After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
At the Pentagon, the first of the three tweets raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action. Many said they were left in suspense for nine minutes, the time between the first and second tweet. Only after the second tweet did military officials receive the news the president was announcing a personnel change on Twitter.
Thinking about this a bit more, I'm a bit freaked out right now.
If the Pentagon doesn't know WTF Trump was about to tweet, but thought it could be NK strikes, WTF would NK read into it?
A nuclear missile could have been headed at Japan, or if our intelligence estimates are off, Hawaii or even the West Coast.
I fear it's possible that our reckless, impulsive, twitter-addicted child of a President just brought us closer to nuclear war than we've ever been in my lifetime (born in '67).
I think I'll be writing all of my congressmen (and women) to ban Trump from twitter,at the least
Some people say that you shouldn’t pay attention to Trump’s tweets because they’re a “distraction.” But the Pentagon is paying close attention. Because they know that any day now President Trump could wake up on the wrong side of the bed and announce World War III in 140 characters. Trump’s tweets have always been a late night punchline, but yesterday was a great reminder that they have real world consequences, whether it’s implementing shitty policies or nearly starting a war.
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And as if all of this wasn’t scary enough, there’s this from Admiral Scott Swift today who acknowledged that if President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on China, he’d have to follow orders.
“At risk of being blunt... if, when you return to your command next week, you were to receive an order from the commander in chief, the president of the United States, to make a nuclear attack on China, would you do it?” asked Pete Van Ness, an academic at a security conference in Australia earlier today.
“The answer would be yes,” Swift said. “Every member of the US military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as the commander in chief appointed over us.”
We all inherently know that last bit, but it's kinda terrifying when Adm. Scott comes right out and says "Yeah, we'll have to start WWIII if Donald Trump says so."
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.
Obviously, one of the first things he'll be looking into is Trump's insistence on making everyone worship the Christian God. Surely the first step of ensuring global freedom of religion is to make sure that the US and its President are modeling the desired behavior, and making sure that we foster an environment where everyone is free to practice their chosen religion free of interference or favoritism, even if that means practicing no religion.
Man, I can't believe I typed all that out without busting into laughter.
I can't imagine, even at my most inebriated, hearing a bouncer offering me an hour with a stripper for only $1,400 and thinking That sounds like a reasonable idea.-Two Sheds
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
At the Pentagon, the first of the three tweets raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action. Many said they were left in suspense for nine minutes, the time between the first and second tweet. Only after the second tweet did military officials receive the news the president was announcing a personnel change on Twitter.
Thinking about this a bit more, I'm a bit freaked out right now.
If the Pentagon doesn't know WTF Trump was about to tweet, but thought it could be NK strikes, WTF would NK read into it?
A nuclear missile could have been headed at Japan, or if our intelligence estimates are off, Hawaii or even the West Coast.
I fear it's possible that our reckless, impulsive, twitter-addicted child of a President just brought us closer to nuclear war than we've ever been in my lifetime (born in '67).
I think I'll be writing all of my congressmen (and women) to ban Trump from twitter,at the least
Some people say that you shouldn’t pay attention to Trump’s tweets because they’re a “distraction.” But the Pentagon is paying close attention. Because they know that any day now President Trump could wake up on the wrong side of the bed and announce World War III in 140 characters. Trump’s tweets have always been a late night punchline, but yesterday was a great reminder that they have real world consequences, whether it’s implementing shitty policies or nearly starting a war.
.
.
.
And as if all of this wasn’t scary enough, there’s this from Admiral Scott Swift today who acknowledged that if President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on China, he’d have to follow orders.
“At risk of being blunt... if, when you return to your command next week, you were to receive an order from the commander in chief, the president of the United States, to make a nuclear attack on China, would you do it?” asked Pete Van Ness, an academic at a security conference in Australia earlier today.
“The answer would be yes,” Swift said. “Every member of the US military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as the commander in chief appointed over us.”
We all inherently know that last bit, but it's kinda terrifying when Adm. Scott comes right out and says "Yeah, we'll have to start WWIII if Donald Trump says so."
Asked by an academic in the audience whether he would make a nuclear attack on China next week if Trump ordered it, Swift replied: "The answer would be: Yes."
"Every member of the U.S. military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as commander and chief appointed over us," Swift said.
He added: "This is core to the American democracy and any time you have a military that is moving away from a focus and an allegiance to civilian control, then we really have a significant problem."
Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Charlie Brown later said Swift's answer reaffirmed the principle of civilian control over the military.
