Trump Administration - Festering Skidmarks

[goldenvalley]

A Forbes magazine writer says a total of 5 books about Trump and COVID or Trump and the election are coming out in the next few weeks and months.  I've seen interviews and read articles about what's in the books.  I assume that most sources for the authors will be anonymous.  This leaves me annoyed, but not because the sources wanted to be anonymous. Given the poisonous political climate now I understand the desire.  What annoys me is that these sources didn't go public as it was happening.  I get respecting the office of the president.  But when the person in that office is running for re-election and these anonymous people know that he is unfit for office I think they have an obligation to speak up.  What was going on was not about politics as we usually think of it.  This was about the man's character and attempts to use the office to gain what he wanted, to carry out his personal grudges, and to pretend that a worldwide pandemic was no big deal.  

I count Mattis, Kelly, McMaster...all those folks should have been talking too.  I am grateful these folks kept Trump from doing more damage than he did, but the man was running for re-election.  The voters deserve to know.

[LFC]

You can add Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley to the list. Here's just the opening. There are more details in the full piece.

The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump, according to excerpts of an upcoming book obtained by CNN.

The book, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, describes how Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

"It was a kind of Saturday Night Massacre in reverse," Leonnig and Rucker write.

The book, "I Alone Can Fix It," scheduled to be released next Tuesday, chronicles Trump's final year as president, with a behind-the-scenes look at how senior administration officials and Trump's inner circle navigated his increasingly unhinged behavior after losing the 2020 election. The authors interviewed Trump for more than two hours.

The book recounts how for the first time in modern US history the nation's top military officer, whose role is to advise the president, was preparing for a showdown with the commander in chief because he feared a coup attempt after Trump lost the November election.

The authors explain Milley's growing concerns that personnel moves that put Trump acolytes in positions of power at the Pentagon after the November 2020 election, including the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the resignation of Attorney General William Barr, were the sign of something sinister to come.

Milley spoke to friends, lawmakers and colleagues about the threat of a coup, and the Joint Chiefs chairman felt he had to be "on guard" for what might come.

"They may try, but they're not going to f**king succeed," Milley told his deputies, according to the authors. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."

In the days leading up to January 6, Leonnig and Rucker write, Milley was worried about Trump's call to action. "Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military."

Milley viewed Trump as "the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose," the authors write, and he saw parallels between Adolf Hitler's rhetoric as a victim and savior and Trump's false claims of election fraud.

"This is a Reichstag moment," Milley told aides, according to the book. "The gospel of the Führer."

Ahead of a November pro-Trump "Million MAGA March" to protest the election results, Milley told aides he feared it "could be the modern American equivalent of 'brownshirts in the streets,'" referring to the pro-Nazi militia that fueled Hitler's rise to power.

Milley will not publicly address the issues raised in the book, a defense official close to the general told CNN. The official did not dispute that Milley engaged in activities and communications that are not part of the traditional portfolio of a chairman in the final days of Trump's presidency.

"He's not going to sit in silence while people try to use the military against Americans," the official said. So while Milley "tried his hardest to actively stay out of politics," if the events that occurred brought him into that arena temporarily, "so be it," the official said.

Imagine this being the accepted position by a large swatch of the top military brass but yet they refused to given up even a peep to the Senate, House, or public.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 15, 2021 15:31:12 GMT LFC said:

You can add Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley to the list. Here's just the opening. There are more details in the full piece.

Imagine this being the accepted position by a large swatch of the top military brass but yet they refused to given up even a peep to the Senate, House, or public.

I might give him a bit of a pass in terms of talking to the public.  I think that might have triggered a better turnout for the 1/6 events.  But he should have been talking to the leadership of both houses of Congress, to the VP, all relevant police authorities, and the National Guard.

This all is another part of that anonymous op ed piece in the NYT a couple of years ago.  The one about the people in the White House valiantly side tracking or stopping the President from doing something destructive.  Milley thought he was doing that perhaps and felt competent to do so. Sadly that simply gave the President cover for continuing his half assed plotting.

[goldenvalley]

Excerpts of the Rucker/Leoning book about what happened on 1/6.  I'm not quoting pieces here.  The timeline is important. Too bad the impeachment managers didn't have this account of what was happening in the White House.  Not that it would have mattered to the Senate Republicans.  

[jackd]

Exactly! It would not have mattered to the Senate Republicans. I wonder if they realize they are enabling a fascist and his fascism.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 15, 2021 17:34:45 GMT jackd said:

Exactly! It would not have mattered to the Senate Republicans. I wonder if they realize they are enabling a fascist and his fascism.

