The furor around General Milley
The left scrambles to pretend that what General Milley did was no big deal. You can see some reports here, here, here, and here.
There’s a great deal to digest. But one thing in particular caught my eye, which I found at Althouse’s, and which features the following quote from this WaPo article:
[Milley’s] decision…to place himself between Trump and potential war was triggered by several important events — a phone call, a photo op and a refusal to rule out war with another adversary, Iran. The immediate motivation, according to the book, was the Jan. 8 call from Pelosi, who demanded to know, ‘What precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike?’ Milley assured her that there were ‘a lot of checks in the system.’ The call transcript obtained by the authors shows Pelosi telling Milley, referring to Trump, ‘He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. … He’s crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness.’ Milley replied, ‘I agree with you on everything.'”
If that really is from the official transcript of the call, it’s very revealing – particularly that last sentence.
Groupthink amongst our garbage elite.
Burt Lancaster played this role much better than drama queen Milley.
I can’t help thinking that Pelosi is a reincarnation of Lucrezia Borgia.
The sad thing is, we could probably bring Milley up on charges of treason, but I think Pelosi is protected by her status as a Congresscritter. And we can’t recall her, either. The evidence mounts that she believes she is totally above the law.
The sad thing is, we could probably bring Milley up on charges of treason, but I think Pelosi is protected by her status as a Congresscritter. And we can’t recall her, either. The evidence mounts that she believes she is totally above the law. And from what I can see, she is.
Chris Bray points to a good “tell”:
“After four years of constant conflict between a military that wished to remain at war and expand American wars overseas, on the one hand, and a commander-in-chief who wished to reduce American military involvement overseas, the president’s chief military advisor was suddenly terrified that the president would recklessly and impetuously launch new wars – precisely the opposite of the thing he had just spent the previous years worrying about and trying to prevent. Lock up the guns – there’s a Quaker in the building!”
https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/the-power-of-ritual
Our government is now thoroughly corrupt. It took Trump to reveal how corrupt. Who could have imagined this 50 years ago? The Nixon coup should have been a warning but Nixon was foolish enough to give them cover.
If the statement “I agree with you on everything” can be verified it comes very close to violation of Uniform Code of Military Justice Art. 88, using “using contemptuous words against the President.”
F,
Pelosi could not act as she does without near total support from the democrat party. The democrat party could not act as it does without near total support from half the electorate.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Geoffrey Britain (5:54 pm) writes, “The democrat party could not act as it does without near total support from half the electorate.”
Errrmmm, make that half the recorded votes purportedly representing the electorate?
Or, we need to (and possibly even should) find a good way to redefine “the electorate” so that it reflects the reality of the elective franchise as presently practiced.
Just a couple of years ago I would have found the Milley story shocking, but no longer. I obviously don’t know if the Woodward version is accurate, but judging from the administration’s actions it more or less is. It is kind of funny to hear Jen Psaki provide justification for a coup because Trump was planning an insurrection. I don’t think she should be encouraging coups, military or otherwise, given the current mental state of her boss.
It is also nice to know how many people really don’t care at all about our Constitution. Many of the very same people who were so upset with Trump destroying our precious “norms”. Quelle surprise.
As warmonger Presidents go, Trump is near the bottom of the biggest warmongers list. The crazy ones are Pelosi and Milley – TDS crazy.
AF JAG knows his stuff, which I quote for emphasis:
“If the statement “I agree with you on everything” can be verified it comes very close to violation of Uniform Code of Military Justice Art. 88, using “using contemptuous words against the President.”
Y’all do know what it means to be “AF JAG”, don’t you?
I’m no lawyyer but I regard Milley’s offer to provide advance notice of a US attack as treason.
If our rulers continue to sacrifice Justice for fear of a mob, we must become that mob.
“No country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go to the length that may be necessary.” ~ Horace Walpole
Pelosi, not Trump, is the one who’s really crazy, and evil.
A lot of us are old and slow, we will not be the sparks that cause change however when I see young people in their teens and twenties getting real tired of the lockdown mask stuff I take heart and feel a bit better. Perhaps change is just around the corner as they used to say in the 1930’s when things were bleak.
As to Milley: He should be removed from command.
I have seen speculation as to why it is being alleged that someone in the White House is leaking this stuff. It’s being reported, I believe, on CNN and in the Washington Post. Is Milley the selected scapegoat for Afghanistan? Do they actually think that would get them out from under?
