go after her remarks about blackface earlier this week.
Megyn Kelly

TMZ is reporting that TODAY show host Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News, has been let go after her remarks about blackface earlier this week.

“Megyn Kelly Today” aired a repeat on Thursday morning, 2 days after she uncorked the absurd comment that it’s okay to wear blackface at Halloween. Sources connected to the network tell us unless a Hail Mary is thrown and caught at some point today … Megyn is gone for good.

The split with NBC comes the day after Megyn’s emotional on-air apology where she insisted she’d learned a lesson due to the backlash.

The mea culpa was clearly a case of too little, too late for the Peacock … which, to be honest, had issues with Megyn’s show even before the blackface blowup. Translation: the ratings were terrible. They’d dropped more than 30 percent, year-to-year, in her time slot.

TMZ goes on to say that her co-workers apparently ‘hated’ being on-air with her.

During coverage of Dr. Christine Ford’s testimony, for example, Kelly was part of a panel with NBC veterans Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd.

Kelly’s blunt, overtly conservative style was so off-putting, Mitchell left the panel before the segment was over.

I can admit to watching her morning show several times, but it was painful. Morning ‘light fare’ doesn’t suit Kelly at all.

According to The Daily Mail, Kelly apparently has a “no-break” deal with NBC which means she will walk away with a payout of $69 million.

Kelly’s talent agency, CAA, has also dropped her as well.

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Priest Fired For ‘Liking’ A Facebook Photo Of Same-Sex Wedding

Keith Kozak (screen capture)

Keith Kozak, the now-former outreach minister for the Catholic Discese of Cleveland, finds himself unemployed after liking a photo of a same-sex wedding on Facebook.

Showing up for a Human Resources appointment, Kozak though the meeting would be about a promotion. Instead, he got quite the opposite.

“When they called me in, I was thinking it had something to do with that,” Kozak said. “They sat me down and they said we had seen some things on Facebook and Twitter and that would like to talk to you about that.”

The next day he received a termination letter.

The 39-year-old admits he wasn’t out at work. “I didn’t feel comfortable doing it, but I also thought it wasn’t important at the time,” said Kozak.

Saying the Church had been “very discriminatory,” Kozak took his case to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.

Keith Kozak (screen capture)

Just last month, Cuyahoga County added sexual orientation and gender identity to its protected classes.

But in this case, it appears the Catholic Church may be exempt from following those laws.

From the local ABC news affiliate:

While the organization didn’t specifically comment on his case, a spokesperson told News 5 the Cleveland Diocese might be within its rights, citing “ministerial exception.” It prohibits clergy members from bringing claims under federal discrimination laws because the relationship between an organized church and its ministers is its lifeblood.

“It’s a wake-up call for me, it’s a wake-up call that I didn’t really realize the Catholic Church would act like this,” said Kozak.

For its part, the Catholic Church issued a statement saying it doesn’t make public comments on personnel decisions, but is confident Kozak’s firing was “appropriate.”

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Might Have Just Resigned

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein

There are mixed signals coming out of Washington this morning as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has reportedly offered to resign in the wake of a New York Times story last week that alleged he offered to ‘secretly record’ Donald Trump in the White House in an effort to reveal the chaotic nature of the Trump administration.

Axios’ Jonathan Swan tweets that Rosenstein has already ‘verbally’ resigned.

But The New York Times isn’t so sure what the current status is:

It was not immediately clear whether he expected to be fired by Mr. Trump or whether he planned to resign.

Justice Department officials said on Monday morning that he was on his way to the White House expecting to be fired.

But over the weekend, Mr. Rosenstein called a White House official and said he was considering quitting, and a person close to the White House said he was resigning.

It was also unclear whether Mr. Trump would accept a resignation that would likely thrust the administration into further turmoil just weeks before November’s midterm elections.

NBC’s Pete Williams says Rosenstein WON’T resign but will force Trump to fire him to get rid of him.

Apparently, it makes a big difference in how the position would be filled depending on if Rosenstein is fired or quits.

If a resignation occurs, Trump can choose whoever he likes to fill Rosenstein’s job.

But if he is fired, Trump will need to appoint an already-Senate-approved candidate.

The big question many are asking is who would oversee the current investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with Rosenstein gone. The answer seems to be solicitor general, Noel Francisco.

This is all, clearly, a developing story.

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Trump Gloats Over Firing Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe

With absolutely no attempt to hide his involvement, Donald Trump openly gloated about firing former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Twitter this morning.

“Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI,” wrote Trump. “A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”

Folks with a LOT of legal experience didn’t think this was such a good idea…