#rick partlow | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hermanwatts · 3 years

Text

Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 19 June, 2021

Plagues of super heroes, time-traveling interstellar wars, and eternal keyboard warriors fill this week’s list of new releases.

Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense Issue #7 / Summer 2021 – Edited by P. Alexander

The fearsome legions of the God Badaxe are on the march, cleaving a bloody swath through the magical land of Pangaea. Countless villages have been burnt to the ground, their young male populations examined and beheaded. Somewhere, a boy with a strange birthmark on his right palm poses a deadly threat to the most powerful being in Pangaea-if he is allowed to reach maturity!

Also:

Mangos has won many a game of Regum! But can he prevail in an arena with enchanted life-sized pieces, for extraordinary stakes…and Kat as an opponent?!

The elder Achilles Hister has stolen the body of his son to mitigate the effects of consciousness transfer! A secret alliance between the Artomiques and the new Red Queen jeopardizes Earth’s future even as the Wild Stars peace summit proceeds!

A celestial battle plays out on the lunar landscape, unbeknownst to scouts patrolling its surface in wolf-like biomechanical beasts-until they are in its very midst!

…and more!

A Dagger in the Winds (The Frostmarked Chronicles #1) – Brendan Noble

Wacław has always dreamed of a purpose. Except he’s never actually dreamed. Each night, his soul leaves his body and wanders the world, free from the scorn of his father and mocking of his tribe. If only he understood why.

The entire village fears Otylia, but she prefers it that way. She’s a szeptucha, a whispering channeler of the wild goddess Dziewanna. Everyone’s abandoned her—even Wacław, her once best friend—but Dziewanna never would.

It’s been four years since Marzanna, goddess of winter, stole Otylia’s mother. The goddess’s death in spring is Otylia’s annual retribution. But when Otylia discovers Wacław bearing Marzanna’s Frostmark on what should be the last day of winter, she realizes the dark truth.

Spring will not come, and only Wacław can help her find out why.

Heroic: The Golden Age – Evan Currie

Five years ago, the world changed forever.

We were discovered. No once noticed. We were invaded. No one realized. We fought back. No one… cared. In the last moments before defeat, our enemy deployed a bioweapon, spreading an invisible pandemic to the winds.

The world just wanted to go back to normal.

A third of the population have the genetic code needed to activate the Quantum Virus. Billions of people, waiting to wake up one morning with powers. Abilities. Enhancements beyond that of mortal men.

The aliens bet on us destroying ourselves in the ensuing madness, but not all humans revel in destruction. When Order and Chaos go to war, Chaos always wins in the short term… but heroes know how to play the long game.

Looking back, will this be the beginning of the end, or the start of the Golden Age?

Iron Hand (Battlegroup Z #5) – Daniel Gibbs

The safety is off.

After witnessing his son’s birth, Captain Justin Spencer contemplates leaving active duty in the Coalition Defense Force for a training post. New pilots straight from the academy are sorely unprepared for combat conditions, just like he was when the war with the League of Sol began. But after a year of intense dogfights, the CDF can’t afford continued losses from ill-equipped rookies.

Especially when disaster strikes.

Pirates target a civilian starliner, forcing the CSV Zvika Greengold to renew an old acquaintance. The intelligence agent’s methods are unorthodox at best, but Colonel Tehrani is determined to avenge the innocent.

No matter the cost.

Sustained CDF presence in neutral space brings back bad memories of Terran Coalition overreach in the fiercely independent outposts. But to flush out the culprits responsible for the horrific tragedy, Justin and the Greengold will go wherever the evidence takes them.

Even when their actions threaten to start another war.

On the Eve (The Eagre #2) – Ron Sami

War has broken out in Atonkaris. In the Cradle of the Wandering God, conspiracies and rebellions are being prepared. Ancient magic is coming to life and out of control. One thousand pilgrims prepare for a dangerous Journey from which no one has ever returned.

Gonat still loves his family, but he transforms into a completely different person than he was before.

Prince Yves receives a mysterious artifact that was not created by or for Atonkaris.

The Gift falls from one deadly trap into another.

The Progenitors’ War – Chris Kennedy

Lieutenant Commander Shawn ‘Calvin’ Hobbs and the crew of the Vella Gulf went back in time to find the technology they needed to beat their Enemy in the present, but it doesn’t exist. They only have one option.

Fight the Enemy in the past and destroy them there.

Unfortunately, the Enemy has overwhelming numbers, and—while the Enemy doesn’t have the technology the Terrans have—quantity has a quality all its own. And then there is the Enemy’s 25-mile-wide command ship. If the Enemy should finish it, they will have an overwhelming force with which to sweep the Terrans from the galaxy.

The Terrans must build—must establish the Warrior Cartel Admiral Sheppard has been placed in charge of—if they are to defend the people of the past and destroy the Enemy for all times. The Emperor hasn’t funded the Cartel, though, and Sheppard will have to figure out how to do it on his own.

Although the Terrans are initially able to hold back the Enemy forces, when the Enemy steals a jumping missile, all bets are off. The ability to run to the Jinn Universe is the only advantage the Terrans have. If the Enemy unlocks the secrets of the Jinn Universe, there will be nowhere else for the Terrans to hide, and no way that they can win the Progenitors’ War.

