No Christmas celebration for Mattis: Trump taps Patrick Shanahan as Acting Sec Def

Defense Secretary James Mattis turned in his resignation letter effect the end of February, but evidently it angered President Trump that Mattis was leaving and how Mattis'  bombshell resignation letter was written, so he will be gone as of January 1st.

Trump announced the news in a tweet Sunday morning:

"I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019. Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!"

In his resignation letter Thursday, Mattis, 68, had said he would remain in his role for more than three months, and on that day Trump said Mattis -- the first Cabinet official in 40 years to resign over a policy difference with the president -- was leaving in February.

POTUS evidently changed his mind.

"The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department's interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February," Mattis wrote Thursday.

It was not immediately clear why Mattis' departure date was apparently moved up, but sources told Fox News that Mattis quit "in protest" over the Trump's national security policies and that more resignations could be coming, which turned out to be true after Brett McGurk, U.S. envoy for the global coalition to defeat Islamic State also resigned the following day. His resignation is effective December 31st.

The president downplayed the news via Twitter Saturday evening, saying he had neither met McGurk nor appointed him. He tweeted:

"Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal about this nothing event!"

He followed up with:

"If anybody but your favorite President, Donald J. Trump, announced that, after decimating ISIS in Syria, we were going to bring our troops back home (happy & healthy), that person would be the most popular hero in America. With me, hit hard instead by the Fake News Media. Crazy!"

The White House's plan to withdraw about half its troops in Afghanistan by the summer -- some 7,000 soldiers -- has drawn similar criticism. 

Having troops anywhere to fight Islamists is not very effective. If we actually did defeat ISIS completely, another jihadi group would take its place. It isn't about who we are fighting, in terms of the group's name or country of affiliation, it's what we are fighting--sharia.

It's best to allow each faction of Islam, regarding how they view sharia, to kill each other and spare our own forces. Islam is its own worst enemy and Trump is probably right in the pullout of our troops.

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I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

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Obama Gitmo and the end game

He promised to be the most transparent president in our nation's history. He told us if we liked our doctors, we can keep our doctors; period. 

He said that we are not at war with Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace. He even told us Islamic State isn't Islamic and it isn't a state. He told us he would lead the war against Islamic State with "strategic patience." 

Then he claimed that the real threat to our country isn't terrorism, it's climate change. In fact, he blamed terrorism on climate  change.

Does president Obama know what the hell he's talking about? Is he stupid or does he have some devious master plan to take America down the road to perdition? I don't believe that, but who knows?

The one promise he made to his liberal base was that he'd close Guantanamo Bay Detention facility in Cuba. The base of lefties loved the idea because it sounded, well, so idealistic, cool and humane. Heck, the guy won a Nobel Peace Prize just three months after he was sworn in and hadn't done one damn peaceful thing then and created anything but peace since.

So he wants to empty Gitmo and a congressional aide confirmed to FoxNews.com that the Pentagon is pushing the idea of possibly transferring another 17 Islamic jihadist terrorists (an oxymoron if ever there was one) but still had concerns that while the strategy to give Obama's legacy some juice by reducing the camp's population to "as low as they can get," it involves "a good deal of risk."

But the substantial risk isn't going to be to the congressional aide, FoxNews.com or even Obama--it will be to the American public. If these terrorists are put into the regular prison system, I strongly believe they will convert as many inmates that aren't Muslim to the religion of peace and create a spate of Jihad Joes.

Kid not in Gitmo

Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress that he has approved the 17 proposed transfers, but knowing what we now know about Carter's use of his private email account for Defense Department emails, it's clear that his judgment is no better than his boss's. 

Especially since he continued using his private email account 2 months after Hillary Clinton used a private server for hers as secretary of state and hopefully threw a spanner in the works of her campaign.


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