"The admiral was not addressing the premise of the question, he was addressing the principle of civilian authority of the military," Brown said. "The premise of the question was ridiculous."
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
“The answer would be yes,” Swift said. “Every member of the US military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as the commander in chief appointed over us.”
We all inherently know that last bit, but it's kinda terrifying when Adm. Scott comes right out and says "Yeah, we'll have to start WWIII if Donald Trump says so."
What if the president and CiC is the enemy to the Constitution we need to defend against?
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General "“I like taking the guns early...to go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.” -President Donald Trump. "...To guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the Ballot-box, the Jury-box, and the Cartridge-box, that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country." - Frederick Douglass MYT
"The admiral was not addressing the premise of the question, he was addressing the principle of civilian authority of the military," Brown said. "The premise of the question was ridiculous."
It was a public question that the admiral could only answer one possible way, but I don't think major strikes have *ever* been as simple as the president picking up the phone and ordering an attack on a whim. There are layers of advising built into the system, and in practice that advising puts a professional military check on the president's military orders.
If Trump had a midnight breakdown and called up Strategic Air Command with orders to flatten Mexico City, it would not happen.
Of course the defined power of the Commander-in-Chief suggests otherwise, but that power has never been tested because we've never had a truly reckless POTUS before now. The one time there was concern (late-stage Nixon), the Pentagon took steps to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons without secondary approval from the SecDef or the Joint Chiefs.
Holman wrote:If Trump had a midnight breakdown and called up Strategic Air Command with orders to flatten Mexico City, it would not happen.
Of course the defined power of the Commander-in-Chief suggests otherwise, but that power has never been tested because we've never had a truly reckless POTUS before now. The one time there was concern (late-stage Nixon), the Pentagon took steps to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons without secondary approval from the SecDef or the Joint Chiefs.
It would fall to VP Pence and a majority of Trump's cabinet to declare Trump unable or unfit to serve. What are the chances of that happening after Comey and now Sessions?
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
Holman wrote:If Trump had a midnight breakdown and called up Strategic Air Command with orders to flatten Mexico City, it would not happen.
Of course the defined power of the Commander-in-Chief suggests otherwise, but that power has never been tested because we've never had a truly reckless POTUS before now. The one time there was concern (late-stage Nixon), the Pentagon took steps to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons without secondary approval from the SecDef or the Joint Chiefs.
It would fall to VP Pence and a majority of Trump's cabinet to declare Trump unable or unfit to serve. What are the chances of that happening after Comey and now Sessions?
Does the War Powers Act apply to nukes and other types of warfare that aren't really declaring war? I hope we never have to find out.
Holman wrote:If Trump had a midnight breakdown and called up Strategic Air Command with orders to flatten Mexico City, it would not happen.
Of course the defined power of the Commander-in-Chief suggests otherwise, but that power has never been tested because we've never had a truly reckless POTUS before now. The one time there was concern (late-stage Nixon), the Pentagon took steps to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons without secondary approval from the SecDef or the Joint Chiefs.
It would fall to VP Pence and a majority of Trump's cabinet to declare Trump unable or unfit to serve. What are the chances of that happening after Comey and now Sessions?
I don't think removal would be the immediate result. If he ordered some completely unhinged action, the relevant top people (Mattis, McMaster) would talk him down from it before even the rest of the administration heard about it.
If he tweeted it all out or it was immediately leaked, obviously that's a different story, but the Pentagon would still find ways to stall and delay and give him a face-saving out. That's what national security requires when the leader himself is a danger.
Whether he stays or leaves there is a conspiracy to cover all results.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
Mote likely that Trump's inflammatory speech will blow back on him naturally. It was his idea, after all, that maybe those Second Amendment people might do something about it.
Trump has been throwing gasoline on the fire for months. Eventually more people will get burned.
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
Wow, this NYer article on Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director is pretty intense.
“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ”
So the new communications dir just openly called the WH Chief of staff "a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac."
Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
Last edited by Enough on Thu Jul 27, 2017 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
Holy shit, those are direct quotes? Yeah, this guy is absolutely about to be chief of staff. He's exactly like Trump.
I can't imagine, even at my most inebriated, hearing a bouncer offering me an hour with a stripper for only $1,400 and thinking That sounds like a reasonable idea.-Two Sheds
I got the sense that Scaramucci’s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I’ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. “What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,” he told me.
He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”
“What?” I interjected.
“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this.
“Well, he doesn’t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he’ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.”
Scaramucci said he had to get going. “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.”
