#Mark Milley (former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff)

[haphavocs]

Trump's former U.S. generals and defense secretaries are among his fiercest critics, with some declaring him unfit for office. Angered, Trump has suggested that his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, could be executed for treason.

Emphasis is mine because WTF. Apparently I've just been out of the loop because he said this last year!?

(Source)

[minnesotafollower]

President Biden’s Inspiring Praise of John McCain and Criticism of Donald Trump  and MAGA 

On September 28, 2023, President Joe Biden was in Tempe, Arizona to  announce a major federal grant to the state of Arizona to help design and build a new McCain National Library at Arizona State University. The President’s remarks on that occasion honored his deceased friend, John McCain, followed by the President’s blistering attack on Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA)…

[xtruss]

Analysis: What Israel Can Teach the U.S. About Confronting a Constitutional Crisis

Sometimes you not only need to vote—you also need to vote with your feet.

— By Aaron David Miller and Daniel Miller | Foreign Policy | March 18, 2023

A protester waves an Israeli flag during a massive protest against the government's judicial overhaul plan on March 11 in Tel Aviv, Israel (Illegally Occupied Palestine). Amir Levy/Getty Images

Over the past four months, in an extraordinary display of national resolve and resistance, millions of Israelis have rallied in the streets to protest their government’s efforts to revolutionize the judiciary. Because Israel does not have a written constitution or bicameral parliament, these so-called reforms, if enacted, would eviscerate an independent judiciary, remove the one check and balance standing in the way of unbridled government power, and fundamentally undermine Israel’s democratic system.

In a recent conversation with the author, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak noted that the behavior of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government during the current crisis evoked thoughts of the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Can the United States learn anything from Israel in its own efforts to stop democratic backsliding and combat a future constitutional crisis in the event, for example, that a president seeks to hold on to power, overturn the results of a free and fair election, and threaten the very essence of constitutional government?

At first glance, the sheer size of the United States and fundamental differences between the two countries’ political cultures and governance systems might appear to render comparisons moot, if not irrelevant. But a closer look reveals important takeaways from Israel’s situation that are worth considering. If Israelis succeed in checking this judicial juggernaut, and even if they don’t, there are lessons for Americans should U.S. liberal democracy be seriously threatened.

The biggest takeaway from what has been happening in Israel has to do with the size, tactics, and endurance of the protests themselves. For months, the world has watched Israelis engage in sustained, massive, nonviolent protests and civil disobedience in cities and towns across the country, drawing participants from nearly all sectors of society.

The scale, scope, and composition of these demonstrations are unprecedented in the country’s history. Hundreds of thousands regularly attend the protests, which are largely grassroots demonstrations, locally organized with former officials and intellectuals recruited to speak. On April 1, close to 450,000 Israelis took to the streets. That is close to 5 percent of the population, roughly equivalent to 17 million Americans. A recent poll showed that 20 percent of all Israelis have protested at one time or another against the judicial coup.

Given the vast disparity in size, replicating this kind of sustained protest movement is no easy matter. As a point of comparison, the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017, drew between 1 and 1.6 percent of the U.S. population. But that doesn’t mean this is impossible. Indeed, the Black Lives Matter protests that took place in the United States in the summer of 2020 were largely spontaneous and may have included as many as 26 million—and perhaps more—protesters in total.

Size is critical, but so is the character of demonstrations. The essential element is nonviolence. As Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan have demonstrated in studying civil resistance movements that occurred between 1900-2006, using nonviolent tactics—which can include protests, boycotts, and civil disobedience—enhances a movement’s domestic and international legitimacy, increases its bargaining power, and lessens the government’s efforts to delegitimize it. Although the vast majority of Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful (despite the false or misleading media and government claims to the contrary), there were acts of violence, looting, and rioting. Any future protest movement in the United States must shun this kind of destructive behavior.

The Israeli movement’s endurance and persistence has also been an asset. The struggle for democracy is not a 100-yard dash—as demonstrated in other countries, such as Serbia. In Israel’s case, the perception that the so-called judicial reform wasn’t just some technical adjustment to the political system, but rather a fundamental threat to Israelis’ way of life, sustained the protests. The profound anger and mistrust toward the Netanyahu government further catalyzed Israelis from virtually all sectors of society to turn out in the streets.

A second essential part of the response to the judicial legislation in Israel has been the active participation of military reservists who have signed petitions, participated in protests, and boycotted their formal and volunteer reserve duty. These reservists play a critical role in both intelligence and air force operations that are key to the current security challenges Israel faces.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the most respected institution in the country. In fact, what led Netanyahu to pause the judicial legislation was the surge of protests that followed his (since rescinded) decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant had publicly called for a halt to the judicial overhaul, arguing that it was jeopardizing Israel’s security. Adding to the pressure, a host of former IDF chiefs of staff, commanders, and former directors of Mossad have publicly opposed the judicial legislation. And even active, lower-level Mossad employees have been given permission to participate in the protests.

