WP: Johnson aide advised against Hutchinson subpoena over concerns about lawmakers’ ‘sexual texts’

Washington Post today:

The move was intended in part to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent Cassidy Hutchinson…

Before that meeting, a Johnson aide told Loudermilk’s staff that multiple colleagues had raised concerns with the speaker’s office about the potential for public disclosure of “sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors” with Hutchinson, according to correspondence produced at the time that detailed the conversation. Separately, a member of Johnson’s staff told Loudermilk aides that Hutchinson could “potentially reveal embarrassing information,” according to an email reviewed by The Post.

…In a statement, Hutchinson’s lawyer, Bill Jordan, did not address the existence of texts and said his client has cooperated voluntarily with the investigation.

A major reason that men go to extraordinary efforts such as running for public office is to achieve sex with attractive young women.

After Hollywood, the most sexually charged place I have ever been is the California Capitol in Sacramento where almost all legislators seem to have young gorgeous women working for them and boinking lobbyists is taken for granted as one of the perks of the job.

Many men like sluts because they figure they have a better chance of going to bed with a loose woman. If a bloke sees a woman sleeping her way up, they might well think — I’m important, why shouldn’t she blow me too?

June 29, 2022, I posted: Is The Washington Post Hinting That Cassidy Hutchinson Was Sleeping With Mark Meadows?

The Washington Post makes Cassidy Hutchinson sound like Tracy Flick (the Reese Witherspoon character in the movie Election):

Cassidy Hutchinson was about to turn 24, already a key official at the White House after a meteoric ascent from obscurity, when she heard a startling noise. It was early December 2020, and President Donald Trump was livid because his attorney general said the election had not been stolen.

Upon investigating the noise, Hutchinson was told by a White House valet that Trump had thrown a porcelain plate against the dining room wall, which was now dripping ketchup. Hutchinson grabbed a towel to wipe up the mess as the valet told her to steer clear of the president because “he’s really, really ticked off about this right now.”

It was a turning point in an extraordinary effort to subvert the transfer of presidential power, as Hutchinson recalled it in dramatic testimony Tuesday before the House Jan. 6 committee. In a riveting two hours, Hutchinson added layers of stunning detail from her one-of-a-kind vantage as principal assistant to Mark Meadows, then White House chief of staff, which put her steps from the Oval Office….

On paper, Hutchinson had been one of the youngest and least experienced members of the White House staff. Yet on Tuesday, there she was: Now 25, in a bold white jacket, confidently and calmly testifying that the most powerful man in the country, Trump, had been out of control and stoking an armed insurrection….

In Trump’s White House, Hutchinson had extraordinary access and in the eyes of many White House staffers, she had inordinate power. Some derisively called her “Chief Cassidy,” and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff asked White House aides why she was in on legislative meetings….

Hutchinson had a sudden rise to find herself as the center of power.

During the first impeachment trial, Hutchinson grew close to Meadows as a legislative affairs staffer in the White House, former advisers said. Once he was named chief of staff in March 2020, he immediately elevated her, a former adviser said, and she eventually became his principal assistant. She was given an office next to his, which in turn put her a few doors away from the Oval Office.

Brendan Buck, a former aide to House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), said in an interview that Hutchinson “was always by his side … when there were meetings you’d expect to be principal level or very small senior staff level, he would always insist she was in the room.” Buck said she was usually a quiet presence. “She was largely there to take notes,” Buck said. “It’s just unusual to have a relatively junior aide to either be in principal level or senior staff level, but it was his call, so we deferred to him.”

She was viewed throughout the White House as speaking for Meadows when she gave other staff members orders, and regularly said “Mark wants” or “the chief says” — the chief being Meadows.

A former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said that Hutchinson traveled constantly with Meadows, going on Air Force One, answering his calls, and getting texts from members of Congress. Key members of the White House staff who wanted to get a message to Trump or Meadows often went through her.

The Washington Post article makes it clear that she was not liked, she was not respected, and that she was out of place at the top. The Post implicitly says that she did not rise on merit.

If Cassidy Hutchinson maneuvered her way to the top ala Tracy Flick, and now has fallen out with the powerful men who made her, then she may have an agenda beyond telling the truth. If she wasn’t intimate with Mark Meadows, then her rise makes no sense. So when faced with a choice between sense and nonsense, I choose to make sense. The simplest explanation for Cassidy’s rise and turn is the Tracy Flick story.

On Steve Bannon’s podcast Friday (July 1, 2022), Peter Navarro says: “The joke around the White House was when Meadows came in, he brought his harem in. There’s like five women he brings in, three to personnel the outer office (including Cassidy Hutchinson) and two for the press office… [Cassidy] was a running joke… The only time I saw [Cassidy], she was sitting with a big bag of candy doing nothing. I couldn’t figure out why she was there. Meadows gave these people high ranks.”