Shock Action (Drop Trooper #7) – Rick Partlow

Cam is a Marine, not a spy.

That’s what he keeps trying to tell Fleet Intelligence, but when he and Vicky signed back up, they agreed to follow orders. And their orders are to keep working for the Corporate Security Force and find out what the private paramilitary force knows about Zan-Thint and his plans to use Predecessor technology against the Commonwealth.

The trouble is, the CSF doesn’t seem to care about Zan-Thint anymore. They send Cam and Vicky and a crew of mercenary Drop Troopers to an isolated mining world called Portent. Their job? To put down a rebellion by wildcat miners who don’t want the Corporate Council stealing the fruits of their labor. Somehow, they’ve been able to hire the baddest mercenaries in the Commonwealth to hold onto their planet.

Stuck leading a crew of cutthroat mercenaries who want nothing more than to slaughter the wildcat miners and take their rhenium ore, facing down an even more cutthroat band of mercenaries who’ll kill anyone they consider a threat, Cam and Vicky try to negotiate a course between the two and figure out who’s actually paying the mercenaries and why the Corporate Council is really interested in a backwoods rhenium mine.

Because nothing on Portent is as it seems…and their allies might be just as ready to kill them as their enemies.

Wyrmshard (Savage Dominion #2) – Luke Chmilenko and G. D. Penman

Maulkin and his Eternal buddies are on a roll. They’re getting stronger, have two of the shards that will help prevent the return of an evil god, and even have a good idea where to find the rest.

Maybe Maulkin has taken a month off to hang out with his new elven girlfriend and learn how to swing his giant sword around, but hasn’t he earned a holiday?

His reluctance to get out there and smack monsters definitely has nothing to do with the evil looking Voidgod powers that he’s scared of telling the others about… Or with Araphel’s imminent return… Or with having to fight a primordial dragon from the dawn of time…

Everything is fine. Shut up.

Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 19 June, 2021 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

Growing number of Republicans struggle to defend Trump on G-7 choice, Ukraine and Syria

By Rachael Bade, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim | Published October 18 at 8:04 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

A growing number of congressional Republicans expressed exasperation Friday over what they view as President Trump’s indefensible behavior, a sign that the president’s stranglehold on his party is starting to weaken as Congress hurtles toward a historic impeachment vote.

In interviews with more than 20 GOP lawmakers and congressional aides in the past 48 hours, many said they were repulsed by Trump’s decision to host an international summit at his own resort and incensed by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s admission — later withdrawn — that U.S. aid to Ukraine was withheld for political reasons. Others expressed anger over the president’s abandonment of Kurdish allies in Syria.

One Republican, Rep. Francis Rooney (Fla.) — whose district Trump carried by 22 percentage points — did not rule out voting to impeach the president and compared the situation to the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency.

“I’m still thinking about it, you know?” Rooney said of backing impeachment. “I’ve been real mindful of the fact that during Watergate, all the people I knew said, ‘Oh, they’re just abusing Nixon, and it’s a witch hunt.’ Turns out it wasn’t a witch hunt. It was really bad.”

The GOP’s rising frustration is a break from the past three years, when congressional Republicans almost uniformly defended Trump through a series of scandals that engulfed the White House. There’s now a growing sense among a quiet group of Republicans that the president is playing with fire, taking their loyalty for granted as they’re forced to “defend the indefensible,” as a senior House Republican said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.

A few Republicans are starting to say they flat-out won’t do it anymore — particularly the president’s choice of his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort for next year’s Group of Seven summit of world leaders, a selection that will benefit him financially.

“You have to go out and try to defend him. Well, I don’t know if I can do that!” steamed a frustrated Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). “I have no doubt that Doral is a really good place — I’ve been there, I know. But it is politically insensitive. They should have known what the kickback is going to be on this, that politically he’s doing it for his own benefit.”

To be sure, Republican leadership in the House and Senate — and many rank-and-file GOP lawmakers — are still firmly behind Trump, who remains immensely popular with the party base. While several have criticized the president over policy, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, they have argued against impeachment.

On Friday, Trump’s top allies continued to defend him, playing down the Doral announcement and doing damage control for Mulvaney’s blunder, in which their former House colleague contradicted Trump’s “no quid pro quo” talking point and admitted that the president had withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to force Ukraine to pursue an investigation that would benefit him politically.

Hours after the comments, Mulvaney sought to walk back his remarks.

“I don’t see what the big deal is, frankly,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) said of Trump’s decision to host the G-7 at Doral.

On Ukraine, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, “I think Mick was very clear in cleaning up the statement, that there was no quid pro quo.”

Other Republicans shrugged off the latest controversies, including Trump’s choice of his Florida resort for the international meeting.

“I think the optics aren’t good . . . but we have a lot more problems to worry about,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.).

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the Doral announcement “doesn’t bother me a great deal” even as he admitted, “I think there is certainly an appearance of conflict of interest.”

Still, there was a notable shift in tone, even among some of Trump’s most adamant defenders. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized Trump’s Syria decision in an op-ed in The Washington Post, just days after 129 House Republicans backed a resolution condemning the president’s move.

“Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake,” wrote McConnell, who rarely criticizes Trump and never mentioned the president’s name in the op-ed. “It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important alliances.”

Meanwhile, several GOP lawmakers have reached out to White House officials to urge Trump to reconsider his Doral decision, which they worry smacks of corruption, according to GOP officials familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. At the very least, they’re pressing Trump to publicly commit to hosting the international leaders free, to avoid any appearance that he’s using his office to enrich himself.

“This is a legitimate criticism. The profit issue? That clearly has to be transparent,” said one longtime Trump ally, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who has raised his own concerns and is under the impression that Trump will host the event without charge.

Reed often criticizes Joe Biden for allowing his son Hunter to be paid $50,000 a month for sitting on a Ukrainian board while he was vice president. Reed said that standard “applies to anyone else, including everybody in the White House.”

“I would encourage those at the White House to look at the optics and appearance of this,” he continued. “Even the appearance of impropriety is something we need to take into consideration. I have concerns about this.”

Reed isn’t alone.

“I’m not sure the wisdom of that” Doral decision, said Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), who announced his retirement this year in part out of frustration with Trump. “It just further fans the flames that the Democrats have been ranting about.”

Some Republicans are skeptical that Trump will hear them out, however, noting that in the past he’s scolded his own children for allowing charity events on his property without charging. “Zero chance they do it for free,” one GOP official predicted. “Remember all the Eric Trump cancer fundraiser stuff? Trump went ballistic when he found out the club wasn’t charging the charity.”

Republicans are also privately griping about Mulvaney’s admission on Ukraine. “Get over it,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House on Thursday before he walked it back.

“It’s not an Etch A Sketch,” said Rooney, who asked: “What is a walkback? I mean, I tell you what, I’ve drilled some oil wells I’d like to walk back — dry holes.”

He added: “I couldn’t believe it. . . . When the president has said many times there wasn’t a quid pro quo . . . and now Mick Mulvaney goes up and says, ‘Yeah, it was all part of the whole plan!’ ”

As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rooney has participated in the closed-door interviews of current and former Trump administration officials in the impeachment probe.

He said he has been increasingly concerned by revelations regarding the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine, but at this point he did not see the allegations against Trump rising to the level of Nixon’s wrongdoing. “But I think we need to get all the facts on the table. And every time one of these ambassadors comes and talks, we learn a lot more.”

The new GOP grievances with Trump couldn’t come at a worse time for the president.

House Democratic leaders are moving rapidly in their impeachment probe and could hold a vote by the holiday season. They have been turning up an increasingly robust body of evidence showing that the president pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential contender, and his son Hunter.

Additionally, a majority of voters now back the idea of ousting Trump from office — even more Republicans are supporting impeachment.

Yet Republicans believe that Trump has made it harder for them to help him politically survive impeachment and win reelection. For one, his Doral announcement undercuts his own argument that Biden did something wrong when he allowed his son to make a profit from a Ukraine company board. Trump is now boosting his own bottom line from the Oval Office, they noted.

Even House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who frequently appears on Fox News to praise Trump, seemed uncomfortable about the Doral decision. Asked if he had a problem with it, he responded: “I don’t know how decisions are made on something like the G-7. Secret Service and a lot of other agents are involved with that and concerned about security . . . so I don’t’ know what factors they used in deciding the locations.”

The only Republicans who applauded Trump’s move were a handful from Florida. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who represents the district that includes Doral, said that he was “thrilled” and that the move was “great for the economy of Doral.” Sen. Rick Scott agreed, arguing, “There’s no conflict of interest in holding anything in the great state of Florida.”

“I understand the arguments others are going to make about whether it’s lining his pocket at this event and so forth, but as a Floridian, you know, I think it’s good for Florida to have that event,” said Sen. Marco Rubio.

*********

Trump says he’ll host G7 summit at cost at his resort — but provides few details

(WHO THE HELL WANTS TO SPEND AUGUST IN FLORIDA?)

By David A. Fahrenthold, Michael Birnbaum and Joshua Partlow | Published October 18, 2019 2:54 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

A day after President Trump awarded the huge Group of Seven summit to his own struggling Doral resort in Florida, the White House said Trump’s company would charge taxpayers only enough to cover the resort’s costs.

But neither the White House nor the Trump Organization answered more detailed questions about what that means. They did not provide specific dollar amounts or say whether dollar amounts have been agreed to.

“Everything will be done at cost due to the emoluments clause,” White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham wrote in an email message, “which means the summit would be significantly cheaper for taxpayers and our foreign guests.”

She was referring to the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which say presidents cannot accept payments from foreign governments or payments from the U.S. government in excess of his presidential salary.

For Trump, the potential benefits of awarding himself the summit go beyond the actual payments made by U.S. and foreign governments. International media exposure also comes with the summit — putting Trump National Doral Miami on televisions and websites around the world.

Resorts that have hosted the summit of world leaders, including the Lough Erne resort in Northern Ireland in 2013, have seen increased exposure and improvements in their business for years after the summit. “Lough Erne wouldn’t be the place it is today without the PR and the legacy of that event,” William Kirby, the resort’s general manager, told The Washington Post recently. “It’s the pinnacle of the resort history.”

