#US Joint Chiefs of Staff

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Joel B. Pollak

General Charles Q. Brown Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed Thursday that the U.S. is not providing Israel with all of the weapons it has requested for its war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Earlier this month, reports emerged that Israeli military leaders believed that the U.S. was “slow-walking” deliveries of arms and ammunition as a way to create more leverage over Israeli policy and appease critics of Israel in the U.S.

General Brown appeared to confirm those reports — at least partially.

Reuters (via the Times of Israel) reported:

The United States’ top general says Israel had not received every weapon that it has asked for, in part because US President Joe Biden’s administration was not willing to provide at least some of them. “Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they’ve not received everything they’ve asked for,” says General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Some of that is because they’ve asked for stuff that we either don’t have the capacity to provide or not willing to provide, not right now,” Brown adds, while speaking at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant spent two days in Washington, DC, this week, meeting with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, partly to request more arms and ammunition for the continued fight against Hamas and Hezbollah.

[timesofocean]

Pentagon investigates 'classified' Ukraine war documents circulating on social media

New Post has been published on https://www.timesofocean.com/pentagon-investigates-classified-ukraine-war-documents-circulating-on-social-media/

Pentagon investigates 'classified' Ukraine war documents circulating on social media

Toronto (The Times Groupe) – Pentagon said on Friday it is investigating alleged screenshots of classified US and NATO documents concerning the war in Ukraine that are circulating on social media.

The documents, which carry US Joint Chiefs of Staff seals and allegedly belong to the US and NATO, were shared on Twitter and Telegram.

The U.S. Defense Department is “aware of the reports of social media posts, and the Department is reviewing the matter,” Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told Anadolu.

Singh did not specify if the documents and their contents are authentic.

Documents include Ukrainian army’s training, aid calendars

The documents include details such as analyses about the course of the war, humanitarian aid provided by different countries and calendars for aid being transmitted on the ground.

They do not show specific times and places of war but contain factual information about the requirements of the Ukrainian army for the following weeks.

On documents marked “top secret,” there are details about the Ukrainian battalion locations and sizes, as well as total losses on both sides. UKRAINE

A document listing the Ukrainian military equipment and training process suggests that 12 battalions have been prepared, and nine were trained by NATO allies and the US.

The same document reveals that six of the nine battalions will be ready by March 31 and the rest by April 30. The nine will need up to 250 tanks and 350 mechanized vehicles.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse:

Friday night, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who is black) and the Navy's top admiral (who is female) were fired, along with the most senior Judge Advocates General (JAGS) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an advocate of anti-racism training in the armed forces, has been replaced by Dan “Razin’” Caine. Caine is a retired Air Force lieutenant general, with none of the traditional qualifications for this position and whose return to active duty from retirement will require a legal exemption. Trump made it clear that Caine possessed the key quality he looks for in all of his top-level appointees: personal loyalty. In announcing the selection he recounted the story of meeting Caine in 2018, when Caine supposedly said, “‘I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.” Trump claims he then put on a Make America Great Again hat. Laughing, Trump said, “You’re not allowed to do that, but they did it.” It forces the question: Is Donald Trump trying to turn the military into a political weapon, just like he’s trying, and at least partially succeeding, in doing at the Justice Department? The Founding Fathers created a military with civilian leadership to minimize the prospect of a takeover by a military strongman. The principle of civilian leadership of the military is so deeply ingrained in Western democracies that it’s a requirement for inclusion in NATO.

[...] And that’s the heart of it, why dismiss them? Why on a Friday night? Why so many all and once? And why the Judge Advocates General? Members of the Judge Advocates General Corps, for instance, respond to legal questions about rules of engagement, targeting, intelligence law, and detainee operations. They are military lawyers whose core functions involve military justice and law of war. They offer advice on questions including what constitutes an illegal order, what is a war crime, what is a constitutional violation. Replacing their leadership with Trump loyalists could have serious implications for how the military reacts in a number of situations, including assisting with mass deportations and policing protests, which they are currently prohibited from doing by the Posse Comitatus Act. Members of the military take an oath to the Constitution, not a loyalty oath to the president. The idea of loyalty to the Constitution is deeply ingrained in the officer corps and among senior enlisted soldiers. But principles can be undercut, and the concern is that is what Trump and Hegseth are putting into motion.

Hegseth is now making good on the opinions that likely got him the job in the first place. On November 7, 2024, in a podcast interview, he said, “First of all, you got to fire the chairman [of the] Joint Chiefs. But any general that was involved—general, admiral, whatever—… in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.” Hegseth criticized chief of naval operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the Navy’s top combat officer, in his 2024 book, where he dismissed her as “another inexperienced first.” Hegseth’s baseless insistence that Black people and women can only achieve high rank by scoring what he characterizes as “DEI points” is despicable. And it’s belied by the fact, that Brown and Franchetti both have military experience that far exceeds Hegseth’s. They also have demonstrated commitment to the Constitution and our national security.