Such actions by former and current government officials are precisely what is needed to imbue the protests with additional legitimacy and to amplify the seriousness of the moment. Active members of IDF units have not refused to serve, and we’re not recommending that active U.S. military units join the protests. Indeed, given the U.S. tradition of the subordination of military to civilian authority, uniformed military would be hard-pressed to intervene in a political crisis.

Still, before the November 2020 election, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power pending the results, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley issued a public statement that the military had no role in an election and would “obey the lawful orders of our civilian leadership.” And senior military officials might well publicly remind the U.S. military—as the Joint Chiefs of Staff did in the wake of the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021—that their mission is to defend the U.S. Constitution.

At the same time, civil servants from throughout the federal government should consider joining the protests and have their organizational representatives (the American Foreign Service Association at the Department of State, for example), issue statements in support. These employees need not resign, at least at first, but they should make clear their nonpartisan opposition to efforts to undermine the rule of law and constitutional norms. The nonpartisan nature of these actions would be reinforced if they involved not just federal employees in Washington, but also the much larger workforce throughout the country. Furthermore, calls to protest could also involve state employees, particularly if the constitutional crisis stemmed from state action.

Third is the importance of strikes. The Histadrut—Israel’s largest trade union, with an estimated 800,000 members—called for a general strike that followed more limited strikes in the preceding months. That decision shut down departures from Ben Gurion Airport. Israel’s research universities and medical facilities (all public hospitals and community clinics) also called to strike, in addition to the closing of banks, businesses, and restaurants (including the ever-popular McDonald’s).

These tactics worked in Israel because, along with other measures (such as closing highways through acts of civil disobedience), they communicated to government ministers and Knesset members that unless they reassessed the situation, the country would shut down, with grave economic and political consequences. The tech sector had already begun to express major concerns that judicial reform as envisioned by the Netanyahu government could turn Israel’s image as a start-up nation into one of a shut-down nation, raising risks that foreign investment might be curtailed and Israeli entrepreneurs might decide to move out of the country.

To be sure, the same tactics could not be so easily deployed in the United States. First, 25 percent of Israeli workers are in a union, compared to 10 percent in the United States. Second, shutting down a country the size of the United States would simply be impossible (although such a strategy might have more success in a small enough state). Additionally, it is unclear if such strikes would help or hurt the opposition politically, particularly in light of the fact that COVID-19 school closures and other lockdown measures were fraught. But strikes should be explored and studied as possible tools. In the summer of 2020, tens of thousands of U.S. workers participated in a “Strike for Black Lives.”

Furthermore, taking a page from the sports strikes in the wake of the 2020 police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, there are more creative measures to explore in place of or in conjunction with traditional worker strikes. Sports leagues at both the college and professional level might suspend games until the crisis was resolved. If individual leagues were unwilling to participate, their stars could—and many likely would. What better way to cause a sustained, nationwide conversation about a specific topic that punctures all information bubbles than by forcing the cancellation of college football games, or the NBA playoffs, the World Series, or even the Super Bowl? In recent years, sports figures have increasingly become involved in politics, including ones from places you might not expect.

Similar strategies could be considered in the realm of Hollywood, the music industry, and other areas where Americans have a shared cultural appreciation and imbue their idols with the recognition and respect once enjoyed by political leaders. To avoid the appearance that these measures were partisan or political, these actions would need buy-in from actors, singers, entertainers, and writers from across the political spectrum, including from those who have always stayed above the political fray or who belong to the opposing political parties.

Fourth is the importance of respected political leaders, both current and former, joining the response to a severe political crisis. In Israel, former prime ministers have participated in the protest movement, including Barak and Ehud Olmert, as well as foreign and justice ministers such as Tzipi Livni. Former U.S. presidents have generally avoided this kind of participation, but in a severe crisis one can imagine former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, as well as other former senior officials from across the political spectrum, speaking out and participating in demonstrations.

Leadership extends beyond mere symbolism. Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid made calls for a general strike, among other involvement by elected officials. Similar kinds of bipartisan leadership from those in the U.S. House and Senate would be important to amplify the message of the protests and provide legitimacy. And of course, if the constitutional crisis originated from Congress itself, elected representatives could use their authority to shut it down. In this case, the protesters and other stakeholders, such as businesses, should view their opposition as a way to lobby Congress, including by promising to withhold financial backing to any member who participates in the unconstitutional scheme. There were similar actions in the wake of Jan. 6.

It would also be imperative for leaders to come from outside government, including from media organizations that represent a broad spectrum of U.S. politics. Given the United States’ problem with misinformation, this would be essential to accurately portray what was happening on the ground, including dispelling any untruths—for example, the notions that the protests had turned violent or that they were simply partisan reflections of one political party or another.

Finally, perhaps the most important lesson of all is to look for ways to motivate the public with an inclusive national response that transcends party and partisan affiliation. The reason the Israeli protests have been so effective is that even in a society rent by so many divisions, Israelis have gone into the streets because they believe deeply that their very way of life—the character of their society, and the image they have of Israel as an open, tolerant, and democratic polity with all its weaknesses, including and especially the Israeli occupation—is fundamentally threatened. As journalist Gal Beckerman has written, Israeli protesters have wrapped themselves in their flag—the most visible symbol of the protests. And this is something, according to Beckerman, that Americans should take to heart.