That summit boosted the local economy and highlighted the resort on the world stage, he said. “You can’t buy that, can you?” Kirby said.

The White House appeared to be saying Trump was going to take payments from both foreign governments and the U.S. government — but he believed that was fine, as long as he did not set out to make a profit. Typically, the U.S. government pays the bulk of costs for hosting a summit, but foreign countries pay for their own rooms.

Grisham also said the government might set up a host committee for the event, which could raise private donations. In that case, it would give private donors a chance to pay the president’s company — saving taxpayers money, perhaps, but creating new questions about conflicts of interest.

Grisham referred questions about summit pricing and costs to the State Department, which did not provide any immediate explanation. The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about the event Friday.

On Thursday, the White House announced it would hold the 2020 summit at Doral, a resort near Miami International Airport that Trump bought in 2012. The resort is a keystone of Trump’s finances, but it has been in sharp decline recently: From 2015 to 2017, the resort’s net operating income fell 69 percent.

The summit is scheduled for June, which is typically one of the resort’s slowest months with less than 40 percent of rooms occupied, and will likely fill the hotel with hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel.

Trump’s decision brought a flood of criticism Friday from Democrats, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), one of more than 200 Democrats who are suing Trump for past alleged violations of the foreign emoluments clause.

Blumenthal said they would add the Doral decision to their next legal filing, since it shows Trump is accelerating his efforts to gain foreign government business.

“Here he is, in plain sight, saying in effect, ‘I’m just going to make your case for you,’ ” Blumenthal said.

House Democrats also planned to introduce a resolution next week opposing Trump’s decision to hold the summit at Doral and “rejecting his practice of accepting foreign government Emoluments without obtaining Congress’ affirmative consent.”

The House Rules Committee was expected to vote Tuesday whether to send the resolution to the floor.

“The Oval Office is not a subsidiary of the Trump organization,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement. “The president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people, not enrich himself. But time and time again, the president has demonstrated that the Constitution means nothing to him. This House is standing up to say enough is enough.”

Democrats in the House and Senate on Friday also introduced versions of a bill to prohibit funding the G-7 summit at Trump’s Doral resort, while requiring the White House to turn over documents related to the decision to choose Doral as the summit venue. The House version was called the Trump’s Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act.

There was a trickle of criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t understand why at this moment they had to do that,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said on CNN, calling the move “unnecessary” and adding, “I wouldn’t do it.” Kinzinger said he had defended Trump on the controversy of allowing Department of Defense crews to stay at a Trump property in Scotland but said, “This is something that feels a little different.”

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), said: “In the law, there’s a canon that says, ‘Avoid the appearance of impropriety.’ I think that that would be better if he would not use his hotel for this kind of stuff.”

In Brussels, where European leaders were gathered for meetings, European Council President Donald Tusk, an invitee to past G-7 summits, said it was not appropriate to spend public funds at Trump’s resort. “Not at all,” he said.

Tusk is expected to step down from his role next month, but for the past five years he has been a participant in the Group of Seven summit. His successor, current Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, will make the final decision about whether and how to participate in the summit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also asked by The Post at a news conference whether she was ready to spend German tax money on Trump’s private business, said, “This is a decision taken by the American president. I haven’t had time to deal with this yet. We will take a close look at his invitation, and my intention is to attend the summit.”

Already, Trump’s decision is the subject of questions in Germany, where the leader of a far-left opposition party asked Friday whether the money should be channeled to Trump’s business.

“Heads of state and government aren’t in favor of financing his business,” Left Party head Bernd Riexinger told Agence France-Presse.

“President Donald Trump is mixing private and state interests with his decision to place heads of state and government in one of his hotels,” he said. “This behavior is harmful for democracy.”

The budget for the 2013 summit in Northern Ireland — most of it paid for by Prime Minister David Cameron’s British government — was reportedly more than $100 million.

The 2018 summit, held at the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu north of Quebec City in Canada, provided a tourist boost for the region, according to an official in the regional tourist authority.

Hotel occupancy for June 2018, the month of the summit, got a nearly 20 percent bump over the prior June, pushing the region to its first year of more than 50 percent hotel occupancy.

“I cannot guarantee it’s completely because of the summit, but it really helped because April to June are not the high season. Those months were definitely good,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.

“What we can say is that it’s been good for visibility for the region for sure,” the official said. “It’s been good for the tourism performance.”

The White House has said the Doral was clearly the best of the 12 possible sites it vetted for the event, but it has declined to name the other 11 sites. The one detail given about other sites was that one was so high-altitude that the planners thought they might have to provide oxygen tanks for participants.

“Out of an abundance of caution, that site was eliminated,” Grisham said.

The White House has not explained how Trump would estimate the cost of hosting visitors at a resort whose expenses include staff, administration, maintenance and debt payments. It also has not said whether any outsider could challenge Trump’s estimate: In this unprecedented transaction, Trump is effectively negotiating with himself, as both buyer and seller, with taxpayers picking up the bill.