It does’t cost a lot to file a lawsuit. Milley probably won’t sue for libel or defamation, as I have said earlier, because of discovery. But his not suing could be taken he has Big Things to hide rather than admin fences jumped or doing his last PT test with a pencil.
“General, what was your best time when you were twenty-three?” Okay, not bad for a four star. I’ll put it in.” This is a Bad Thing but not likely to be the kind of thing discovery would find interesting.
Reports are that two officers supposedly in the meeting in question are willing to testify under oath. Not sure which way, but either way would be interesting.
But dangerous as hell.
Some people want POWER. Others sincerely believe. Milley looks like one of the latter.
Is Milley the selected scapegoat for Afghanistan? Do they actually think that would get them out from under?
Kate:
Limited hang-out?
I can’t tell if there are any limits to Democrat brazenness. But Biden has tanked in the polls and he is getting personal F-bomb chants at college football games.
People aren’t buying the “extraordinary achievement” spin on the Afghanistan debacle. Maybe somebody does have to walk the plank and Milley is an excellent choice.
If the Pelosi/Milley alliance sincerely believed that President Trump was crazy and likely to come uncorked, THEY SHOULD HAVE GONE PUBLIC WITH IT AND DEMANDED A TRIAL, OR ANOTHER JOLLY IMPEACHMENT.
Keeping it quiet among themselves was nothing but a conspiracy tactic. But they wanted to keep their vicious little advantage, so roped in the rest of the high military officers with their oaths. I believe this was all unconstitutional.
I’m willing to disbelieve Woodward and give doubt that Gen. Milley made a call to his Chinese counterpart. I could believe Milley might do it, but I can’t believe none of the other Chiefs went along with it.
I do know Pelosi called them and asked them to not follow orders from Trump. She boasted about it at the time, so much so that the JCS published a statement shortly after reminding that Trump was still Commander and Chief. That could have been a CYA, but if it was, then it undermined the supposed negotiation. Regardless, Pelosi’s actions were those of someone attempting an actual military coup and Republicans failed to address this when it mattered.
I think it is interesting that Pelosi could only apparently understand Trump’s refusal to “know his place” and slink away in defeat as some form of insanity that needed to be feared. Maybe she’s just lost some emotional control at 81 years old but that sort of desperate insecurity seems to coexist with the arrogant assumption of superiority among the Democrats/managerial class.
Mike
’m willing to disbelieve Woodward and give doubt that Gen. Milley made a call to his Chinese counterpart. I could believe Milley might do it, but I can’t believe none of the other Chiefs went along with it.”
Fox news Pentagon reporter (forgot her name) confirmed with her inside sources that he did indeed make a phone call. These sources did say the tenor of the call was something else. More butt covering. She has very good sources though.
The Tucker Carlson segment linked below is informative re chain of command, procedures, etc. As noted, Milley’s alleged motive is at odds with reality. But his motives are not immediately relevant. Information about the depths of treason, how far back it goes, and who else is involved is needed now. Testifying before Congress is not the best venue. Something like a CIA black site, supervised by intel and medical professionals, would more likely get us the complete story. He’ll also need better protection from “suicide” squads than he has now.
“What if Milley is himself involved with those squads?” you may ask. Exactly my point as to the urgency of the situation. We have a live one, and we don’t know what we don’t know.
Per the money quote in Tucker’s interview with a former general, the highest levels of our government are corrupted and unreliable. Pessimists say “good luck getting to the bottom of anything.” But fully exposing truth must at least be attempted for ethical reasons. Because commitment to truth or fraud carries forward beyond this life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH69v6IExpQ&t=12s
Nancy B: The pattern of spinning reality to the opposite of truth is what Bray defines as derangement. I would also note that this is a characteristic of postmodernism. Specifically, postmodernists call it “deconstruction”, which in practice means destruction. They are especially opposed to the established order and Enlightenment rationality of the Founding Fathers.
Milley might be the first fully postmodern general in his position, just as Obama was the first fully postmodern president.
Correction: Doug Macgregor is a retired colonel who is apparently too patriotic and intelligent to be a general.
Per Woodward’s account, Milley called a leadership meeting of the National Military Command Center and successfully recruited all of them to join him in nullifying presidential authority. That’s a treasonous coup writ large.
More from Tucker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It8OieyxLLA
Further: 18 U.S. Code § 2382 – Misprision of treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
And: 10 U.S. Code § 931c – Art. 131c. Misprision of serious offense
Any person subject to this chapter—
(1) who knows that another person has committed a serious offense; and
(2) wrongfully conceals the commission of the offense and fails to make the commission of the offense known to civilian or military authorities as soon as possible;
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
It’s only insubordination when your guy does it, Leftists do it to save the Republic.