Report: “Cassidy hasn’t divulged much about her personal life for good reason. As of now, there is no record of Cassidy’s marriage to anybody and she has never mentioned her spouse, hence it is assumed that Cassidy is not married and has no husband as of June 2022.

Because she is obviously so private about her personal life, there is no record of her dating anybody today, hence it is thought that she is single. Our efforts to learn more about her love life were futile because there was no sign of her lover on the internet.”

Meadows makes only one reference to Cassidy in his 2021 memoir The Chief’s Chief but links that reference to Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern who had an affair with President Bill Clinton:

I remembered that earlier in the afternoon, just after we’d arrived, Cassidy Hutchinson, my White House assistant, had dropped off a few boxes of candies and gifts with the presidential seal on them. These weren’t much, just cardboard boxes that said “President Donald Trump” with an eagle and a presidential seal, but they were valued by supporters. It was the best we could do on short notice. Most of the time, we kept these gifts in a small room off the Oval Office—what we jokingly referred to as the “Monica Lewinsky Room”…

In her testimony to the January 6 Committee, Cassidy seems upset that Meadows doesn’t look up enough from his phone to gaze into her eyes and that he’s not taking her input with sufficient seriousness:

* What was Mark’s reaction — Mr. Meadows’ reaction to this list of weapons that people had in the crowd?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: When Tony and I went in to talk to Mark that morning, Mark was sitting on his couch and on his phone which was something typical. And I remember Tony just got right into it. He was like, sorry, I just want to let you know and informed him, like, this is how many people we have outside the mags right now.

These are the weapons that we’re going to have. It’s possible he listed more weapons off that I just don’t recall. And gave him a brief but — and concise explanation, but also fairly — fairly thorough. And I remember distinctly Mark not looking up from his phone, right? I remember Tony finishing his explanation and it taking a few seconds for Mark to say his name.

Because I almost said, Mark, did you hear him? And then Mark chimed in. It was like, Alright, anything else? Still looking down at his phone.

* Mark still hadn’t popped out of his office or said anything about it. So that’s when I went into his office. I saw that he was sitting on his couch on his cell phone, same as the morning where he was just kind of scrolling and typing. I said, hey, are you watching the TV, Chief? Because his TV was small and I — you can see it, but I didn’t know if he was really paying attention.

I said, you watching the TV, Chief? He was like, yeah. I said, the rioters are getting really close. Have you talked to the President? And he said, no, he wants to be alone right now; still looking at his phone. So I start to get frustrated because, you know, I sort of felt like I was watching a — this is not a great comparison, but a bad car accident that was about to happen where you can’t stop it, but you want to be able to do something.

* LIZ CHENEY: Not long after the rioters broke into the Capitol, you described what happened with White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. [Begin videotape]

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: No more than a minute, minute and a half later, I see Pat Cipollone barreling down the hallway towards our office; and rush right in, looked at me, said, is Mark in his office? And I said, yes. He just looked at me and started shaking his head and went over — opened Mark’s office door, stood there with the door propped open and said something to — Mark is still sitting on his phone.

I remember like glancing and he’s still sitting on his phone.

She sounds a bit like a scorned lover enacting revenge.

According to The Sun:

DEBBIE Meadows is the wife of Mark Meadows — the 29th White House Chief of Staff.

The power couple has been married for 42 years, and they originally built a bond off of their shared love for business.

Debbie and Mark have two children together named Haley and Blake.

Tim Alberta writes October 4, 2020:

In my book, American Carnage, I wrote that [Mark] Meadows is the only politician I’ve encountered who stacks up to a real-life version of Frank Underwood, the cunning main character in the show “House of Cards.”

We resemble the people we come close to. Cassidy Hutchinson came very close to Mark Meadows.

The Washington Post has a history of slyly making its points about adultery among the powerful.

David Talbot writes in Salon September 14, 2004 about Kitty Kelly’s book on the Bushes:

George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara dismissed Bill Clinton as a pathetic hillbilly when he challenged the incumbent in 1992. But, Kelley writes, Clinton was one of the few Bush opponents who knew how to back them down. As colorful stories from Clinton’s sexual past in Arkansas began to surface during the campaign, a Clinton aide began digging into the senior Bush’s own robust adultery. This included, writes Kelley, two long affairs — one with Jennifer Fitzgerald, Bush’s White House deputy chief of protocol, who, as the Washington Post once slyly put it, “has served President-elect George Bush in a variety of positions,” and one with an Italian woman with whom he set up house in a New York apartment in the 1960s. The Clinton aide told Kelley, “I took my list of Bush women, including one whom he had made an ambassador, to his campaign operatives. I said I knew we were vulnerable on women, but I wanted to make damn sure they knew they were vulnerable too.” After the eruption over Clinton’s mistress Gennifer Flowers died down, sexual infidelity did in fact become a moot issue in the campaign.