It is important to emphasize, though, that most Palestinians—including both those who are Israeli citizens (roughly 2 million out of a total population of 9.7 million) and those under Israel’s occupation and control—see the protests as an effort to protect Israeli Jewish democracy, not a movement to extend equal rights or statehood to them. Arab political parties in Israel have backed the protests, but the majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel, even while they have a great deal to lose should the judicial legislation pass, feel the demonstrations don’t address their needs, including equal rights and rising crime.

But without holding the line against a government whose objectives include de facto if not de jure annexation of the West Bank, continued second-class citizenship for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and enabling violence against Palestinians—as seen in the settler rampages through the West Bank town of Huwara—there will be no chance for peace, an end of the occupation, or statehood for the Palestinians.

And while we remain gloomy about any chance in the near term for an equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this protest movement has imbued Israel with a new energy and dynamism. It has created a focus on democracy, rights, and equality that hasn’t been seen in years and that could, under the right leadership, drive home the message that the preservation of Israel as a Jewish democratic state depends on ending the Israeli occupation and extending equal rights not just in principle but in practice to Palestinian citizens of Israel. One can at least hope so.

For the United States, the greatest challenge would be finding a way to wrap a movement in the U.S. flag and identify a broader set of unifying purposes that creates the biggest tent under which millions of Americans could rally. In today’s perniciously partisan environment, this would be hard—some might say impossible. To quote the historian Henry Adams, politics in the United States has become a “systematic organization of hatreds.” Without a written constitution, Israelis have turned to their Declaration of Independence as a source of inspiration, even as a set of principles for a future constitution. Perhaps the United States could do the same, turning to the basic founding principles that have shaped the country’s self-government.

The United States is perhaps the only nation in history founded on an idea: self-government in the interest of securing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Fundamentally, no matter the differences between Americans, what makes the United States special is its ability to self- correct, reinvent itself, and make progress toward guaranteeing opportunity, equality, and dignity for all. A truly national protest movement must be grounded in this dream and the aspiration of making it more accessible to everyone. We are hopeful and inspired by the younger generations in the United States today—by their commitment to making the country a better place for all Americans, and by how they would rise to meet the challenge if the United States were truly tested.

Of course, the best way to avoid illiberal backsliding, let alone a constitutional crisis, is to vote for candidates who respect the rule of law, abide by the Constitution, and adhere to democratic norms and standards. Once authoritarians entrench themselves in power, they can use their authority to remain there. But sometimes you not only need to vote—you also need to vote with your feet.

Some of this may seem naive and Panglossian. But the fight for U.S. democracy has always mixed the pragmatic and the aspirational. What has happened in Israel these many months has shown the power that people possess to safeguard their democracy when threatened. It’s not an easy conversation to have. But it’s worth having now because the stakes are so very high, and sadly, the dangers to the United States’ own democratic system are all too real.

— Aaron David Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.

— Daniel Miller is a Lawyer and Activist. Since 2016, he has engaged in various forms of Pro-democracy work and has written for the Washington Post, CNN, Daily Beast, and New York Daily News on democracy issues.

[bikerpoliticalreport]

Trump: Leaked Bedminster Audio an ‘Exoneration’

 Former President Donald Trump is speaking out against CNN’s release of audio it obtained of him speaking with associates at his Bedminster golf club in July 2021 about a military document concerning Iran, saying the report exonerates him in the federal charges he is facing in connection to classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

   “The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and ‘spun’ a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe,” Trump said on his Truth Social page Monday night after the audio aired on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

   “This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam. They are cheaters and thugs!” he wrote.

   The recording included details from a conversation special counsel Jack Smith used in his indictment accusing the former president of mishandling classified information, as well as some commentary that was not included in the indictment.

   The network has not said how it obtained the recording, and Smith’s office and the Department of Justice have not commented on the leak.

   The tape was said to have come from a July 2021 interview Trump gave to people who were working on the memoir of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff. According to Smith’s indictment, a writer, a publisher, and two of Trump’s staff members were present and shown classified information about a plan of attack on Iran.

   At the time, Trump was reportedly angry about an article from the New Yorker concerning arguments that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had made against a strike on Iran, and his concerns that Trump would escalate the situation.

   Smith’s office declined to comment to CNN about the audio release, but Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement that the tape “provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all.”

   Trump further railed against the indictment against him and about Smith early Tuesday, posting in an all-caps message on Truth Social a call for someone to “please explain to the deranged, Trump-hating Jack Smith, his family, and his friends, that as president of the United States, I come under the Presidential Records Act, as affirmed by the Clinton socks case, not by this psychos’ fantasy of the never used before Espionage Act of 1917.”

   He added that “Smith should be looking at crooked Joe Bidden [sic] and all of the crimes that he has perpetrated on the American public, including the millions & millions of dollars he extorted from foreign countries!”