*********

In admitting then denying quid pro quo, Mulvaney turns harsh impeachment spotlight on himself

By Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey |

Published October 18 at 7:31 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

The hastily announced White House news conference was supposed to be a full-throated defense of President Trump’s controversial decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit at his private golf club in Florida.

By the time it was over, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had made much more explosive news — adding to Trump’s impeachment troubles and calling into question his ability to lead the White House staff in a time of crisis.

Mulvaney’s performance the day before continued to reverberate Friday as Republican lawmakers, the Justice Department, Trump’s personal attorney, conservative media figures and several White House officials panned the news conference or distanced themselves from its contents.

With his admission that Trump withheld aid meant for Ukraine to push the government there to investigate Democrats, Mulvaney did more to harm Trump’s impeachment defense than administration officials testifying before Democratic-led committees in Congress, according to many Republican lawmakers and officials who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

And Mulvaney’s situation was made worse, some Republicans said, by his decision to attempt to retract his remarks hours later in a bellicose written statement blaming the media reporting his remarks.

One person who spoke with Trump said the president was not troubled by Mulvaney’s performance, however, and was happy to have someone defending him on television.

“These things go two ways — either he turns on you or he thinks you’re being treated unfairly,” this person said. “For right now, it’s the latter with Mick.”

But Trump has also been quizzing people about his acting chief of staff’s performance, according to an outside adviser familiar with the discussions. In recent weeks, the president had grown angry with Mulvaney over media coverage of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which has overcome White House defiance to obtain damaging testimony from several officials.

Publicly, the White House continued to stand by Mulvaney, a sign that he is likely to survive, at least for the moment.

“Mick Mulvaney’s standing in the White House has not changed,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Friday.

White House spokesman Judd Deere added, “He is still the acting chief of staff and has the president’s confidence.”

Privately, the opinion inside the White House toward Mulvaney’s news conference was almost universally negative, according to current and former administration officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

For hours after the news conference, in which Mulvaney appeared to contradict Trump’s denials of a quid pro quo linking political investigations to Ukrainian aid, White House officials worked to clean up his comments. Trump, who watched Mulvaney’s event on Air Force One while flying to Dallas, spoke to Mulvaney by phone about his follow-up statement, officials said.

White House officials said they were taken aback by Mulvaney’s comments in the briefing room. Speaking off the cuff, Mulvaney told reporters that Trump had intervened to block nearly $400 million in aid in part because he wanted Ukrainian officials to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine was involved in election interference in 2016, something U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly attributed to Russia.

“Did [Trump] also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server?” he said. “Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.”

He punctuated his remarks with bravado, saying detractors should “get over it” because political influence in foreign policy was appropriate.

Mulvaney reversed course in his written statement, saying that “there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”

But the walk-back did little to contain the damage caused by the televised comments, which sparked a wave of condemnation from Democrats and many of Trump’s Republican allies. Sean Hannity, a Fox News host who speaks regularly with the president, called Mulvaney “dumb” and his comments “idiotic” during his radio show Thursday.

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) said Friday he was “shocked” by Mulvaney’s televised admission, which contradicted Trump’s previous denials.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told reporters Friday. “When the president has said many times there wasn’t a quid pro quo . . . and now Mick Mulvaney goes up and says: Yeah, it was all part of the whole plan!”

Rooney said he was “still thinking about” backing Trump’s impeachment, adding that he was unconvinced by some of the arguments coming out of the White House.

Trump has no immediate choices to replace Mulvaney and was said to not be as frustrated as others in the White House, many of whom have expressed dismay about the lack of an organized impeachment response effort.

Leon E. Panetta, who served as chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, said Mulvaney’s news conference was “bizarre” and called into question his stewardship of the White House during the impeachment probe.

“The appearance is that they are totally disorganized,” he said. “There’s no message, there’s no clear defense to these allegations, and you can sense that when Mulvaney basically says ‘That’s the way it is’ without really presenting any rational position that could defend what the president is accused of.”

But Trump has reveled in the lack of structure and appreciates a chief of staff who allows him to “do whatever he wants,” one former administration official said. It is one of the reasons Trump is not looking to fire Mulvaney, even though the men do not have the close personal rapport that Trump has with some other aides, the official said.

For example, when Trump decided recently to pull U.S. troops from Syria, Mulvaney did not attempt to block the move, as previous chief of staff John F. Kelly had done.

And with Trump complaining that so many people are turning on him, he is reluctant to dump anyone else from his team, aides said.

Mulvaney’s standing as chief of staff has always been precarious, underscored by the fact that the word “acting” remains in his title 10 months after he took the position.

Trump did not initially want to name Mulvaney as chief of staff, an administration official said. The former budget director was “left holding the bag” when Trump’s first choice — Vice President Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers — decided not to take the job, the official said.

Mulvaney’s tenure has been somewhat rocky of late. Administration officials have lamented about a White House communications shop that had essentially become the president’s defiant tweets, and a legislative affairs shop that was rowing uphill to push legislation amid impeachment.

Thursday’s briefing quickly went off track after Mulvaney took questions unrelated to Trump’s decision to host the 2020 G-7 at his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort.

A prep session held in Mulvaney’s office ahead of the news conference with White House lawyers and press staff, as well as State Department officials, focused mostly on G-7 questions, according to two officials familiar with the meeting.