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SMH: Hollywood can’t get enough of this Aussie star. Why is she overlooked at home?

The Sydney Morning Herald, Jan. 22, 2025:

A Daily Mail article from the time reported a “nasty race row” erupting among “fans angry a non-Anglo-Saxon family would become show regulars”. “I think they got death threats,” Viswanathan recalls. “The audiences were just not about it.”

That near-miss seems emblematic of Viswanathan’s early experience with the local industry. In a story deploringly common for actors of colour or ethnic backgrounds in Australia, she found that onscreen opportunities here were severely limited.

A Daily Mail article from the time reported a “nasty race row” erupting among “fans angry a non-Anglo-Saxon family would become show regulars”. “I think they got death threats,” Viswanathan recalls. “The audiences were just not about it.”

That near-miss seems emblematic of Viswanathan’s early experience with the local industry. In a story deploringly common for actors of colour or ethnic backgrounds in Australia, she found that onscreen opportunities here were severely limited.

Viswanathan grew up in the outside ’burbs of Newcastle, a “big old beach rat” with an Indian dad and a Swiss mum (her family’s still based up there). “It’s beautiful, and I feel so lucky to have grown up there … But it’s changed a lot. The ’90s and noughties in Newy hit different,” she deadpans.

Looking Indian but speaking Swiss-German: in Newcastle back in the day, this could short-circuit people’s brains. “It was such a strange dichotomy. When people saw my mum and I together, they thought I was adopted,” Viswanathan says. “I felt like an outsider, always. But then comedy felt like a bit of a superpower, because funny is funny, you know? It doesn’t matter what you look like.”

If you are obviously different from the majority, you will likely have it easier in America than in Australia.

Most people want to watch people on TV who look like them.

The Daily Mail reported Dec. 9, 2011:

Neighbours racist row erupts as Indian family moves into all white Ramsay Street – and viewers complain

Staff from popular TV show forced to remove racist posts left on its website from fans
Actor who plays Indian father hits out saying they probably supported the ‘White Australia’ policy

A nasty race row has broken out over an Indian family becoming residents into Australia’s long-running TV soap Neighbours.

The actor who plays an Indian father in Ramsay Street has hit out at fans who say it is ‘un-Australian’ to cast him, saying they probably supported the ‘White Australia’ policy.

Melbourne-born of Indian descent, Sachin Joab is part of the long-running TV soap’s attempt to tackle perceptions the show is too white and doesn’t represent modern Australia.

Yesterday, Neighbours staff Down Under were forced to remove several racist posts from fans angry a non-Anglo-Saxon family would become show regulars, writing ‘that racism and small-mindedness won’t be tolerated.’

Joab blamed racism on a ‘lack of education.’

‘There is various pockets that will say it is un-Australian to have an Indian or an Indian family on Ramsay St,’ he said.

Neighbours executive producer Susan Bowers explained that the show wanted to represent a ‘more modern society.’

Joab will be joined by Menik Gooneratne and Coco-Jacinta Cherian – together they will make up the Kapoor family.

‘The ABC and SBS TV have always cast multi-cultural Australians, and it was only 20 years ago you put Greeks and Italians on TV and people would question it,’ Ms Bowers said.

‘We have been criticised heavily for being too white and you are damned if you do and if you don’t, and we would much rather be criticised for moving in this direction.’

The criticism that the show is too white likely will come from elites while criticism that the show is not white enough will likely come from non-elites.

Bowers, like most people, would rather be despised by strangers than her peers.

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Day 3 Of The New Trump Presidency (1-22-25)

01:00 Woke bishop lectures Donald Trump, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/politics/bishop-mariann-edgar-budde-trump.html
10:25 Peter Zeihan has been predicting China’s demise for 20 years and he keeps extending the date when this will happen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxSVDZGfGIU
13:00 Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer clash over January 6, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IvhU6EVR8I
19:00 Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East, https://www.amazon.com/Eighteen-Days-October-Kippur-Created/dp/B0CF2TQ7X1/
30:00 Trump’s January 6 pardons, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=158652
42:00 Re-President Trump, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERuB18n8WjQ
45:30 Ari Shaffir: America’s Sweetheart, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34753871/
48:20 2WAY TONIGHT 1/22 | Mark Halperin on Trump’s First 100 Days, Democrats & Today’s Political News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig0fWB1FUgk
1:06:00 Tapping into emotional energy, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=142897
1:15:30 How Will the World Navigate Trump’s Return? | Foreign Affairs Interviews with Malcolm Turnbull, Bilahari Kausikan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_VdSKSCkAw
1:28:00 Common interests are a more secure basis for cooperation than common values
1:38:30 Two Wongs don’t make a white, https://www.quora.com/What-do-Australians-mean-when-they-say-two-wongs-don-t-make-a-right
1:55:30 Special Haftarah for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fZV_ZJMsZI
2:02:00 Should You Go To Law School?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf3KSPNkNBc
2:03:10 Elliott Blatt calls to rejoice over Trump’s January 6 pardons
2:35:45 Mark Halperin’s balanced perspective on Joe Biden’s senility, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjFWy1qdRM
2:41:15 Michael Smerconish, Mark Halperin on Trump’s opening days, https://www.smerconish.com/podcasts/the-smerconish-podcast/
2:52:00 Donald J. Trump pardons Silk Road’s Ross William Ulbricht, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht
3:02:00 Samuel Chase was the only U.S. Supreme Court justice impeached by the House of Representatives, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase
3:10:00 The Second Trump Presidency, Brought to You by YouTubers, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-youtube-podcast-men-for-trump/
3:30:00 Trump’s Executive Order Onslaught, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk8WG5AOpIw