   Most of the audio’s contents include conversation included in Smith’s indictment but also include the sounds of papers being shuffled.

   In the tape, Trump is also heard saying that he has a “big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this – this is off the record but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.

   “This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump continues, before noting that the document remained classified.

   “See as president I could have declassified it,” Trump says. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

   “Now we have a problem,” a staffer responds, to which Trump is heard saying, “Isn’t that interesting.”

   In the indictment, there are ellipses in places where the recording shows Trump and his aide talking about Clinton’s emails and her former aide Anthony Weiner, whose laptop led the CIA to reopen its investigation into her handling of classified information before the 2016 presidential election.

   Last week, during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier, Trump denied having classified documents with him during the meeting, reports The New York Times.

   “That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document per se,” he said. “There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.”

   The audio release comes as the information continues to grow concerning President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

   Last week, photos of Hunter Biden on his abandoned laptop show him at his father’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on the day he included his father’s name in a 2017 WhatsApp message to threaten a Chinese business associate.

   The investigation is also continuing into allegations that several members of the president’s family were receiving bank transfer payments from foreign entities, with the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., investigating alleged influence peddling schemes by Joe Biden and his family.

[c-rowlesdraws]

okay, one more politics post for the night:

tonight, Trump is doing a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I'm watching clips of it thanks to this brave man on twitter posting through it; I call this man brave because for me, watching a Trump rally live and unfiltered feels like looking directly at a solar eclipse, if a solar eclipse was also kind of like a racist, demented relative making a toast at Thanksgiving. And there's Some Stuff coming out of Trump's face tonight. He's talking about deporting "gang members" (read: latinos) by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same Act that Roosevelt invoked to force Japanese-Americans and others into internment camps during WWII. He's saying that "[America] couldn't have an act like that now, because now everything's woke". He goes on to call out "woke generals" Mark Milley, a Catholic, highly-decorated army general and Trump's former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General Jim "Mad Dog" or "Chaos" Mattis, a career Marine and Trump's former Secretary of Defense. He also added a fun local detour to his stump speech sure to make the fine folks of Latrobe smile: an anecdote about Arnold Palmer impressing all the other golf pros in the showers with his incredible, absolutely enormous penis. Trump wants this audience to know Arnold Palmer's thang was Swangin'. "This is a guy that was all man."

and I had to pause while writing this post and come back, so he probably said a bunch more wild stuff after that that I don't even know about yet!

The point is. My point is. This guy cannot be allowed to be president again. Ideally, he can eventually be pushed as far away from any sort of power as possible; but first, we have to vote to stop him from becoming the president again. And by "we", I don't just mean registered Democrats (hello)-- I mean everyone, of any political persuasion, who is eligible to vote. The folks in Trump's audience tonight applauding as he praises Arnold Palmer's huge hog on live television are beyond help, so it's up to the rest of us.

[progressivepower]

In response to Donald Trump, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN. MARK MILLEY, U.S.A. RET.) saI’d what EVERYONE who’s ever served should be saying right now: “We don’t take an oath to a king or queen or tyrant...We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution!” http://dlvr.it/T8cy87

[justinspoliticalcorner]

It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr Trump has shown that he will undermine the election process, with allies spreading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimise the results. There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has praised and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies. His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr Trump would adopt many of these intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House, he would interpret it as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power. Mr Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr Trump appointed three supreme court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor. Since Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight following Joe Biden’s exit, her campaign has been a masterclass in political jujitsu, deftly flipping Mr Trump’s perceived strengths into glaring weaknesses. With a focus on joy, the vice-president sharply contrasted with Mr Trump’s grim narrative of US decline. In their sole televised debate, Ms Harris skillfully outmaneuvered Mr Trump, who fell into her traps, appearing angry and incoherent. She is confident and composed. He sounds unhinged. [...] Political hope fades when we settle for what is, instead of fighting for what could be. Ms Harris embodies the conviction that it’s better to believe in democracy’s potential than to surrender to its imperfections. The Republican agenda is clear: voter suppression, book bans and tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats seek global engagement; the GOP favours isolation. The Biden-Harris administration laid the groundwork for a net zero America. A Trumpian comeback would undo it. A Harris win, with a Democratic Congress, means a chance to restore good governance, create good jobs and lead the entire planet’s climate efforts. Defeating Mr Trump protects democracy from oligarchy and dictatorship. There is too much at stake not to back Ms Harris for president.

The Guardian Editorial Board's endorsement of Kamala Harris for the 2024 US Presidential Election (10.23.2024).

The Guardian’s editorial board gave a powerful endorsement for Kamala Harris, as our democracy’s survival depends on her winning.

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Mark Milley Former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Damn… this is the first time seeing Mark since he left the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he still looks hot as fuck.

Letting his hair grow. Open shirt revealing he has a thick neck and he might be hairless. And I tell though those pants he has thick calves. Which I love. And bet he still has that thick ass.

That's husband material. Dare I say trophy husband material.

