Meltdown
Warning: This scene contains violence.
As I watched Trump’s post election response yesterday, including the unceremonious firing of Jeff Sessions, I was reminded of this scene from the Untouchables where Robert DeNiro, as Al Capone, dispatches one of his “team” with a baseball bat for disloyalty. The impression was reinforced for me, though, when Trump went full-on De Niro during his press conference, gloating about how Republicans (which were individually named) who refused to kiss his ring were defeated on Tuesday. The meltdown came, thought, after members of the press started asking Trump really tough questions. He paced, shouted at reporters, and almost walked off the stage as Jim Acosta from CNN pressed him about the racist fake caravan issue that Trump had relentlessly flogged in the run-up to election day. The day ended with Acosta being banned from the White House and Sarah Sanders falsely accusing him of putting his hands on a WH intern when she tried to wrench a microphone out of his hand during Trump’s meltdown. In a statement, CNN responded to Sander’s lie, calling her lie a lie.
After Sander’s false allegations, the Twitterverse erupted, attacking Sanders, and pointing out the irony of the White House accusing a reporter for touching a young female intern after defending Trump against almost two dozen accusations of actual sexual assault.
So what’s really going on here? What’s going on is that Trump is terrified of what happens next. The Dems can now subpoena his staffers and his sycophants. He’s installed a goon as acting AG. The Dems have already requested document retention of all communications between said goon and the White House for further investigation. In January, the House will most certainly subpoena him to testify under oath about his record of partisan defense of Trump and his allies. Mueller is coming, and I have to believe that he has disceminated his findings among other law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction. Trump most certainly understands that he’s in a box now that he’s lost the House. If he fires Mueller, the House will ask him to testify before the Judiciary committee and he’ll sing like a bird. If Trump’s goon, Matthew Whitaker, is nominated for permanent AG, that hearing in the Senate will be ugly.
Many, including me, have predicted that this presidency will not end well. We’re getting ever closer to that end, and the strain on His Orangeness has turned him, if that’s even possible, into an even more clownish figure with his heavily made up tanning bed glow that exaggerates his raccoon eyes and ugly ducktail hair weave. Add that to his ever increasing erratic behavior and temper tantrums, and the picture is ugly. Really ugly. My only question now is not how his presidency will implode, but when. I just hope he doesn’t get a lot of innocent people killed or injured before that happens.
Re Sessions, I’m reminded of this:
“jeff sessions is the only confederate monument trump was willing to take down” — Clint Smith / @ClintSmithIII
Re ugliness,I’m reminded of this:
“But Trump, with his visceral revulsion at the concept of service, is still the greatest danger. It is Trump whose past has finally caught up with him; it is Trump who stands the most to lose; it is Trump who unilaterally can launch nuclear weapons. Trump has shown that human beings have little inherent value to him. If Trump senses he may have to make a personal sacrifice, he will sacrifice the world instead.” — Journalist Sarah Kendzior in https://tinyurl.com/ycpbz5hb
1Thanks, El Jefe, for the play-by-play. Since i can’t watch His Orangeness for (mental) health reasons, I appreciate the update.
January can’t come soon enough!
2Hoping Trump will just implode and go away but I don’t believe that will happen. If the Orange Outrage thinks he may be impeached or even that things are getting too hot for him and his family/cronies, he won’t have a second of hesitation to ramp up the hatred and racism even more to distract from all his garbage. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll find a nice little war to start. I fear that too many innocent people will die because Trump doesn’t give a rip about others. Especially those who don’t love, love, love him. America is in deep doo-doo!
3First off, OF COURSE Mueller is seventeen steps ahead of Trump. The parallels with Watergate are astonishing and, by the time Nixon had Cox fired, all the related documents had been disseminated far and wide. And, because Nixon wasn’t an imbecile, Cox had far less warning than Mueller has had. Trump can’t stop this train.
Second, @ G Foresight:
I read, years ago that, when Nixon was melting down, the Joint Chiefs got together and made contingency plans in case Nixon should try to order nuclear weapons to be deployed. Fortunately, Nixon turned out not to be THAT crazy.
Obviously, on his best day, Trump has proven himself crazier than Nixon was on his worst — witness his wondering aloud, during his initial briefings before being sworn in, “If we’ve got nukes, why can’t we use them?”
Bank on it, the Joint Chiefs have had The Conversation already.
And, just as obviously, Trump is not capable of operating the Football hisownself.
All this is not to say that we are not living in perilous times or that no one is likely to be injured or die during the regime change that is coming — but world annihilation is highly unlikely, at least.
Trump WILL take down as many other people as he can in an attempt to save himself, that’s certain. But, just as our democratic system proved itself, two nights ago, to be strong enough to thwart his attempts to dismantle it, so it can still protect the vast majority of us from him.