On the other topics that came up, Mulvaney had prepared none of his answers in advance and was just “winging it,” according to a senior administration official.

Trump has complained in recent weeks that not enough advisers are on TV, with Grisham largely staying away from the cameras and White House aide Kellyanne Conway appearing sporadically. White House officials recently ordered Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary, to go on Sunday morning shows, according to a White House official, after Trump was so frustrated with the Syria coverage.

Mulvaney is expected to appear on Fox News this Sunday, an official said.

Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

*********

How a secretary of state with backbone handles an out-of-line White House

By Colbert I. King | Published October 18 at 5:21 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did to the United States’ former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, what President Trump did to the Kurds. Both men turned their backs on frontline defenders of U.S. interests just when strong moral rectitude was needed the most.

Trump’s sellout of Syrian Kurdish forces that have been fighting our battles with Islamic State terrorists is disgraceful. But, with Trump, anything is possible, since he is only faithful to himself.

But I never thought Pompeo would be the kind of leader who would abandon his team when the going gets tough — as he did when he allowed the shabby ending of Yovanovitch’s ambassadorship. Pompeo, through his passivity, sacrificed a seasoned — and falsely maligned — diplomat who has honorably represented six presidents in some of the most challenging foreign assignments that the world has to offer.

Pompeo pales in stature to his predecessor William P. Rogers, who went to the mat for his State Department employees.

Almost 50 years ago — in 1970 — some 250 State Department employees signed an internal petition to senior department officials criticizing President Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and his administration’s demonizing of antiwar protesters.

Stories about the petition hit the papers. Somebody at the White House must have hit the ceiling.

Nixon’s special counsel, Clark Mollenhoff, sent the FBI to State to get the names of the petition signers so that files could be opened for investigation.

I know because I was a special agent in the office now named the Bureau of Diplomatic Security when the FBI came looking for the names.

The FBI request was brought to the attention of senior security officials who notified William B. Macomber, deputy undersecretary for administration. Macomber refused to turn over the names and sent word to Rogers. The secretary stepped in and let the White House know in no uncertain terms that he, not some White House gumshoe, ran the State Department. No one else, Rogers said, would deal with his officers.

Less than a month later, the White House announced that Mollenhoff had resigned, adding that he had been acting “on his own volition” in trying to get his hands on the petition.

In Yovanovitch’s case, Pompeo didn’t lift a finger.

There are reasons to have expected more of him.

Pompeo graduated West Point, first in his class, where he was steeped in the principles of leadership.

Pompeo was taught, just as I learned as a commissioned officer, that you stand up for your subordinates, especially when you know they are right but are under attack because they might have rubbed some high-ranking horse’s ass the wrong way.

A strong leader, Pompeo must have learned, doesn’t cave under pressure, look the other way or throw subordinates under the bus.

To do anything less shows a lack of moral fortitude. Anything less, and as a leader you are marginalized.

Pompeo let Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, run roughshod over his department. He stood by while Giuliani, slinging around unfounded and false claims, campaigned against Yovanovitch.

He capitulated to the unreasonable demand that she be removed from her post.

Mike Pompeo might earn plenty of “attaboys” from Trump. But Pompeo, as secretary of state, let down his department and disgraced himself in the process.

0 notes

swipestream · 6 years

Text

New Release Roundup, 3 November 2018: Science Fiction

This week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction features the return of many beloved series–Starship Grifters, The Four Horsemen, Renegade Star, The Frontiers Saga, and more!

Anomaly (Legacy War #7) – John Walker

Humanity has unlocked the secrets of the Orbs but the race to collect another of the powerful devices has put them on a collision course with their enemy, the terrorist group known as the Tol’An.

One final Orb remains at large in the wild and the Gnosis is dispatched to get it. Lost somewhere in a space station on the edge of civilized space, early intelligence reports suggested it would be a milk run…until a team of Pahxin technicians went missing there. Altering their mission parameters to include rescue, they load up an extra team of marines and head off on the mission.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, AIA operative Christina Dawson closes in on the traitor selling out humanity to the Tol’An. Her people have located an old military base currently occupied by the mercenary group responsible for attacking Gamma Alpha. She gathers a former marine and newly appointed AIA agent to investigate in person.

Deliverance (Forgotten Colony #1) – M.R. Forbes

The war is over. Earth is lost. Running is the only option. It may already be too late.

Caleb is a former Marine Raider and commander of the Vultures, an elite search and rescue team that’s spent the last two years pulling high-value targets out of alien-ravaged cities and shipping them off-world.

Now he’s on the last starship out, under orders to join forty-thousand survivors on their journey to a new home. It’s not the mission he wants, but it’s a mission he’s doing his best to accomplish. When Caleb meets the colony’s head sheriff, she represents an opportunity for a fresh start and a chance to leave his old life behind for good…

Only the mission will be harder to complete than either of them realize.

And the colonists will need the old Caleb more than he ever imagined…

Devastator (AI Fleet #2) – Isaac Hooke

Jain thought he’d never go back.