[tomorrowusa]

People who have heard Trump in private understand better what a danger he is to the country. Disproportionately this group consists of those responsible for protecting the United States.

Mark Milley was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top ranking person in the US military. He's one of the people Trump used to call "my generals". Now Gen. Milley is calling Trump "fascist".

Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States. Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

This wasn't a gotcha sort of thing. Gen. Milley went out of his own way to talk to Bob Woodward.

Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.” He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president. He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”

At his retirement ceremony Gen. Milley famously said...

We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

Of course Trump has promised to be a dictator on day one.

It's always easier to acquire dictators than it is to get rid of them.

[smoothestjazz]

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of the then-president’s supporters, Woodward writes that Milley insisted on securing a meeting with the then-newly-minted attorney general, Merrick Garland, to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.

According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was “deeply convinced” that Trump remained “a danger to the country” even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.

But the Army veteran expressed even more strident concerns to Woodward himself at a March 2023 meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC.

Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.”

He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.

He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.

“A fascist to the core,” Milley repeated.

[mariacallous]

Over the past week, Donald Trump has been on a fascist romp. At rallies in Colorado and California, he amped up his usual rants, and added a rancid grace note by suggesting that a woman heckler should “get the hell knocked out of her” by her mother after she gets back home. But on Sunday morning, he outdid himself in an interview on Fox News, by saying that “the enemy within”—Americans he described as “radical left lunatics,” including Representative Adam Schiff of California, whom he mentioned by name—are more dangerous than Russia or China, and could be “very easily handled” by the National Guard or the U.S. military.

This wasn’t the first time Trump suggested using America’s armed forces against its own people: As president, he thought of the military as his personal guard and regularly fantasized about commanding “his generals” to crush dissent, which is one reason former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reportedly told Bob Woodward that he sees Trump as “fascist to his core.”

The term fascism has been so overused as a denunciation that many people have understandably tuned it out. But every American should be shocked to hear a presidential nominee say that other Americans (including a sitting member of Congress) are more dangerous than two nations pointing hundreds of nuclear warheads at America’s cities. During the Cold War, conservative members of the GOP would likely have labeled anyone saying such things as a “comsymp,” a fellow traveler, or even a traitor. Indeed, one might expect that other Republicans would be horrified to hear such hatred directed at their fellow citizens and such comfort given to the nation’s enemies.

Pretty to think so. But today’s Republican leaders are cowards, and some are even worse: They are complicit, as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin proved today in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. At least cowards run away. The GOP elected officials who cross the street against the light just to get away from the reporters are at least showing a tiny, molecular awareness of shame. Youngkin, however, smiled and dissembled and excused Trump’s hideousness with a kind of folksy shamelessness that made cowardice seem noble by comparison.

Tapper read Trump’s remarks verbatim, and then asked: “Is that something that you support?” Youngkin replied that Tapper misunderstood Trump, who he said was referring to undocumented immigrants. No, Tapper responded, Trump clearly meant American citizens. Tapper added that Trump had singled out Schiff. Youngkin aw-shucksed his way through stories about Venezuelan criminals and Virginians dying from fentanyl. “Obviously there is a border crisis,” Tapper said. “Obviously there are too many criminals who should not be in this country, and they should be jailed and deported completely, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” And then, to his credit, Tapper wouldn’t let go: What about Trump’s threat to use the military against Americans?

Well, Youngkin shrugged, he “can’t speak” for Trump, but he was certain that Tapper was “misrepresenting [Trump’s] thoughts.”

Some of the people who watched Youngkin’s appalling dishonesty immediately thought of one of the most famous passages from George Orwell’s 1984: “The Party told him to reject the evidence of his eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

But this interpretation gives Youngkin too much credit. Orwell’s dictators were able to terrify people with torture and deprivation into accepting the government’s lies. Youngkin, however, is not a terrified subject of an authoritarian regime: He’s just an opportunist. Like J. D. Vance, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Youngkin is demanding that everyone else play along and pretend that Trump is just a misunderstood immigration hawk, and then move on—all so that Youngkin can later say that he was a loyal Republican when he contends for the leadership of the GOP after Trump is either defeated, retired, or long gone.

In this, Youngkin joins a long list of utterly dishonorable people, including Nikki Haley, who ran against Trump with energy and honesty and then bowed and scraped after she was defeated. As The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has noted, 10 Republican senators could have changed the course of history by supporting Trump’s impeachment. Ohio Senator Rob Portman, a supposed GOP moderate, is a particularly galling example. Portman twice voted against convicting Trump. He announced his retirement just weeks after the January 6 insurrection, and he had no electoral chances to protect (not that protecting one’s electoral chances is an honorable excuse). Still, he let Trump slide, perhaps out of fear of reproach from his neighbors back in Ohio.

It’s not exactly a revelation that the Republican Party’s elected ranks have become a haven for cranks and opportunists, and sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference: When Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, talks about how “they” can control the weather, it’s hard to tell if she is just a kook, if she herself is an anti-Semite, or if she is employing yet another anti-Semitic trope because she knows that some of the MAGA base feasts on such garbage.