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
At the Pentagon, the first of the three tweets raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action. Many said they were left in suspense for nine minutes, the time between the first and second tweet. Only after the second tweet did military officials receive the news the president was announcing a personnel change on Twitter.
Thinking about this a bit more, I'm a bit freaked out right now.
If the Pentagon doesn't know WTF Trump was about to tweet, but thought it could be NK strikes, WTF would NK read into it?
A nuclear missile could have been headed at Japan, or if our intelligence estimates are off, Hawaii or even the West Coast.
I fear it's possible that our reckless, impulsive, twitter-addicted child of a President just brought us closer to nuclear war than we've ever been in my lifetime (born in '67).
I think I'll be writing all of my congressmen (and women) to ban Trump from twitter,at the least
Some people say that you shouldn’t pay attention to Trump’s tweets because they’re a “distraction.” But the Pentagon is paying close attention. Because they know that any day now President Trump could wake up on the wrong side of the bed and announce World War III in 140 characters. Trump’s tweets have always been a late night punchline, but yesterday was a great reminder that they have real world consequences, whether it’s implementing shitty policies or nearly starting a war.
.
.
.
And as if all of this wasn’t scary enough, there’s this from Admiral Scott Swift today who acknowledged that if President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on China, he’d have to follow orders.
“At risk of being blunt... if, when you return to your command next week, you were to receive an order from the commander in chief, the president of the United States, to make a nuclear attack on China, would you do it?” asked Pete Van Ness, an academic at a security conference in Australia earlier today.
“The answer would be yes,” Swift said. “Every member of the US military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as the commander in chief appointed over us.”
We all inherently know that last bit, but it's kinda terrifying when Adm. Scott comes right out and says "Yeah, we'll have to start WWIII if Donald Trump says so."
They didn't even take it as far as I did. They are too washington-focussed to think what North Korea may have thought at the time.
Scary-ass shit there.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Anthony Scaramucci, the incoming White House communications director, told a reporter with the New Yorker that Reince Priebus, President Trump's chief of staff, is a "fucking paranoid schizophrenic."
In a phone call with Ryan Lizza, the reporter, Scaramucci accused Priebus of leaking and suggested he may ask him to resign.
Scaramucci also threatened to "kill all the leakers."
"I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock," he said.
Anthony Scaramucci, the incoming White House communications director, told a reporter with the New Yorker that Reince Priebus, President Trump's chief of staff, is a "fucking paranoid schizophrenic."
In a phone call with Ryan Lizza, the reporter, Scaramucci accused Priebus of leaking and suggested he may ask him to resign.
Scaramucci also threatened to "kill all the leakers."
"I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock," he said.
Whatever he's on, he probably should have waited until after the interview to take it.
This really is good enough to be posted twice, I'm glad you persisted.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
After reading that New Yorker article, I have to give The Mooch some credit for his sense of irony in calling Priebus paranoid, given his own call for an FBI investigation into the "leaking" of a public document that the Politico reporter apparently downloaded from the Import-Export Bank website.
And what a genius he is in the world of media relations, saying all that to a journalist. Voluntarily and on the record.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon supports paying for middle-class tax cuts with a new top rate of 44 percent for Americans who make more than $5 million a year, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
Ryan Lizza just confirmed that he recorded his conversation with @Scaramucci
Too soon.
He should have waited until it was denied.
The Mooch wasn't denying that the conversation happened, and didn't deny the language, but he has already been on CNN denying that he was accusing Priebus of leaking to the press. That's good enough for me.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
There's a school of thought which opines that these dramatic outbursts of White House infighting are actually deliberate distractions. For example, what's getting the most press coverage at the moment -- The Mooch, or the Senate health care proceedings?
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Max Peck wrote:There's a school of thought which opines that these dramatic outbursts of White House infighting are actually deliberate distractions. For example, what's getting the most press coverage at the moment -- The Mooch, or the Senate health care proceedings?
Well, I checked Google News and the front pages of CNN, MCNBC, Fox, the New York Times and the Washington Post. For all but one of them, the health care debate was the top news item, with the Mooch either lower down or not a top news item at all.
I'll give you five guesses as to which one did not have the health care coverage as any of their four top news items, although it shouldn't take you more than one.
And here we see the President advocating for more police brutality. Awesome!
Not sure what's more depressing: the fact that he said it, or the fact that all the cops clapped and cheered. Fun fact, the former police chief of the department where he is giving this speech is currently serving a 46-month sentence for...you guessed it...beating up a suspect.
We won't even get into his speech's insinuation that all immigrants are violent criminals.
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.