Ten years had passed since he last had dealings with humans and their machines. He was happy. He’d built a base for himself and his Void Warriors around the barren moon of a gas giant, where they planned to live out their immortal days in peace.

And then humanity came looking for them.

Hunting them.

Now they have no choice but to return.

But what they find waiting for them in human territory will make them wish they’d never left their new home.

The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series #9) – Vaughn Heppner

The Swarm is coming!

This time, enemy science vessels study us as Hive Masters gather hundreds of thousands of starships for an avalanche invasion.

Instead of facing massed bug fleets in hopeless battle, we have a desperate plan: use a Builder nexus, create a hyper-spatial tube and send suicide-ships thousands of light-years into Swarm territory. There, our ships must find and destroy the nexuses that are the only way back home, all in order to stop the bugs from using the nexuses to reach Human Space.

Despite the grim mission, Captain Maddox is determined to bring his people back. But deep in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm, disaster strikes. All alone in the stellar night, the crew must face a primordial alien that even the Builders feared and the Swarm avoids.

Now begins a deadly battle as Maddox, the crew and Galyan are pitted against a horror of legendary evil as a Swarm battle fleet waits to annihilate the victor.

Luck is Not a Factor (Four Horsemen Tales #6) – edited by Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey

It’s the Twenty-Second Century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. There’s just one catch: we are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain.

What do you do when the odds are stacked against you? Mercs plan, strategize, and sometimes even scheme, but there is one thing they all believe—luck is never a factor.

Unless it is.

Enter the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates Humans from the majority of the other races. Edited by bestselling authors and universe creators Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey, “Luck is Not a Factor” includes all-new stories in the Four Horsemen universe by a variety of bestselling authors—and some you may not have heard of…yet. The nineteen authors take on various aspects of the universe, giving you additional insight into a galaxy that isn’t at war…but definitely isn’t at peace. There’s only one thing for sure—anything’s possible for a fistful of credits!

Nameless: A Renegade Star Story – J.N. Chaney

Abigail and Clementine were just a couple of orphans looking for a home.

But when the two girls witness something terrible, they have no choice but to leave their orphanage and go into hiding. The only person willing to take them in is a man named Mulberry, but his home isn’t the safest place for two innocent children.

Abigail and Clementine quickly discover that their new caretaker is the head of a guild of assassins, and the two are thrown into a whole new life of danger. To survive, they’ll need to adapt to a world they can barely comprehend, all without losing who they are along the way.

Discover intrigue, death, and contract killers in this exciting new scifi series from J.N. Chaney. If you’re a fan of Black Widow, Cowboy Bebop, or Altered Carbon, you’ll love this new adventure in the Renegade Star universe.

Retaliation (The Frontiers Saga: Rogue Castes #10) – Ryk Brown

A ship unable to defend itself…

A captain determined to revive her…

Worlds dependent on them both to survive…

An enemy bent on their destruction…

With the Aurora unable to fight, the Karuzari Alliance must find a way to not only repair their flagship, but to make the enemy pay dearly.

Sometimes, you just have to make do with what you’ve got.

The Roundabout (The Only City Left #3) – Andy Goldman

The Roundabout has given Earth one week to deliver to it the members of the Fifth House or face planetary destruction. In an abandoned city the size of a planet, and facing off against god-like opponents, this will be no simple task for our three groups of heroes.

Allin and Copper are captives of the four remaining members of the Fifth House. To fight them, they must first work together against the Roundabout.

Tyena is joined by a ghost, a treasure hunter, and the mind of her worst enemy inside a cat’s body. This unlikely group will need to navigate through and across the planet before they can even try to rescue Allin and do the Roundabout’s bidding.

Emperor Tumble’s first duty is to keep his citizens safe as they flee the Invasion of Pudlington. Saving the planet comes in at a distant second on his list of priorities.

Above all their heads hovers the fleet of Roundabout daggerships, waiting to see if Earth can save itself or must be annihilated.

Rumors of War (Stellar Main #2) – Richard Tongue

After destroying the pirate flagship Fortuna, Captain Victoria Carter and her crew were hailed as heroes across the Stellar Main, but though a great battle was won, she knows that her private war is far from over.

The leaders of the criminal gang escaped, fleeing into deep space to a hidden base lost somewhere among the stars, plotting their revenge against those who drove them into exile, and fermenting a conspiracy that could shake all of human space to its foundations, and launch a civil war that could destroy the Commonwealth forever.

With untold millions of lives at stake, Captain Carter and the crew of Pandora must assemble a rag-tag battle fleet and face off the pirates, or watch as the galaxy collapses into chaos and anarchy…

Seeds of Gaia – Rick Partlow

Revenge is heading to Earth at the speed of light…

The Gaia probes left a dying Earth millennia ago in a bold effort to spread life to a lifeless universe.

Unfortunately, not all of those worlds were uninhabited…

The aliens watched their world die to swarms of nanite terraformers, but with their last breath they launched a terrible, unstoppable weapon to kill those who’d stolen their home.