For someone like Greene, the difference doesn’t matter. She is ignorant. And she traffics in ignorance. Her constituents have rewarded her with a safe seat in Congress. But in the Trump era, the conceit all along has been that more responsible Republicans such as Youngkin are lurking in the background, keeping their heads down while quietly and competently doing the people’s business.

Americans should therefore watch Youngkin’s exchange with Tapper for themselves. They should see that supposedly competent Republicans have already abandoned the party. To believe otherwise—especially after watching someone like Youngkin—is to truly obey the commandment to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A disappointingly bland statement from the nation's two best known exposé journalists.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 25, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 26, 2024

A bombshell story last night from the Wall Street Journal reported that billionaire Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, who is backing the election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with a daily million-dollar sweepstakes giveaway and gifts of tens of millions to the campaign, has been in regular contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin since late 2022. Reporters Thomas Grove, Warren P. Strobel, Aruna Viswanatha, Gordon Lubold, and Sam Schechner said that the conversations “touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.” 

Musk’s SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite system, won a $1.8 billion contract with U.S. military and intelligence agencies in 2021. It is the major rocket launcher for NASA and the Pentagon, and Musk has a security clearance; he says it is a top-secret clearance.

Today, NASA administrator Bill Nelson called for an investigation into the story. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia,” Nelson told Burgess Everett of Semafor, “then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Musk appears to be making a bid for control of the Republican Party for a number of possible reasons, including so he can continue to score federal contracts and because the high tariffs Trump has promised to place on Chinese imports would guarantee that Musk would have leverage in the electrical vehicle market. 

But Musk has competition for control of the party. Today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who lead the establishment Republican faction and the MAGAs, respectively, and thus are usually at loggerheads, issued a joint statement condemning Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris for “labeling [Trump] as a ‘fascist.’” They suggest she is “inviting yet another would-be assassin to try robbing voters of their choice before Election Day.” 

Observers immediately pointed out that, in fact, it is Trump who has repeatedly called Harris a fascist—as well as a Marxist and a communist—and that those calling Trump a fascist are former members of his own administration like former White House chief of staff General John Kelly, or leaders like former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, whom Trump himself appointed to his position and who called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country.”

Harris’s contribution to this discussion was that when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Harris directly if she thinks Trump is a fascist at a town hall this week, she answered: “Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.” 

Aside from the gaslighting of attacking Harris for something that Trump is the one doing, the statement seemed a calculated attempt to demonstrate Republican solidarity. But it was glaringly obvious that McConnell and Johnson found that solidarity only in attacking Harris. Their statement contained no praise of Trump. 

The struggle over the Republican Party also seemed evident in yesterday’s decision by the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, biotech tycoon Patrick Soon-Shiong, to kill that paper’s planned endorsement of Harris. Choosing not to make an endorsement in the race, Soon-Shiong said that he thought an endorsement would “add to the division” in the country. Elon Musk praised his decision.

Today the Washington Post also decided not to make an endorsement in the presidential race, despite the fact a piece endorsing Harris was already drafted. Publisher William Lewis said the paper was returning to its roots of not endorsing presidential candidates, although it has endorsed candidates for decades and did so in its early years as well. His statement seemed a weak cover for the evident wish of the Washington Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, to avoid antagonizing Trump.

Bezos gives Musk a run for his money at being the richest man in the world. But while Musk wants high tariffs against China to protect his access to electric vehicle markets, Bezos’s fortune comes from Amazon, and high tariffs would shatter his business. When he was in office, Trump went out of his way to find ways to hurt Amazon to get back at Bezos for unfavorable coverage in the Post. 

Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Mariel Garza, along with journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein, resigned from the paper after its decision not to endorse Harris, and nearly 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions. The Washington Post, too, has seen about 2,000 subscribers bow out, and fourteen of the newspaper’s columnists called the decision not to condemn Trump’s threats to the “freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution” “a terrible mistake.” Cartoonist Ann Telnaes published a blacked-out square, playing on the Post’s motto that democracy dies in darkness.

Readers are speaking out against the Washington Post for demonstrating what scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder calls “obeying in advance” the demands of an authoritarian leader (although Washington Post legal journalist Ruth Marcus, who signed the letter calling the decision a terrible mistake, pointed out that the Post itself was publishing the many letters of condemnation). “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” Snyder’s “On Tyranny” reads. “In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

The aftermath of the Post’s decision demonstrated what scholars say will happen after such obeying. Rather than winning favors, such a demonstration of weakness invites further abuse, as anyone who has watched Trump in action ought to know by now. 

Trump’s people pounced, with advisor Stephen Miller posting: “You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse.”