The Trump/Hegseth purges of military leadership on Friday night are about turning the military into a tool that serves Trump instead of the Constitution.

Guess who the ones purged by this military readiness-weakening move?

Mostly women and minorities in leadership roles.

[tomorrowusa]

« We don't take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it. »

— Gen. Mark A. Milley speaking as he stepped down as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and transferred responsibility to Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, Jr.. Via the Department of Defense.

In his farewell speech, Gen. Milley took an apparent dig at Donald Trump (a wannabe dictator) who regarded the military as his personal plaything.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Gen. Milley for remaining loyal to his oath during the dangerous Trump administration.

He has stepped down from his position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But his certificate of retirement (visible in the vid) indicates that he doesn't officially leave the US Army until the end of October. So after that he will be able to speak more candidly about Trump's attempts to undermine democracy. If he writes a book, it will probably be on the bestseller list in 2024.

[spotlightstory]

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took steps to prevent then-President Donald Trump from misusing the country's nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency, according to a new book by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa obtained by NBC News.

Their book, "Peril," said that in the days before the 2020 election, Milley also acted to prevent a potential conflict with China. The book said Milley received intelligence that Chinese officials believed the U.S. was getting ready to attack them. To defuse tensions, Milley called the head of China's military, Gen. Li Zuocheng, and told him the "American government is stable" and "we are not going to attack."

[newslink7com]

🚨 Trump’s Bold Move: Who Is Dan Caine, and Why Did He Replace Gen. Brown? 🚨

Trump's surprise pick for the Joint Chiefs of Staff is raising eyebrows. Who is Dan Caine, and what does his nomination mean for the military? Get the full story now.

👉 Read the full story at NewsLink7.com

[bloghrexach]

"The White House’s unprecedented decision to oust C.Q. Brown as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with other top military leaders triggered a Trump-era “Friday night massacre” that sent an ominous message to the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces.

**That’s according to The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, who wrote in an opinion piece published hours after the Pentagon shake-up that the military was “the last piece” 47 needed “to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government” after installing MAGA loyalists inside the Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence services."

Trump's ‘Friday night massacre’ sent a stark message that 'could not be clearer': expert

@hrexach

[gwydionmisha]

Pentagon to fire 5,400 workers, backlash builds to Trump downsizing effort

[davidaugust]

Hegseth and 45 are bad for US national security.

“‘Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,’ Hegseth wrote.”

https://apnews.com/article/trump-brown-joint-chiefs-of-staff-firing-fa428cc1508a583b3bf5e7a5a58f6acf

[generallemarc]

Good grief

[cynicalclassicist]

Yeh, this is what cutting DEI means. The Trump gang are not the most qualified people. They are an utterly unsuited gang of creeps, crooks, and fascists.

Trump said he plans to nominate Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine of the U.S. Air Force to replace Gen. CQ Brown as the nation’s top-ranking military officer.

Feb. 21, 2025, 6:27 PM MST / Updated Feb. 21, 2025, 8:52 PM MST

By Courtney Kube and Zoë Richards

President Donald Trump on Friday terminated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman CQ Brown Jr., the country's highest-ranking military officer, from his position.

Brown’s dismissal comes amid a wave of administration shake-ups, including efforts to cut up to 10% of the federal workforce, as part of the president’s crusade to reshape the federal government.

[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.

[sayruq]

Berlin announced on 23 April that it will resume cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza. Germany’s move came after an independent investigation headed by former French diplomat Catherine Colonna that found “neutrality-related issues” in implementing UNRWA’s procedures to “ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles of neutrality.” Colonna’s report made note that Israel provided no proof of whether UNRWA staff were involved with the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October. “The German government has dealt intensively with the allegations made by Israel against UNRWA and has been in close contact with the Israeli government, the United Nations, and other international donors,” a joint statement by the German Foreign Office and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development read. The former French diplomat’s investigation proposed reforms to UNRWA to increase the neutrality of staff and behavior, education, and governance, including methods to achieve these goals through engagement with donors. Germany pushed UNRWA to implement these recommendations, strengthen its internal audit functions, and improve the external surveillance of project management. “In support of these reforms, the German government will soon continue its cooperation with UNRWA in Gaza, as Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Japan, among others, have already done so,” the joint statement continued. Germany gave the UN agency over $200 million in 2023 and is the organization’s second-largest donor after the US. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the attacks on the agency “have nothing to do with neutrality issues but in reality, they are motivated by the objective to strip the Palestinians from the refugee status.”

[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.

[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.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Now some of you will automatically assume these people are being fired because they’re black, women, etc. That’s just a bonus for Trump.

Trump is replacing military leaders with loyalists who won’t question his orders because he’s planning on using the military against the public.

🖕🖕🖕