192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Wed 27 Nov, 2019 04:33 pm
Quote:
Obama-Holdover Heading Russia-Probe Office Under Investigation For "Illegally Leaked" Classified Document

No conspiracy, no agenda for Obama holdovers?
Quote:
At the time, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of Defense, called Baker “a shallow and manipulative character that should have gone with the change in administration.” Perle further charged that the whistleblower “clearly was the target, for political reasons, of an effort to push him out of government,” saying “he’s a Trump loyalist, and it was launched and sustained by an Obama holdover.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obama-holdover-heading-russia-probe-office-under
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  3  
Wed 27 Nov, 2019 05:25 pm
@MontereyJack,
Sorry, missed that earlier. Subhead reads:
Quote:
The F.B.I. never tried to place undercover agents or informants inside the Trump campaign, a highly anticipated inspector general’s report is expected to find.

And...
Quote:
The finding is one of several by Mr. Horowitz that undercuts conservatives’ claims that the F.B.I. acted improperly in investigating several Trump associates starting in 2016. He also found that F.B.I. leaders did not take politically motivated actions in pursuing a secret wiretap on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page — eavesdropping that Mr. Trump’s allies have long decried as politically motivated.


Of course we'll have to wait for the published findings but this is likely the story. Fox coverage will be predictable. GOP comments will be predictable.

coldjoint
 
  -2  
Wed 27 Nov, 2019 05:54 pm
@blatham,
Quote:
Fox coverage will be predictable. GOP comments will be predictable.

No matter what they say? That is how nothing gets done, that is how you divide people. What are they going to say?
0 Replies
 
InfraBlue
 
  2  
Wed 27 Nov, 2019 11:45 pm
@coldjoint,
coldjoint wrote:

Quote:
Dubya Bush signed the act into law.

I know that. It does not change what Obama did.

Nor what Dubya did, nor what the psychopath-in-chief is capable of with this act.
coldjoint
 
  -2  
Wed 27 Nov, 2019 11:52 pm
@InfraBlue,
Quote:
nor what the psychopath-in-chief is capable of with this act.

Bush and Obama are out of office. Let Trump serve his term(s) and then you might have an example, but I doubt it.
0 Replies
 
Builder
 
  -3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 03:28 am
@blatham,
Quote:
Of course we'll have to wait for the published findings but this is likely the story
.

Making a measured prediction of events.

It's how the world moves forward.

0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 07:19 am
Quote:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”
- Hannah Arendt
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 11:57 am
@coldjoint,
Navy Secretary shoots down NY Times report claiming he threatened to resign in protest of Trump

Okay...

Richard Spencer: I was fired as Navy secretary. Here’s what I’ve learned because of it.

Quote:
The case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was charged with multiple war crimes before being convicted of a single lesser charge earlier this year, was troubling enough before things became even more troubling over the past few weeks. The trail of events that led to me being fired as secretary of the Navy is marked with lessons for me and for the nation.

It is highly irregular for a secretary to become deeply involved in most personnel matters. Normally, military justice works best when senior leadership stays far away. A system that prevents command influence is what separates our armed forces from others. Our system of military justice has helped build the world’s most powerful navy; good leaders get promoted, bad ones get moved out, and criminals are punished.

In combat zones, the stakes are even higher. We train our forces to be both disciplined and lethal. We strive to use proportional force, protect civilians and treat detainees fairly. Ethical conduct is what sets our military apart. I have believed that every day since joining the Marine Corps in 1976.

We are effective overseas not because we have the best equipment but because we are professionals. Our troops are held to the highest standards. We expect those who lead our forces to exercise excellent judgment. The soldiers and sailors they lead must be able to count on that.

Earlier this year, Gallagher was formally charged with more than a dozen criminal acts, including premeditated murder, which occurred during his eighth deployment overseas. He was tried in a military court in San Diego and acquitted in July of all charges, except one count of wrongfully posing for photographs with the body of a dead Islamic State fighter. The jury sentenced him to four months, the maximum possible; because he had served that amount of time waiting for trial, he was released.

President Trump involved himself in the case almost from the start. Before the trial began, in March, I received two calls from the president asking me to lift Gallagher’s confinement in a Navy brig; I pushed back twice, because the presiding judge, acting on information about the accused’s conduct, had decided that confinement was important. Eventually, the president ordered me to have him transferred to the equivalent of an enlisted barracks. I came to believe that Trump’s interest in the case stemmed partly from the way the defendant’s lawyers and others had worked to keep it front and center in the media.