Trump then promptly went a step further, claiming that Democrats had taken part in “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery…in the 2020 presidential election” and warning that in 2024, “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again…. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s threats are designed to convince people he is a strongman who will inevitably win the 2024 presidential election. But to do that, he will have to go through the voters, who are demonstrating their enthusiasm for Democratic candidate Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

After the announcement by the Washington Post, others stepped up to endorse Harris. The largest Teamsters union in Texas endorsed Harris before her rally tonight in Houston. In a blistering editorial, the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Harris, saying: “America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” 

Tonight, Trump taped a podcast episode with Joe Rogan in Austin, Texas, hoping to reach Rogan’s large audience. He was still on the ground in Austin when he was supposed to be appearing at a rally in Traverse City, Michigan, and blamed the long taping for the fact he was three hours late to the rally. Tired of waiting, rally attendees streamed out. When he finally arrived, about 47,000 viewers watched the PBS live stream of the rally.

Harris was in Houston, where she took the fight for abortion rights to the heart of a state where an abortion ban has endangered women and driven up the infant mortality rate. People began standing in line before sunrise to get into the rally at the Houston Shell Energy Stadium and filled the 22,000-seat stadium to capacity. About 2.5 million people watched the PBS live stream. 

Harris shared the stage with actor Jessica Alba and music legends Beyoncé and Willie Nelson, who asked the crowd: “Are we ready to say Madam President?”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[dertaglichedan]

Bombshell transcripts: Trump urged use of troops to protect Capitol on Jan. 6 , but was rebuffed

Key lawmaker says interviews prove Pentagon wrongly allowed optics to overwhelm security concerns in lead-up to fateful day. The Pentagon's top brass did not comply with Trump's orders because of political concerns and "optics."

Then-President Donald Trump gave clear instructions to Pentagon brass days before the Jan. 6 riots to “do whatever it takes” to keep the U.S. Capitol safe, including deploying National Guard or active-duty troops, but top officials did not comply because of political concerns, according to transcripts of bombshell interviews conducted by the Defense Department's chief watchdog that shine new light on government disfunction ahead of the historic tragedy.

Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, confirmed to the Pentagon inspector general three years ago that during a Jan. 3, 2021, Oval Office meeting Trump pre-approved the use of National Guard or active duty troops to keep peace in the nation’s capital on the day Congress was to certify the results of the 2020 election.

Milley's interviews were among several key to transcripts obtained by House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and shared with Just the News.

“The President just says, ‘Hey look at this. It’s going to be a large amount of protesters come in here on the 6th, and make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or Soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event,’” Milley told the inspector general in one of two interviews he did in spring 2021 during a probe of the Pentagon’s response to Jan. 6.

Milley said then-Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, himself a former general, assured Trump there was an adequate safety plan for Pentagon assistance to Washington, D.C. “Miller responds by saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a plan, and we’ve got it covered.’ And that’s about it,” Milley recalled.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

SCARMUCCI DROPS SOME MELANIA DIRT!

HATERS GONNA HATE

“I judge the hatred of Donald Trump by the Melania standard,” the former White House communications director said during a podcast appearance Saturday.

Updated Sep. 01, 2024 6:42PM EDT / Published Sep. 01, 2024 12:06PM EDT 

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Anthony Scaramucci has claimed that Melania Trump wants Kamala Harris to win the 2024 presidential election, and that she “hates” her husband.

The former White House communications director recycled allegations that the former first lady is not keen on four more years in the White House during an interview with the MeidasTouch podcast over the weekend.

Claiming Melania “is tired of all this nonsense,” Scaramucci said of the 2024 presidential campaign,.“Nobody wants (Kamala Harris) to win more than me—maybe Melania Trump, that could be the only person I can think of.”

“I judge hatred of Donald Trump by the Melania standard,” he continued, adding that he could only think of one person (who he named as General Mark Milley, appointed by Trump as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019) whose apparent hatred for the former president surpasses that of his wife.

Scaramucci’s hyperbolic claims come nearly two months after Melania Trump was last seen with her husband, having made a one-night-only cameo at the Republican National Convention in July.

Scaramucci’s tenure in the Trump administration lasted a historic 11 days, amid a period of particular turnover and upheaval.

“The Mooch,” who has since left the GOP and supported President Biden’s campaign in 2020, has become a vocal critic of his former boss.

The comments come following a Friday interview when Scaramucci called out Trump’s “contradictory” comments on abortion, claiming Trump knows “he’s in trouble.”

“He’s done a very good job of the last nine years of saying two contradictory things at the exact same time and giving enough food for everybody at the table,” Scaramucci told Alex Marquardt on CNN’s The Situation Room.

[misfitwashere]

Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism 

ROBERT REICH

OCT 17

Friends,

Last week, Trump claimed that Kamala Harris 

“has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens.”

On Sunday, Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the biggest problem on Election Day will “not be the people who have come in, who are destroying our country,” but, rather

“the people from within — we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

On Monday, he closed his remarks to a crowd in Pennsylvania by saying his political opponents

“are so bad and frankly, they’re evil. They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”

These are echoes of the Nazism that flourished in Europe 90 years ago. 

Trump’s closing argument of the 2024 election is full-throated fascism. 

Retired General Mark A. Milley, whom Trump picked to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term (according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward).

Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney sees “no reason to disagree with [Milley’s] assessment,” adding that “The people that stopped [Trump] from his worst desires last time around won’t serve again.” 

On Monday, Hillary Clinton posted that Trump’s rhetoric now is “blatantly fascist.”

Trump has always had fascist tendencies. But fascist thuggery has now become the core of his presidential campaign. 

Fascism — different from and more dangerous than authoritarianism — has five elements,* all of which are now central features of what Trump is offering voters:

1. The rejection of democracy, the rule of law, and equal rights under the law, in favor of a strongman.

“I am your voice.” (Trump, 2016)

“The election was stolen.” (Trump, 2020)

“I am your warrior. I am your justice … I am your retribution.” (Trump, 2023)

Fascist “strongmen” are assumed to be above the law — above any legal or constitutional constraints — because they supposedly give voice to the people.

2. The galvanizing of popular rage against political opponents. 

“The people from within [are] bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics.” (Trump, 2024)

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” (Trump, 2023)

“Your enemies” are “media elites.” (Trump, 2016)

Fascists encourage public rage at political opponents for being the “enemy within” the country and seek revenge against them. In doing so, fascists create mass parties that often encourage violence.

3. Nationalism based on a dominant “superior” race and historic bloodlines.

“Migrants will ‘cut your throat’ … They have ‘bad genes.’” (Trump, 2024)

“Tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.” (Trump, 2015)

“Jewish people that vote for a Democrat [show] great disloyalty.” (Trump, 2019)

“Getting critical race theory out of our schools is … a matter of national survival.” (Trump, 2022)

Fascism manufactures fears of groups it considers genetically inferior — based on race, ethnicity, religion, or historic bloodlines — and whom it treats as subhuman. Fascists worry about disloyalty and sabotage coming from such groups within the nation. These “others” are scapegoated, excluded, expelled, sometimes even killed.

Fascists believe schools and universities must teach values that celebrate the dominant race, religion, and bloodline, and not truths that denigrate the dominant group (such as America’s history of genocide and racism).

4. Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors.

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong. (Trump, January 6, 2021)

Fascists assert that a nation’s well-being depends on the leadership of the strongest and elimination of the weakest. For the fascist, war and violence are means of strengthening society by culling the weak and identifying heroic warriors.

5. Disdain of women and fear of non-standard gender identities or sexual orientation.

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” (Trump, 2005)

“You have to treat ’em like shit.” (Trump, 1992)

“[I will] promote positive education about the nuclear family … rather than erasing the things that make men and women different.” (Trump, 2023)

Fascism is organized around the hierarchy of male dominance. The fascist heroic warrior is male. Women are relegated to subservient roles. In fascism, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family is considered a threat to the social order. 

Fascism seeks to eliminate homosexual, transgender, and queer people because they are thought to challenge or weaken the heroic male warrior.

These five core elements of fascism reinforce each other:

The rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage against perceived enemies, outside the nation and within. 

This popular rage draws on bigotry directed against supposedly inferior, subhuman groups, who are assumed to threaten the “purity” of the dominant group. 

That bigotry is supposedly justified by social Darwinist survival of the fittest, which is thought to strengthen the race or dominant group as a whole. 

The dominant group maintains itself through tests of its strength, as exemplified by heroic warriors.

Strength, violence, and the heroic warrior are centered on male dominance and the subjugation of women. 

All of these five core elements find expression in Trumpian fascism. All can also be found in the current Trump Republican Party.

America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about Trump’s authoritarianism. But in describing what Trump is seeking to impose on America, the media should be using the term “fascism.”

—-

*These five elements appear in the works of cultural theorist Umberto Eco, historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, political scientist Roger Griffin, and former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Vice President Kamala Harris stepped up her attacks on former President Donald Trump over reports by former aides that he has authoritarian tendencies, agreeing during a CNN town-hall-style event Wednesday that he is a fascist. “Yes, I do,” the Democratic presidential nominee said when moderator Anderson Cooper asked if she agreed with a recent characterization by his former White House chief of staff John Kelly that Trump fits the definition of a fascist. Harris’ concurrence with Kelly was an incremental sharpening of criticism she made earlier in the day in remarks to reporters in Washington. “We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power,” she said, while also taking aim at something else Kelly said: that Trump expressed admiration for Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler and his generals. Kelly is not the only former Trump aide to be quoted recently as thinking Trump wants to consolidate government power within the Oval Office if he is reelected.

Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Trump administration, called Trump “fascist to the core,” according to a new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. “I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist,” Milley is quoted as saying in the book. In her CNN appearance, Harris said people who worked in the White House and knew Trump best should be listened to when they call him “unfit and dangerous.” Kelly’s comments, in particular, amounted to “a 911 call to the American people,” she said.

Kamala Harris opened the CNN Town Hall last night by forthrightly stating that Donald Trump is a fascist when questioned by moderator Anderson Cooper on the topic. #CNNTownHall

See Also:

The Guardian: Harris praises John Kelly for sending ‘911 call’ to the US over Trump’s fitness to serve