The situation that worries me the most is that his followers will attempt to pick off as many of us, one by one, as possible during the chaos. That scenario has already begun.
4While I agree Trump has stupid temper tantrums which rule his day, I believe yesterday’s firing of the Keebler has long been in the plans.
Once assured of a Senate majority to fend off an impeachment from the house, Trump’s best defense is an offense now: kill the dog before it bites, though killing a dog may be intolerable, it’s better in Trump’s reasoning than being indicted or removed from office.
Trump and McConnell are ruthless. As foolish as they may seem on the surface, his actions concerning the Russia investigation are intentional. Remember please, he has Lindsey Graham’s pre-approval.
It is time for Senators to challenge the bulldozing rule of Mitch McConnell. When, and if, that ever happens, Trump will apply for his visa to Moscow.
5As for protection of Mueller after the loss of Sessions, someone – I truly forget who – was given the job of writing the rules and regs for the investigation. One of those rules was the protection of Mueller from bloodthirsty pirates like the Golden Gibbon. Of course, no one in the WH ever read it. As for the House Committees that really need to read it and conjoin it with their own legitimate power, even though the winners are not yet sworn in and assorted to the different committees, they had better do it now and come up with one helluva good plan to prevent what the GG so desperately seeks. Got that, Congressmen and wen? Right damn now!
6Cornered animals put up the fiercest fight.
7I’ve been saying for months that this is a fight to the death between Mueller and Trump. Now Trump is fighting for his life.
8@Ralph Wiggam
Some days, That’s how I wish it worked for potus. Give the current president and their challenger(s) each fairly dull hatchets and duct tape their left wrists and hands together. Winner serves as potus until the next round of challengers comes along.
The only 2016 contender I regarded worse in a fight for your life was Canadian Cuban Raphael. Alternately I can EASILY see Hilary bashing combatants with steel folding chairs. Not only do I think she’d have made a president in the Andrew Jackson mold, but I think her cojones are twice the size of the current president’s, figuratively speaking.
9Teppichfresser. I do believe that DJT is channeling Hitler, and his more frequent rages show that he lacks the finesse to be able to defend his decisions logically. I can’t bear to think too much right now the role of his “militias”. It won’t end well.
10Meanwhile back at the ranch, Trump’s acting attorney general was a board member of Miami Beach-based company World Patent Marketing, which the FTC called a scam and shut down.
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/trumps-acting-attorney-general-matthew-whitaker-was-part-of-world-patent-marketing-a-miami-based-invention-scam-company-10893091
He should fit right in.
11Matt Whitaker is one of very few people who could mud wrestle with Sam Clovis with Sam being the one to emerge muddier. The corruption level of this maladministration surpasses anything we’ve come to associate with a syndicated crime trial.
The cautionary tale for House Democrats: there is no need to hype the facts. Indeed, to make the full and actual truth believable will require a steady hand on the soft pedal.
12I hope Schiff, Cummings, Nadler and all the other House committee chairs make them spend so much time being questioned, they have no time to damage the country any further. Now I have to find all the C-SPANs on my cable service.
13Hopefully, “two crows” is correct about unofficial fail safes taking hold. But technically a president alone can initiate nuclear warfare.
“A Trump White House would need military officials to actually carry out the attack, but the order to do it is his and his alone. Any military officer who doesn’t comply with the presidential order would be subject to a court martial.”
…
“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes….It’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.” — Hillary Clinton
https://tinyurl.com/yaj458rz
14G Foresight, only in a farce should a patriot be court martialed. In matters of conscience the “legal and lawful order” provision of the UCMJ would supersede any imaginary powers Donnie might think are his. Seriously. Without either military or other intelligence indicating a valid reason to launch any order for undefined or nefarious purpose would be apparent.
15@jane&pkm
16During watergate we still had a “citizens” army that still had draftees
Now we have nothing but cut rate merc’s who think nothing of using the Nuremberg defense of “just obeying orders” to protect themselves from any ethics, principles or morality.
Under the ucmj, that had incorporated lessons from Nuremberg the invasion of Iraq was an illegal order but the uniformed gang bangers obeyed it since they were “just obeying orders”
The torture of prisoners at abu grading, gitmo our and all to many other places is against ucmj but as long as they had orders the military was fine with ignoring the ucmj.
The list of these cheap merc’s dishonoring the country and what the uniform used to stand for is nigh on endless.
So after at least 15 to 20 years of illegal behavior and flaunting of international law and the ucmj one assumes that they will find a conscious is hopeful but I fear unrealistic.