After the verdict was delivered, the Navy’s normal process wasn’t finished. Gallagher had voluntarily submitted his request to retire. In his case, there were three questions: Would he be permitted to retire at the rank of chief, which is also known as an E-7? (The jury had said he should be busted to an E-6, a demotion.) The second was: Should he be allowed to leave the service with an “honorable” or “general under honorable” discharge? And a third: Should he be able to keep his Trident pin, the medal all SEALs wear and treasure as members of an elite force?

On Nov. 14, partly because the president had already contacted me twice, I sent him a note asking him not to get involved in these questions. The next day, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called me and said the president would remain involved. Shortly thereafter, I received a second call from Cipollone, who said the president would order me to restore Gallagher to the rank of chief.

This was a shocking and unprecedented intervention in a low-level review. It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.

Given my desire to resolve a festering issue, I tried to find a way that would prevent the president from further involvement while trying all avenues to get Gallagher’s file in front of a peer-review board. Why? The Naval Special Warfare community owns the Trident pin, not the secretary of the Navy, not the defense secretary, not even the president. If the review board concluded that Gallagher deserved to keep it, so be it.

I also began to work without personally consulting Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper on every step. That was, I see in retrospect, a mistake for which I am solely responsible.

On Nov. 19, I briefed Esper’s chief of staff concerning my plan. I briefed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney that evening.

The next day, the Navy established a review board to decide the status of Gallagher’s Trident pin. According to long-standing procedure, a group of four senior enlisted SEALs would rule on the question. This was critical: It would be Gallagher’s peers managing their own community. The senior enlisted ranks in our services are the foundation of good order and discipline.

But the question was quickly made moot: On Nov. 21, the president tweeted that Gallagher would be allowed to keep his pin — Trump’s third intervention in the case. I recognized that the tweet revealed the president’s intent. But I did not believe it to be an official order, chiefly because every action taken by the president in the case so far had either been a verbal or written command.

The rest is history. We must now move on and learn from what has transpired. The public should know that we have extensive screening procedures in place to assess the health and well-being of our forces. But we must keep fine-tuning those procedures to prevent a case such as this one from happening again.

More importantly, Americans need to know that 99.9 percent of our uniformed members always have, always are and always will make the right decision. Our allies need to know that we remain a force for good, and to please bear with us as we move through this moment in time.

wp
coldjoint
 
  -3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 12:38 pm
@hightor,
Keep in mind who has the power to do what he did. The president is the commander and chief and feels Obama's rules of engagement fucked these guys over. I could care less about Spencer's opinion. Your source will say or print anything if it is negative about Trump.

It just shows ignorance of presidential powers and having the final word in this situation.
RABEL222
 
  3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 01:11 pm
@coldjoint,
He just a citizen usually elected by other citizens to be first citizen, not a king. He is required to obey and process the laws passed by congress. Not declare them invalled by royal declaration.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 01:18 pm
@RABEL222,
Quote:
by royal declaration.

What does Commander in Chief mean? It is a command decision not a royal decree. Those are the facts, opinion means 0.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 01:41 pm
@coldjoint,
It's not a matter of power. It's a matter of judgment. But I don't expect you to understand that.
Quote:
Your source will say or print anything if it is negative about Trump.

Trump will say or tweet anything if it is negative about my source.
coldjoint
 
  0  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 05:02 pm
@hightor,
Quote:
It's not a matter of power. It's a matter of judgment.

Actually, it is a matter of both. He has the power to enforce his judgement.
Quote:
But I don't expect you to understand that.

I don't expect much from you either.
0 Replies
 
neptuneblue
 
  3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 05:46 pm
@coldjoint,
Your understanding of military matters of discipline and order is quite apparent. This is no "win" for Trump. It's a disgrace, just as much as the guilty chief that gets to retain a rank he doesn't have the right to hold.

No worries, both of their futures will carry that shame forever.

coldjoint
 
  -2  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 06:05 pm
@neptuneblue,
Obama is the guilty one, his rules of engagement cost American lives. Trump has fixed that.
snood
 
  3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 06:30 pm
@coldjoint,
What in the world do rules of engagement have to do with what the sal was convicted of - taking vanity pictures with the corpse of a killed enemy?
RABEL222
 
  2  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 07:27 pm
@snood,
Anything Trump does is ok with this drone.
0 Replies
 
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 08:21 pm
@snood,
Quote:
What in the world do rules of engagement have to do with what the sal was convicted of - taking vanity pictures with the corpse of a killed enemy?

Is that corpse any deader? The damage was done. Men do things like that. I know you can't accept that.
snood
 
  4  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 09:11 pm
@coldjoint,
It was expressly against UCMJ. He broke military law. He was court martial Ed and rightfully convicted.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  3  
Thu 28 Nov, 2019 09:13 pm
“Men do “ a lot of things, not always smart, or good, or healthy. We have laws we agree to live under so we are not just ruled by what men just naturally want to “do”.
 

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