Leftists make me sick with the double standards but that’s how they have always rolled.
“It’s only insubordination when your guy does it, Leftists do it to save the Republic.
Leftists make me sick with the double standards but that’s how they have always rolled.”
It’s all about Power. They have it, Our side does not have it. I’m not talking about holding various high offices in the land… The Trump Presidency should have woken people up to the idea that Power inheres and flows in ways highly unrelated to the Ostensible Official Org Chart of the USA (or that of just about any other Liberal Democratic Nation you might care to name).
If your side has Power, then you get to decide what is legal and illegal and, far more importantly, what is right and what is wrong. You do. Claremont Institute and a bunch of fans of Natural Law (I have a fondness for it myself) can opine and philosophise and white-paperise and Jaffa-ize about the genealogy of morals until they’re blue in the face, but none of that will court-martial a Milley or defenestrate a single degenerate Kardashian unless such Noble Right Wingers possess more of this Magic Power Stuff than the opposition.
Power, Power, Power. Don’t ask me how to get it. Don’t ask me who deserves to have it… All I’m saying is that without Power your side will always lose and the Milleys will always skate. Because they have it and you do not.
“That’s Not Who We Are” is fixing to be the epitaph of the American Centre and Right. I wonder if the Left will have the ironic wit to put it on tasteful little plaques on top of your pits?
“The call transcript obtained by the authors shows Pelosi telling Milley, referring to Trump, ‘He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. … He’s crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness.” Once again, it’s PROJECTION. Pelosi is a crazy as a loon, albeit retaining the ability to function in a milieu that supports her and insulates her from any consequences. Recall Hitler in the bunker, April, 1945, telling the assembled generals that, like Frederick the Great, he would be saved from utter defeat and Germany would win at the very last minute. His delusions lasted until the very end, when he was informed that the forces he was counting simply did not exist, at which point, Hitler committed suicide.
Yes Shirehome, I’ve now seen the confirmation reports. At this point, failure of the US military to investigate and court martial means we no longer have a military bound be rule of law or under civilian control. Further, I fully expect China to take advantage of this. Lost in the lockdown theater is China’s complete takeover of Hong Kong. Taiwan will be next and with it, the loss of one of two major chip manufacturing facilities in the world (the other is in South Korea). This will be a win for Progressives, because it will put the price of cars and computers (and smartphones) well beyond what the middle class could hope to afford. We failed to learn from the 20th Century progressive movement, and we will do it again in the 21st Century but from a much weaker position.
If the Pelosi/Milley alliance sincerely believed that President Trump was crazy and likely to come uncorked, THEY SHOULD HAVE GONE PUBLIC WITH IT AND DEMANDED A TRIAL, OR ANOTHER JOLLY IMPEACHMENT.
Keeping it quiet among themselves was nothing but a conspiracy tactic.
Amen, sibling. Yet the entire American left thinks it’s not just de riguer but A Higher Duty or some such crap.
With all due respect to Neo, Legal Insurrection, Red State, Power Line, and all the preceding commenters here – Woodward’s intent in flogging his latest “best seller” heading to the remainder bin is this: Trump is unfit to lead and crazy as a loon. Woodward is making a gift to the floundering Biden. Jen Psaki, John Kirby, and the merry gang of the MSM have already given plenty of cover to Milley.
When Milley testifies on 9/28/21 we will see how many Republicans have the cojones to demand his resignation.
Beyond what’s been discussed above, one other thing strikes me as interesting about this. Assuming this is true (which seems pretty likely) it indicates that evidently Pelosi and Milley believed Trump was absolutely “crazy”. They believed that it was a highly likely event that Trump would start a war with Iran or China. For them to infer such a thing to me this indicates that they’re either very stupid or very delusional or perhaps some combination of both.
After all, Trump was and still is a pretty well known quantity. It’s not like they didn’t have ample opportunity to observe Trump for years. Everyone knows who the guy is.
I mean, sure, Trump is mercurial and can oftentimes be unpredictable. Remember when he took out Soleimani? But there was nothing in Trump’s past to indicate that it was even remotely likely that he would suddenly launch an all out military attack on China or Iran without any obvious reason or provocation. It just wouldn’t happen. And no clear headed, rational observer of Trump should have concluded such a thing could happen.