I doubt they care.  Witness McConnell and a few others that made scathing statements on and shortly after 1/6.  After that it was "time to move on" with the business of governing, not wallow in rehashes of the election or 1/6.  They are relieved it didn't happen, realize that the Trump faithful voters out there would rather continue believing the election was stolen, and started worrying about being primaried in the midterms of 2022.

[Deleted]

Jul 15, 2021 17:34:45 GMT jackd said:

Exactly! It would not have mattered to the Senate Republicans. I wonder if they realize they are enabling a fascist and his fascism.

Their behavior is better explained if you posit they fully realize the fascists have already won, and that they better get aboard if they want to retain their Senate membership. 

[jackd]

Real followers of Ayn Rand: take care of yourself; the country's on its own.

[goldenvalley]

Trump invited Rucker and Leonnig to Mar A Lago and gave them an interview.  It's now part of their not yet released book which has been excerpted in numerous publications, this time in Vanity Fair.  Try to read this with a straight face.

“In a certain way, I had two presidencies,” he said. In the first, when the economy was roaring, Trump argued that he had been unbeatable, never mind that his approval rating was never higher than 46 percent in the Gallup poll during his first three years as president.

“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump said.

Then, he lamented, came his second presidency: the pandemic killed his chances.

OR

Trump then invoked the nonanalogous example he had latched on to: “Thomas Jefferson was in the exact same position, but only one state, the state of Georgia. Did you know that? It’s true. ‘Hear ye, hear ye . . .’—was much more elegant in those days. It was, ‘Hear ye, hear ye, the great state of Georgia is unable to accurately count its votes.’ Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Are you sure?’ They said, ‘Yes, we are sure.’ ‘Then we will take the votes from the great state of Georgia.’ He took them for him and the president.”

Trump continued, “So I said, ‘Mike, you can be Thomas Jefferson or you can be Mike Pence.’ What happened is, I had a very good relationship with Mike Pence—very good—but when you are handed these votes and before you even start about the individual corruptions, the people, the this, the that, all the different things that took place, when you are handed these votes...right there you should have sent them back to the legislatures.”

Later in the conversation, Trump again expressed his disappointment in Pence. “What courage would have been is to do what Thomas Jefferson did [and said], ‘We’re taking the votes,’” he said. “That would have been politically unacceptable. But sending it back to these legislatures, who now know that bad things happened, would have been very acceptable. And I could show you letters from legislators, big-scale letters from different states, the states we’re talking about. Had he done that, I think it would have been a great thing for our country.” But, he surmised, “I think he had bad advice.”

[LFC]

[pnwguy]

Jul 19, 2021 14:49:22 GMT goldenvalley said:

Trump invited Rucker and Leonnig to Mar A Lago and gave them an interview.  It's now part of their not yet released book which has been excerpted in numerous publications, this time in Vanity Fair.  Try to read this with a straight face.

“In a certain way, I had two presidencies,” he said. In the first, when the economy was roaring, Trump argued that he had been unbeatable, never mind that his approval rating was never higher than 46 percent in the Gallup poll during his first three years as president.

“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump said.

Then, he lamented, came his second presidency: the pandemic killed his chances.

OR

Trump then invoked the nonanalogous example he had latched on to: “Thomas Jefferson was in the exact same position, but only one state, the state of Georgia. Did you know that? It’s true. ‘Hear ye, hear ye . . .’—was much more elegant in those days. It was, ‘Hear ye, hear ye, the great state of Georgia is unable to accurately count its votes.’ Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Are you sure?’ They said, ‘Yes, we are sure.’ ‘Then we will take the votes from the great state of Georgia.’ He took them for him and the president.”

Trump continued, “So I said, ‘Mike, you can be Thomas Jefferson or you can be Mike Pence.’ What happened is, I had a very good relationship with Mike Pence—very good—but when you are handed these votes and before you even start about the individual corruptions, the people, the this, the that, all the different things that took place, when you are handed these votes...right there you should have sent them back to the legislatures.”

Later in the conversation, Trump again expressed his disappointment in Pence. “What courage would have been is to do what Thomas Jefferson did [and said], ‘We’re taking the votes,’” he said. “That would have been politically unacceptable. But sending it back to these legislatures, who now know that bad things happened, would have been very acceptable. And I could show you letters from legislators, big-scale letters from different states, the states we’re talking about. Had he done that, I think it would have been a great thing for our country.” But, he surmised, “I think he had bad advice.”

No wonder he deserves to be on Mount Rushmore!

Sadly, if the GOP seizes power, they will probably pass funding and start work on it.  That, plus the new Trump Memorial in DC, which MUST be higher than the Washington monument, fitting the GREATEST president ever.

[AnBr]

Jul 19, 2021 15:37:38 GMT pnwguy said:

That, plus the new Trump Memorial in DC, which MUST be higher than the Washington monument, fitting the GREATEST president ever.

