Discussion: White House Knew About Shanahan Family Domestic Violence For Months

TPM Article Topics
21

Either that or he just likes people who are a lot like him.

4 Likes
22

To be fair, who would think that hiding your son from the police after he beat his Mom senseless with a baseball bat would raise any red flags?

12 Likes
23

Trump has a unique advantage in that just about everyone knows he is a gutter-dweller.

What’s there to blackmail?

That has been cultivated over a 50 year span. In addition, Trump’s mental illness fits well with the sense of altering one’s own reality such that “shameless” takes on new lows. Lawrence had a guest on last night at her wits end trying to explain Trump’s madness at a rally.

A friend of mine in the social sciences told me years ago that collective behavior, mob behavior, socially induced sociopathy and psycopathy. These are real.

As is the ability of the psychopath to use his victim’s normalcy against him.

If we do not get honest with the American people as to the danger we are all in with this psychopath, we will be guilty of political malpractice at the highest, existential level.

11 Likes
24

If it was your kid, you might be surprised the lengths you’d go to try to protect him. I really don’t blame Shanahan for trying.

3 Likes
25

I’m sure that all of those Xtian Pulpit Pimps will be telling their marks that Jesus forgives Shanahan because he’s Republican.

And those marks will be stupid enough to believe that!

26

Either that, or people who are a lot like him assume that their background won’t affect their status.

2 Likes
27

OK, But I blame him for thinking he could get a government leadership position in spite of it.

Too bad his job in private industry wasn’t enough.

7 Likes
28

What I find disturbing is that the WH knew it and STILL thought if it came to light it would be ‘OK’.

4 Likes
29

Because “No Consequences”. They can and will do what they want. Our system relied too much on decorum and vague notions of tradition and propriety. One side chose to ignore all of that and it is showing what a flimsy system we really have.

6 Likes
30

Don’t be taken in by the framing. As used by Republicans, “Family Values” is simply code for hating on LGBT people. Nothing more and nothing less. It has nothing to do with things like trust, loyalty, and self-sacrifice that sane people think of as “family values”.

Empirical data indicate that actual Republican “Family Values” includes such things as serial adultery, domestic violence, and forced birthing, probably with some child pornography thrown in.

5 Likes
31

I’m with you on that. Should have been a big consideration that that *would * come out, and what was best for the family.

Sad deal all around.

7 Likes
32

I honestly feel so bad for this family, who has clearly gone through hell, for whatever reason. Clearly he shouldn’t have taken any position in the Pentagon. Putting aside White House dysfunction or laziness or whatever.

7 Likes
33

Read elsewhere:
ExWife had just gotten custody of the kids.
ExWife suspected 17 yo of having an affair with a 36 yo woman and confronted him about it.
“Hounded son for 3 hours prior to the attack” (written as reported)

I would take “wife appears to be the violent one” as confirmation that the ‘spin’ has been effective. Even with these details, we don’t have a full story.

9 Likes
34

Lot’s of deep psychological problems in that family. Personally, I thought I had about the most dysfunctional family on earth but I never lost track of where the doors were.

6 Likes
35

See? He fit right in!

36

I think this is another example of no one being able to tell trump bad news. Don’t know if it was the news of the domestic violence, or the news that this would be a confirmation-killer. But either way it’s a terrible sign for governance.

(Imagine for a second being the aide who has to tell trump that he can’t have the nominee he wants because the nominee’s son beat the nominee’s ex-wife with a baseball bat. There are no good places that conversation could go with trump as part of it.)

7 Likes
37

Allegedly. Just because the cops arrested one party (the wife) doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mutual altercation. The wife had no due process, and we can’t assume “arrest” = “guilt.” Also, her throwing his clothes out the window and trying to set them on fire is usually an indication of infidelity.

The story that she was “harassing” the son came from Shannahan while he was in a full throated defense of the son, hiding him from the cops in a hotel room for four days. A kid, particularly a somewhat skilled baseball player, taking a bat to his mother’s head and body doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I’m thinking that incident may have been drug or roid induced.

3 Likes
38

Exactly. There was a lot of shit going down in that house. I don’t believe the two incidents happened in a vacuum.

4 Likes
39

Watcha think I was talkin’ about? Do i need a /s

2 Likes
40

I, too, feel bad for the family. There are members of this family who aren’t the ones who swung the bat, made excuses for the kid, or who “hounded” the kid until he attacked (and then was blamed until that no longer paid politically). There is one child who had to go to use the neighbor’s phone in order to get help for his mother, and I assume there are a few other children involved. I can’t imagine the horror that they endured. Their father was willing to put them out there for public consumption for his political career.
The other tragedy is that none of us are actually surprised that the WH knew, and that there are countless plausible reasons that they knew and continued with it. By “plausible” I mean that we accept them as reasons that the WH would be willing to use rather than that they were actual, acceptable “reasons.”

9 Likes