Patrol Captain Sam Avalon is the first human to encounter it, a missile the size of an asteroid, tearing through anything in its path, destined to impact Earth in four years and leave nothing but ashes. Together with the mysterious government operative Priscilla and the cyborg soldier Telia Proctor, they do their best to unite old enemies in a desperate attempt to save the cradle of humanity from the sins of their fathers…

Wrath of Cons (Starship Grifters #3) – Robert Kroese

Interstellar con man Rex Nihilo and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha are back, and they’re neck-deep in their most outrageous scam yet: selling black market planets!

Terraforming uninhabitable planets and selling them to criminals right under the nose of the repressive interstellar Malarchy is good work if you can get it, but there’s a price: as the pair’s profits soar, they find themselves on the run from… well, pretty much everybody. With the Malarchy breathing down their necks, the malevolent cult known as the Sp’ossels hot on their heels, and the Ursa Minor Mafia out for their cut, Rex and Sasha hop from planet to planet, with nothing but their wits and a motley crew of loyal friends to keep them alive.

But when their antics draw the attention of an ancient intelligence determined to wipe humanity from the galaxy, they put their moneymaking plans on hold–and team up with their biggest rival–to save the galaxy once again.

Your Life Is Forfeit (Judge, Jury, & Executioner #4) – Craig Martelle

Red has a price on his head. Rivka is determined to find those who put it there.

Criminals commit crimes. Career criminals do it in secret. They are good at hiding.

Rivka’s latest case has her hunting fugitives. Red is on a mission to find them and make them pay for what they’ve done.

Her search leads her through dark warrens of political intrigue and ecological disasters. All the while, Rivka is swinging the scales of justice, judging the guilty, and delivering punishment.

Villainy and scum have toe-holds throughout the galaxy, but Rivka doesn’t mind stepping on their toes even when she’s not judging them. She considers it her job because no one is above the law.

Is Rivka’s search sanctioned or has she gone rogue? Will the Federation back her play?

Magistrate Rivka Anoa is the legal eagle you want on your side. No better friend. No worse enemy.

New Release Roundup, 3 November 2018: Science Fiction published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

0 notes

threeravenspublishing · 1 year

Text

What's the Best Music to Write, Study, and Work To?

View On WordPress

#blasters and blades #comedy #fantasy #horror #it came from the trailer park #l n hunter #military scifi #rick partlow #robert silverberg #sci fi #science fiction #scienceficiton #scifi #urban fantasy #weird fiction #william joseph roberts

0 notes

dzelonis · 2 years

Text

Rick Partlow - Wholesale Slaughter #1-3

View On WordPress

#audiogrāmata #klausāmgrāmata #Military fiction #Revelation Run #Rick Partlow #Sci-Fi #Terminus Cut #Wholesale Slaughter

0 notes

theseventhoffrostfall · 2 years

Note

You always have good takes and criticisms when it comes to tearing down shitty sci-fi and fantasy, but what are some books that you think actually do the genres well?

In genre-blending terms I've really been enjoying the Sun Eater series as I've shilled before, Hyperion Cantos, Book of The New Sun and of course Dune

Conventional Sci-Fi, I really liked Jack Vance's Demon Princes, and his other stuff wasn't too bad either. Rick Partlow makes enjoyable popcorn military sci-fi (though I'm not a huge fond of his collaborations with that Cheney guy, whose solo work I've avoided) and while I can't recommend it to everyone I really liked The Culture, along with Banks' other work like Against A Dark Background.

Fantasy, aside from the obvious stuff like LOTR, I've really been enjoying the original Elric stories now that they're finally back in print, and the original Howard Conan stories are all pretty solid too. I've gushed before about Watt-Evans' Ethshar series, and I enjoyed what I've read thus far of the Master of Five Magics books. The Second Apocalypse series is another entry in the category of books I really liked and I think are excellently written, but by subject matter and theme I absolutely can't make a blanket universal recommend

4 notes · View notes

meenazl · 2 years

Photo

Star Bounty Book 1: Absolution by fantastic Military SciFi and another favourite writer RICK PARTLOW! @scifi_rickpartlow Coming June 14! Grant Masterson is a man with nothing left to lose... A disgraced ex-cop, framed by a crooked politician, abandoned by his family, he’s forced into the life of a bounty hunter just to survive. Tracking down a traitor who stole military grade weapons to sell on the black market, Masterson finds out things aren’t as simple as the wanted poster made them seem. Because Delia Beckett isn’t a traitor, simply a patsy, and the forces manipulating her may be the same ones responsible for Masterson’s fall from grace. Can a beat-up bounty hunter and his robot dog find the truth chasing a fugitive in a backwater colony town? Or will their journey to Absolution be their last hunt? Find out in this scence fiction thrill ride from Rick Partlow, the bestselling author of the Drop Trooper Series. Pre-Order your copy now at Amazon! Also in KU. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdQksdWI9wW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

0 notes

krissysbookshelf · 8 years

Text

Free Ebooks (2-26-17)

Game on Boys: The PlayStation Playoffs by Kate Cullen: A hilarious adventure tale about one boy’s determination to conquer the biggest computer game contest at school and the disasters and catastrophes he encounters, whilst learning a few important life lessons along the way. It follows the adventures of 10-year-old cool gamer Ryan and his cool school, cool teacher and very uncool sister, ‘Loom Band Lisa’, who does everything in her pink power to ruin his fun.