I fear that the present day “military” and demented Donnie are perfect matches
K, I wouldn’t dispute that there was scurrilous lawyering that preceded the Iraq invasion nor deny that there were too many infractions of the UCMJ at lower levels that went unprosecuted. While calling the entire military of today merc is hyperbolic, there are indeed elements of the alt right who have infiltrated the ranks and there is definitely way too heavy a reliance on actual mercenaries passing as civilian ‘contractors.’ The brother of Betsy DeVile is just one example of what can go wrong.
However, when it comes to MAD (mutually assured destruction) expect that even dwindling consciences will err on the side of the UCMJ.
17“Jane & PKM” yes I agree it seems logical for a patriot not to worry about court martial in such an existential situation. But rather than relying on unspoken norms and assumptions or a military person’s interpretation of the UCMJ, how about a formal, mandated law requiring ANY president to get the approval of a second person (perhaps the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?) before nuclear weapons are unleashed, especially in a “first use” situation. (The U.S. position currently allows for the first use of nuclear weapons in a crisis or conflict, the last I looked.) The way the system works now is a president alone can initiate nuclear warfare and we have to hope there are principled people in place as a safety valve check and balance.
18Here’s my take on the most favorable outcome possible from yesterday’s election results. Winter is coming, the Dems prepare a blizzard of subpoenas for The President. They send him a brief synopsis, and offer a week for review by his attorneys and their assessment.
Even Trump can see it’s bad. Reality settles in and sparks flicker around the dimming reality star. A period of what will be called “bi-partisanship” settles over our nation’s capitol, as the the House of Representatives extracts as many concessions from the executive branch (with the West Wing’s implicit encouragement of the Senate to play along), while various investigations are pushed one by one on the back burner.
Everybody gets a little something. By the time 2020 rolls around, Trump is viewed by his base as the emasculated bootlicker of Nancy Pelosi, and even White Nationalists can’t hold their noses long enough to vote for him.
In January 2021 President Elizabeth Warren is sworn in.
19Jane & PKM,
define “lower levels”?
I know chent wasn’t under ucmj but his and the twits support of torture seems to have made the coup’s position on torture clear and the rank and file of the military embraced it with open arms.
Present head of CIA, though not under UCMJ, destroyed evidence of torture that a judge told her to protect and she got a promotion for it.
Genrals embraced the “freedom” of using drones on wedding parties while ignoring collateral damage, another violation of the UCMJ, and yet they are now in the white house and head of the DoD.
How many people in the military have declared nuclear war “survivable” where all one needs is a shovel and a few feet of dirt to protect from fallout.
How many christianist’s ( espiacially in Air force after being processed through christianist indoctrination program at Colorado springs) pining away for the armeggedon so they can smite the evil doers.
Just how few whackjobs are needed to light the world on fire when they can claim they were “just obeying orders”?
So please where does your confidence that these cheap merc’s, who like the andrews sisters song said, are just working for the yankee dollar come from?
Please I could use some.
p.s. they see violations of the ucmj, they look the other way, they obey illegal orders. Their is no honor left in the military just avarcice, authortarian thugs engaging in their bloodlust on other peoples dime and free from any consequences.
20So like the police who look away and defend their fellow officer on the Chicago murder of Laquan McDonald by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke they have betrayed their oath and have delegitimized their badge/uniform. So it is with the military. Silence equals guilt.
K, sorry should have expanded; by “lower levels” meant lower ranks who should have known better below the brass and civilians who knew but didn’t care.
Maybe you can tell me the name of the prevalent alt right group known to have infiltrated the military lately that I read about but forgot the name. I share your concerns about the religious whackos, too. Especially those orbiting our Air Force Academy. Anyway, maybe my experience was luckier than most as I didn’t encounter the CIA, contractor types or the religious dingoes. Also didn’t receive any unlawful orders, partly my luck or maybe luck of the loons who sensed I was not their guy.
Bottom line. It’s all troubling if and when it happens to any degree. And the “alarms” should be sounded to educate people. But being alarmist about it is an over reaction from what I did observe and also probably counter productive to any efforts to raise awareness.
21Jane & PKM,
When all the propaganda came out claiming that the US military was the most “professional” ever that to me means that being a military instead of just a mob of trained murderers that they would know and obey the UCMJ.
Todays military is not the military of the past. The average age is what late 20 early 30’s now?
This is a career path for most. So heaven forbid if they blot their copybook by pointing out the crimes of the military. We have seen how the military will protect its own no matter what.
22This goes back to at least the clinton admin when a general at fort Lewis ordered a senior nco to certify that the generals freinds got paid for extra duty ( packing parachutes?) they did not do.
That nco was busted and effectively drummed out of the service. Meanwhile on at least two reviews found the NCO in the right and the general wrong. The Pentagon and Pres. clinton specificaly ordered general to reinstate the nco and award all rank increases and benefits. The general refused this direct order 3 times and instead of getting court martialed and sent to leavenworth he was given a grade bump and allowed to resign with all benefits etc.