Paul Gottfried wrote July 13, 2021: “East Coast Straussians (who are really Chicago-based) have been politically well to the left of West Coast Straussians, whose citadels are Claremont and Hillsdale…. East Coast Straussians are recognizably neoconservatives and in some cases Biden Democrats, while the West Coast followers of Harry Jaffa have joined the populist right. Although West Coast Straussians are theoretically closer to East Coast Straussians than they are to paleoconservatives, they are closer to the latter in their reaction to current events.”

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Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East

This 2023 book is a great read.

* Johnson agreed to sell additional F – 4 Phantom fighter jets, demanding only that Israel present a peace plan in return. Eshkol even persuaded Johnson to speed up production so that the IAF could take delivery in 1969 instead of 1970.
With these actions, Lyndon Johnson did more to guarantee the security and survival of the Jewish state than any American president before or since. Israel would receive far less generous treatment from Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.

* On June 29, 1967, the barriers dividing Jerusalem were removed, allowing Arabs and Jews to commingle for the first time in nineteen years. In the morning, only a few brave souls ventured into opposing territory. By afternoon, the ice was broken and crowds flowed in both directions. Israelis were surprised to learn that under Jordanian rule, schoolchildren received free public education through high school. Israeli schoolchildren received free public education only through the tenth grade. They were also pleased to find how cheap things were outside of high – tariff Israel. “The bargains flew off the shelves,” was how one journalist described it. 13
That surprise paled in comparison to the shock that awaited the Arabs. For years they had been assaulted with propaganda assuring them that Israel was a failed state on the brink of collapse. What they found instead was a consumer society of overflowing shops and cafés. For some, it was their first glimpse of a modern city. An Israeli policeman remembered seeing Arabs crowded around a traffic light, cheering each time it automatically changed from red to green. 14
Elsewhere, the occupation worked well because it was guided by Moshe Dayan, who followed the principle “the lighter the grip, the firmer the hold.” Less than two weeks after the war ended, he ordered the army to exit Arab cities and position itself in military bases outside. German television crews were stunned to see Arabs listening to Egyptian and Jordanian radio stations. In World War II, listening to enemy radio was a crime punishable by death. 15
As for the holy sites, Dayan the atheist had it down to a science: separate the two faiths and pray to God they coexist. In Hebron, the Ibrahimi Mosque built atop the Cave of the Patriarchs ( Me’arat HaMakhpela ) was divided in two. In Jerusalem, Muslims prayed in the Temple Mount above, while Jews prayed at the Western Wall below. King Solomon could not have crafted a more elegant compromise.
The splendid little war that Israel fought in 1967 stood alone upon the bomb – cratered battlefields of the twentieth century as perhaps the only conflict that turned a profit. The direct cost of the war was only about $1 billion and was largely paid for with foreign donations.

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News: Australia probes suspected foreign funding of anti-Semitic attacks

Many Australian Orthodox Jews I know prefer to live in America because they encounter less hatred of Jews.

Trad Jews I know from Sydney recall receiving threats and vilification almost every day that they walked around wearing a yarmulke. Many of them were beaten up by white Aussies. This near daily abuse ended about 10-15 years ago but it is starting up again, though the abuse usually comes these days from Muslim immigrants.

Al Jazeera reports:

Australia is investigating suspicions that funding from outside the country is behind a surge in anti-Semitic crime.

Detectives investigating the anti-Semitic attacks across the country have concluded that foreign actors have been paying local criminals to commit them, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday.

I wonder how long till this comes to America?

In my trips back to Australia at the end of 2021 and 2022, I encountered no abuse when wearing a yarmulke. My mates in Sydney shuls then said that it had become rare.

Australia’s Jewish community is cohesive and organized and since 9-11 has had excellent security protocols.

These recent Sydney attacks hit me hard because I know these places that got hit, and I had such idyllic visits back home to Sydney. I felt like my life was charmed. I could enjoy my intense Jewish, Australian and American identities with little conflict between them.

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