As usual, the Chump administration gets it wrong. The statement is: Tragedy plus time equals comedy. That's a comedy axiom: Tragedy plus time equals comedy. That's what it is. It's not: The whim of persecution equals democracy or, for that matter, laws.
When you've got an occupant of the Oval Office whose head is as fat as his ass, it's a given that the country's going to be in trouble. The trouble's only going to be messier when the president both suffers from dementia and is a convicted felon.
Maybe two stories last month made that clear?
Probably not because even the few in the media who made the connection (Jen Psaki was one of the very few, so applause for her) between the stories failed to properly merge the two.
One of the subjects of coverage was David Maltinsky and the other was the Coast Guard. David? He's someone the FBI fired. Why? As THE NEW YORK TIMES noted in its headline "An F.B.I. Trainee Hung a Pride Flag Near His Desk. He Says He Was Fired for It.."
David Maltinsky, an F.B.I. agent-in-training, had only a dim suspicion of what was going on when he was suddenly pulled from his classmates one evening last month and called to a meeting with top officials at the academy, where he was only three weeks away from graduation.
A gay man who had previously worked as a civilian cybertech assistant in the Los Angeles field office, Mr. Maltinsky knew that the meeting might have something to do with his sexual identity — or with his wide-ranging efforts at the bureau to promote L.G.B.T.Q. issues.
What he did not expect was the letter he was handed when he arrived at the F.B.I. Academy’s front office.
It was signed by the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, he said, and announced that he was being “summarily dismissed” from the academy because of “political signage” he had once displayed at his work space in Los Angeles. The only thing that could be, he quickly realized, was a rainbow pride flag that had hung near his desk for years and had been given to him as a gift by his former bosses.
On Wednesday, Mr. Maltinsky filed a lawsuit against Mr. Patel and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming that his firing was illegal and asking a federal judge to reinstate him at the academy, where he had been pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a federal agent. He and his lawyers described his dismissal as the latest move by senior F.B.I. officials to play politics with internal personnel moves in a way that has not only damaged morale inside the bureau but has also hindered its ability to carry out its public safety mission.
Scott MacFarlane (CBS NEWS) noted:
According to the lawsuit, the First Amendment "forbids government officials from firing government employees, or otherwise retaliating against them, simply for engaging in expressive conduct concerning a matter of public concern."
The lawsuit states that Maltinsky was fired in a letter signed by FBI Director Kash Patel in October. A copy of the letter was provided by Maltinsky to CBS News. In it, Patel writes: "I have determined that you exercised poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage in your work area during your previous assignment at the Los Angeles Field Office. Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is hereby terminated."
The rainbow flag that Maltinsky displayed at his workspace in the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office was presented to him after it had previously been displayed outside the Bureau's federal office complex there, according to the lawsuit.
Maltinsky said the federal government approved the display of Pride flags at federal office complexes in June 2021. His lawsuit alleges that a colleague filed a complaint with a supervisor about Maltinsky's flag on Jan. 20, 2025, the day of President Trump's second Inaugural.
John Ismay and Minho Kim (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
The Coast Guard is redefining how it views harassment across the service, discarding the concept of “hate incidents” and recasting symbols of hatred, including nooses and swastikas, as “potentially divisive.”
In the past, the display of such symbols was unambiguously cited in policy as “incidents of hatred and prejudice” that “have no place in the Coast Guard.”
But the revised edition of the policy, which goes into effect next month, raises the bar for proving that displaying hate symbols in public merits punishment.
The new instructions, described in a document titled “Harassing Behavior Prevention, Response and Accountability,” was signed Nov. 13 by the Coast Guard’s assistant commandant for personnel, Rear Adm. Charles E. Fosse.
Public outrage caused Kristi Noem (she's over the Coast Guard) to immediately pull the new policy. This is the comparison Jen Psaki rightly made: The Chump administration is firing a man for an LGBTQ+ flag while at the same time pushing through hate speech.
But we thought the two raised another issue, a legal issue.
Had the H*A*R*L*O*T of Homeland Security kept the new Coast Guard policy in effect, what would that mean?
Say it went into effect December 21st and she pulled it December 23rd?
Who'd get fired? Legally, who could be fired?
If, once the policy was announced and in effect, who could be fired for displaying a swastika or something similar?
The answer is no one. Not while the policy was in effect. If the policy was overturned or retracted, once that was announced, anyone could be disciplined -- even fired -- for displaying a swastika.
So with that in mind, explain to us Ka$h Patel's firing of David Maltinsky.
Now we know Ka$h is a busy man -- flying all over the country -- sometimes with his girlfriend -- on the tax payer dime. And spending tax payer money to assign a swat team to guard said girlfriend.
But it seems to us that if Ka$h were even remotely qualified for his job, he'd realize you can't have a policy in place -- in custom or writing -- and then fire someone for it.
Long before Donald Chump hauled his decaying fat ass back to the Oval Office, David was allowed to display the flag.
Allowed?
He was encouraged to display it. From Scott MacFarlane's report cited above:
The rainbow flag that Maltinsky displayed at his workspace in the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office was presented to him after it had previously been displayed outside the Bureau's federal office complex there, according to the lawsuit.
Maltinsky said the federal government approved the display of Pride flags at federal office complexes in June 2021.
There are many issues involved in this case. But the most simple and basic one with regards to the law is that David was allowed and encouraged to display the flag. If the policy was going to change, then the employees needed to be informed of the changes.
Employees are not hired -- certainly not by the FBI -- to be psychics. But Ka$h is arguing that, on a whim, he can override a policy in place and fire someone without advising them that the policy is being changed.
That's not how the law works. If the flag was now a problem, the employee needs to be advised of that. If David were advised of the change and elected to continue to display the flag, we'd have issues involving freedom of expression, for example. But we don't even have to address that. You can't fire someone for following a policy if you haven't informed them that the policy has changed.
You can't punish an employee for following an existing policy that you decide to overturn when you fail to inform the employee that the policy is being overturned. Simply put, you can't know what you aren't told.
With that in mind, we're telling you to go over to HBO and watch HEATED RIVALRY. Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie star as rival hockey players who begin an affair with one another. It's a drama that holds your attention. In fact, it's the finest drama HBO's had since THE UNDOING -- and that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant mini-series was five years ago.