Sorry but these force has been irredeemably perverted and dishonored.
Remeber the only people who have faced the full force of military justice has been Manning and others who actually did live up to their oath. All prosecutions of murder and war crimes has been over the objections of the military and excused bad behavior for their thugs.
The number of right wing terrorist being recruited by the military go under a plethora of names so am unaware of the nom de jour.
Particiapaiting or assisting in the iraq war in any manner ( logistics, transport, medical aid etc) was obeying an illegal order.
Just making sure the trains ran on time does not absolve one of war crimes.
Just for the record: When my wife or I knows that a particularly gory scene is about to happen, and others don’t know, we announce “Baseball!!”. Then the others are prepared and they can be elsewhere till the blood stops…
23K, for the purposes of discussion and clarity, please allow me to focus my thoughts on Abu Ghraib. Which btw was before my time, but I could also cite examples going back to the Revolutionary War or Petraeus more recently that are egregious, too. Mama would not forgive me my thoughts on Petraeus and his handling of classified material. That said. Abu Ghraib. Still too many unanswered questions. A number of lower ranking enlisted personnel were held to account for their actions. Where were the officers and NCOs, when all of that was taking place apparently under CIA command? I can’t comment on the severity of the punishment of those punished without knowing WTH everyone else was who should have been instructing and leading. Most culpable to me from what has been made available was the one Army general who said she had not visited her own outpost because she was told not to do so. Say what? My first instinct would have been to schedule a visit on the next thing smoking to learn what “they” were attempting to hide from me. Not to mention the FIRST duty of any officer is to protect their troops. Her actions and inactions are the worst of what you described in the realm of turning a deaf, dumb and blind eye to abuse and infractions of the UCMJ.
Not dissimilar to rogue cops. Although few, they would be fewer if the good folks on the force did their jobs. They is not to say all good cops should quit or that the military should lay down their arms. Just do our damn jobs. That’s not asking too much.
24If they won’t do their jobs they should lay down their weapons.
And, as your example pointed out, the “senior” ranks are rife with authoritarian thugs who don’t accept the rule of law.
No excuses.
No sympathy.
No mercy.
In all justice I think that Snowden should get the same deal as betyraus, including getting his security clearence back, lost wages and continued employment as a Consultant, just like betyraus.
25Betyraus betrayed his country for money and a piece on the side.
Snowden did it for ethical and moral principles
Jane & PKM,
” Although few, they would be fewer if the good folks on the force did their jobs.”
If they won’t or don’t do their job they can no longer be considered, good cops, good soldiers or good people.
For evil to triump only requires good people not to do their jobs.
26They are as evil as those they avert their gaze from. They are enableing and protecting the rogues.
K, the ‘good’ people at the Air Force Academy will have their opportunity to clean house. A Jewish cadet is withdrawing after being harassed by upperclassmen with a hate message. The eleven Jews murdered in Pittsburg “will burn in hell for not accepting the ‘savior.'”
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/11/air-force-academy-fails-religion-test-wake
Might help to overhaul the chaplains as in ‘retire’ every one of them above the grade of 0-1. Since that specialty starts with a rank of 0-2 or 3, it would be a start. Followed by keel hauling the ‘leadership’ at the academy for failing to teach and enforce UCMJ 101. Wouldn’t hurt to do a little cost saving at the Pentagon with reductions in rank then retirement of that bloat of flag officers.
Two questions for our Congress varmints. If every military unit can account for their expenses nearly to the penny, how is it that the Pentagon can not do the addition necessary to submit a full audit? Also, why continue to feed the beast that bites our hands, until they submit the FIRST accounted for budget in decades? Seriously. They act like a Trump casino; can’t explain where the money went, so keep pouring in more.
27Jane & PKM,
28Just eliminate all cultish positions and ban all cult dogma on all bases.
No bible, no koran, no book of mormon. Secular military for a secular country should not be poisoned with the misogny and bigotry all of those tomes of toilet paper promote.
This is what the 3rd or 4th time that dishonorable cathedral of bigotry, misogny, enforced ignorance and hate in colorado springs has been publicly exposed for their misbehavior and yet they continue on their merry way knowing as long as they can dishonor the flag by wrapping themselves up in it and using it as shield to hide their gross violations of decent conduct.
Rape and promotion of cultism ( christianist).
It is obvious that the institution is irredeemably corrupt.
It is time just to shut it down, bulldoze it and salt the earth on that despoiled property.
Otherwise demented donnie is going to make the next superintendent Dodson and require all instructors and staff be appointed by that hate group focus on the family.
Strip all graduates of rank and cashier them with dishonorable discharges.
They canNot be shamed since they have no shame.