Mushroom shaped?

[pnwguy]

Jul 19, 2021 21:34:09 GMT AnBr said:

Jul 19, 2021 15:37:38 GMT pnwguy said:

That, plus the new Trump Memorial in DC, which MUST be higher than the Washington monument, fitting the GREATEST president ever.

Mushroom shaped?

The problem is that if it's got to be taller than the Washington monument, there isn't enough unused acreage in the District for the base.



Of course they could go across the river to Arlington and just bulldoze the national cemetery, since it's full of nothing but "losers"  

[Rue Bella]

I count Mattis, Kelly, McMaster...all those folks should have been talking too. I am grateful these folks kept Trump from doing more damage than he did, but the man was running for re-election. The voters deserve to know.

None of this would have mattered to the voters. Before the '16 election everyone knew what a liar and a cull he was. It didn't matter. He was elected to some extent because so many believed he was so bad he wouldn't or couldn't win, so they didn't come out in droves for Hillary. Some dems even wanted him to be the nominee because, to them, he was obviously such a bad candidate, the dem would be a shoe-in.

And none of this will matter now to his base either. If he is still alive come the election, he'll likely be the GOP nominee (regardless of his mental or physical condition). He loves the attention and all the free money. And the dems will have to get out the vote to defeat him as they did last year. 

[Deleted]

Don't forget sovereign immunity. Apparently, the President is beyond the law.

[MSheridan]

Jul 15, 2021 19:57:01 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Jul 15, 2021 17:34:45 GMT jackd said:

Exactly! It would not have mattered to the Senate Republicans. I wonder if they realize they are enabling a fascist and his fascism.

Their behavior is better explained if you posit they fully realize the fascists have already won, and that they better get aboard if they want to retain their Senate membership. 

This pathetic grasping at the reins of power would be no less immoral, but at least somewhat more comprehensible, if they were looking to DO something with those reins. Republicans had it all for a while, the Presidency, the Senate, the House. And what did they accomplish besides a tax cut that was temporary on everyone but they rich? Nothing. They barely even pretended to try for anything other than giveaways to fat cats and corporate interests. Then and more recently, with the semi-honorable exceptions of Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Romney, all those Republican legislators who didn't resign sold whatever pretense they might previously have had to a scrap of self-respect. More, they did so for the inglorious privilege of holding these high positions--in which they have condemned themselves to do nothing, accomplish nothing of value--and retaining them only so long as they continue to slavishly tongue a fat and stupid old man's leaky asscrack.

I'm not ambitious for power and never was. It always looked like a lot of work. Plus, I don't like people enough to want to spend any significant amount of my time schmoozing. However, even I can feel the allure of leaving a mark on history. A positive mark. Aside from the evil nutbars whose only use for power is grinding down their enemies, I cannot even begin to fathom what motivates some of these people.

[Bact PhD]

Jul 20, 2021 5:38:47 GMT MSheridan said:

Jul 15, 2021 19:57:01 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Their behavior is better explained if you posit they fully realize the fascists have already won, and that they better get aboard if they want to retain their Senate membership. 

This pathetic grasping at the reins of power would be no less immoral, but at least somewhat more comprehensible, if they were looking to DO something with those reins. Republicans had it all for a while, the Presidency, the Senate, the House. And what did they accomplish besides a tax cut that was temporary on everyone but they rich? Nothing. They barely even pretended to try for anything other than giveaways to fat cats and corporate interests. Then and more recently, with the semi-honorable exceptions of Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Romney all those Republican legislators who didn't resign sold whatever pretense they might previously have had to a scrap of self-respect. More, they did so for the inglorious privilege of holding these high positions--in which they have condemned themselves to do nothing, accomplish nothing of value--and retaining them only so long as they continue to slavishly tongue a fat and stupid old man's leaky asscrack.

I'm not ambitious for power and never was. It always looked like a lot of work. Plus, I don't like people enough to want to spend any significant amount of my time schmoozing. However, even I can feel the allure of leaving a mark on history. A positive mark. Aside from the evil nutbars whose only use for power is grinding down their enemies, I cannot even begin to fathom what motivates some of these people.

(bold mine)

For more folks than we might want to believe, this in and of itself is sufficient -- consider that, for many so-called ordinary folks, the reason for supporting said fat and stupid old man is to "own the libs," period.

[pnwguy]

Jul 20, 2021 13:45:28 GMT Bact PhD said:

For more folks than we might want to believe, this in and of itself is sufficient -- consider that, for many so-called ordinary folks, the reason for supporting said fat and stupid old man is to "own the libs," period.