That they would conclude that such a thing is possible speaks far more to their derranged state of mind than anything about Trump.
Most people who join the military are motivated by patriotism but I would tell anyone who wants to enlist (not those who are just looking for a secure job) to avoid signing on as long as the military has people such as Milley Vanilley in charge and the whole military establishment is ‘woke’.
Rather than starting a war Trump was somewhat isolationist.
Nonapod,
One would think that the Speaker, who has been in Congress since T-Rex roamed the Earth would know that POTUS does not have that kind of power. How stupid is this woman? Has she never in all those years been briefed on emergency war powers? Does she think that there is a big red Easy Button that he pushes to launch all the missiles? That everyone operates on remote control like a bunch of automatons? Somehow without a sky full of incoming Chinese missiles, I think there are quite a few people involved in the actual launching of our missiles that might say “Hey, wait a minute here!”
I asked someone in the military what Milley has ever actually done, militarily speaking, and he couldn’t come up with anything. Milley started through ROTC at Princeton. He’s always been “on staff” somewhere. He’s a bureaucrat and a DC insider. Of COURSE he willingly agreed that Trump’s “crazy.” Trump threatened so many rice bowls, including the upper echelon military rice bowls. That’s “crazy!”
I’ve thought Pelosi crazy for some time. She seemed consumed by a deep seated hatred of Trump for which there was no rational explanation. Of course, she was not alone in that.
Thoroughly Modern Milley ought to be given the choice – either you do the right thing and resign or you go before a court martial and if found guilty you go to jail and forfeit your pension.
Nonapod:
They don’t call it “Trump Derangement Syndrome” for nothing.
Yes, they were either deranged or the whole thing was a sham and a pose and an excuse for undermining Trump once again, and dropping a rumor that Trump was acting so deranged that they had to do this, as patriots.
Tcrosse – “I can’t help thinking that Pelosi is a reincarnation of Lucrezia Borgia.”
Lucrezia Borgia was supposedly dangerous because of her sexual allure… may I suggest that an eye exam may be in order?
We lost this already… the time to act is long past, and all we are doing is watching the symptoms of conversions and progressing towards their end… no force that exists can stop this…
Claiming that Trump was “crazy” is a delusion encouraged by his enemies like Pelosi. He was indeed crazy like a fox, and that’s just what worried them… the thought of him tacking their own shriveled hides to the barn door!
Ray Van Dune:
When she was young, Pelosi was quite attractive. Maybe not a femme fatale, but attractive.
“When she was young, Pelosi was quite attractive.”
When Pelosi was young, I believe you could also buy movies on laser disc from retailers.
Mike
The crazies think they are sane and normal and and think the sane are crazy.
Leftism is a mental case.
When she was young, Pelosi was quite attractive.
Just on this side of easy-on-the-eyes. Dudley Webster Dudley was more attractive and more principled as well:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Dudley_during_NH_Governor's_Council_meeting.jpg
When Pelosi was young, I believe you could also buy movies on laser disc from retailers.
At the midpoint of her young adult years, your local PBS affiliate was a UHF station you tuned into with a radio-type dial. Sometimes you could tune out the static and sometimes you couldn’t. If it was at a time during the week when your dad was using his Schick electric razor, fugeddabout it.
Something you might not have considered: Bella Abzug was young once too.
https://cdn.jwa.org/sites/default/files/mediaobjects/bahunter.jpg
@nonapod-
it indicates that evidently Pelosi and Milley believed Trump was absolutely “crazy”.
Not really. That catechism they recited back and forth was simply their pledge of allegiance to one another. Once their fealty was established, the next move would be to find the means sufficient to deliver the desired end, and that would take whatever law-bending was needed to emplace Milley’s ‘authority’ sufficiently to displace that of the President. Hence the oath-taking by those Officers – who’ll make fine witnesses in case Pelosi and her stooges can’t head off Congressional investigations, or a military court-martial, of dear General Milley. Stay tuned.
Trump just called him a “TV general.”
Summing up the situation perfectly, as usual.
Also, this
My understanding is that the Actual Malice standard, which makes it difficult for a ‘public figure’ to collect defamation damages, is not specific to journalists. It protects all of use here from such damages in exactly the same way it protects some NYT writer.
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1010/public-figures-and-officials#:~:text=In%20libel%20cases%2C%20plaintiffs%20who%20are%20public%20figures,right%20of%20free%20press%20against%20an%20individual’s%20reputation.