All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[PaulBullion]

This is such a mess.

Acting defense secretary Shanahan is out.

The move leaves the Pentagon without a permanent leader at a time of escalating tensions with Iran.

I can't remember a time when America has looked weaker.

Only the best people, from the best families:

At the Pentagon, officials were discussing that a routine F.B.I. investigation for cabinet nominees was dragging on for Mr. Shanahan because of his divorce, which included an allegation from his ex-wife — denied by Mr. Shanahan — that he punched her in the stomach. Mr. Shanahan said that his ex-wife started the fight, and his spokesman said that she was arrested and charged with domestic violence, charges which were eventually dropped.

According to court documents viewed by The New York Times, in 2011 Mr. Shanahan’s son, who was 16 at the time, hit his mother repeatedly with a baseball bat, and she was hospitalized.