As I've said many times, the most technologically advanced and educated country in Europe was taken in with mass hysteria, grievance, and demagoguery in the 1930s.  It wasn't long before "so-called ordinary folks" were pushing Jews into gas chambers and ovens.  We delude ourselves into thinking it can't happen here.  "The libs" can be the next "cockroaches" that RW media outlets can tell their followers to exterminate, like in the Rwandan genocide.

Do we think Dumpster wouldn't tell the MAGA world to start shooting?

[MSheridan]

Jul 20, 2021 13:45:28 GMT Bact PhD said:

For more folks than we might want to believe, this in and of itself is sufficient -- consider that, for many so-called ordinary folks, the reason for supporting said fat and stupid old man is to "own the libs," period.

I don't disagree; there are quite a few like that, but what about guys like McCarthy? Or Grassley? Or Graham? I have low opinions of each, but I don't think any one of them is personally invested in that "own the libs" nonsense. And I think there are a fair number just like them.

[indy]

Well, I frequently think of the quote (attributed to Lenin?): "Every society is three meals away from chaos" because it seems so damn true most of the time.

[LFC]

AG Garland continues to disappoint. He's taking the Obama track rather than prosecuting the crimes of the Trumpies.

The Justice Department is declining to prosecute former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for misrepresentations he made to Congress about the origins of the Trump administration's failed push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

The decision not to prosecute Ross was revealed in letter made public Monday from Commerce Department Inspector General Peggy Gustafson to Democratic lawmakers. The Justice Department had declined the case in January 2020, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Democrats had requested that Gustafson investigate Ross for how he characterized the genesis of the citizenship question in his March 2018 congressional testimony. At the time, he said the administration was seeking to add the question to the decennial survey solely because of a DOJ request for the data, ostensibly to bolster Voting Rights Act enforcement.

Internal records and other evidence surfaced in the litigation around the question -- as well as in a House Oversight Committee investigation -- showed that members of the Trump administration, including Ross, were plotting to add the question well before the DOJ formally submitted its request in December 2017.

Civil rights activists and outside census experts feared that the question's presence on the census would discourage immigrants from participating in the survey, risking an undercount that would have significant implications for the government funding and political power doled out to those communities.

The Supreme Court ultimately blocked the addition of the question and said that the Voting Rights Act enforcement rationale put forward by Ross was "contrived."

In her investigation, Gustafson found that Ross "misrepresented the full rationale" for adding the question when he testified in Congress, first in front of the House Appropriations Committee on March 20, 2018, and then again on March 22, 2018, in front of the House Ways and Means Committee.

[LFC]

Jul 20, 2021 16:03:38 GMT MSheridan said:

I don't disagree; there are quite a few like that, but what about guys like McCarthy? Or Grassley? Or Graham? I have low opinions of each, but I don't think any one of them is personally invested in that "own the libs" nonsense. And I think there are a fair number just like them.

Their own personal status and power are all that matter. If "owning the libs" is what's required of them to do so then they will deliver.

[goldenvalley]

The more right wing Republicans have played to the base of their party in their efforts to not get primary-ed.  There is a hardcore bunch of people in the base that support Trump so these Republicans toady up to him and his Big Lie. 

[MSheridan]

Jul 20, 2021 16:10:10 GMT LFC said:

Jul 20, 2021 16:03:38 GMT MSheridan said:

I don't disagree; there are quite a few like that, but what about guys like McCarthy? Or Grassley? Or Graham? I have low opinions of each, but I don't think any one of them is personally invested in that "own the libs" nonsense. And I think there are a fair number just like them.

Their own personal status and power are all that matter. If "owning the libs" is what's required of them to do so then they will deliver.

Again, what power? They've shackled themselves. Is this like Invisible Boy in the movie Mystery Men, who had the power to be invisible as long as no one was looking? What plan of substance do they still have the power to make possible? I mean, I guess they still retain the power to fix traffic tickets and to get decent seating at restaurants. Is that really enough to sell out the Republic?

After the ACA was passed, a lot of Democratic legislators lost their jobs in the next election. Many if not most of them knew this would happen before they cast their votes. THEY exercised power and made something big happen. Those who always play it safe to retain a position that theoretically holds the power to make change will never make any significant change. They are self-gelded.

[LFC]

Jul 20, 2021 16:45:20 GMT MSheridan said:

Again, what power? They've shackled themselves. Is this like Invisible Boy in the movie Mystery Men, who had the power to be invisible as long as no one was looking? What plan of substance do they still have the power to make possible? I mean, I guess they still retain the power to fix traffic tickets and to get decent seating at restauants. Is that really enough to sell out the Republic?

The power to keep their sweet jobs, get the attention they desperately crave, and get control over those yummy campaign donations. They also get to not actually work while pulling in that $174,000/year and great benefits.