Y'all remember those videos of the sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt cheering and chanting the name of their captain, Brett Crozier, as he departed the aircraft carrier after being relieved of command, because he sent a letter pleading for the Trump administration not to kill his 4,000 sailors with their brutal incompetence and neglect?
Let's watch one again:
The send off for Captain Brett Crozier who was relieved from duty for TRYING TO SAVE THE LIVES OF HIS CREW https: //t.co/EEDG1U3rYE
— Danny Ocean (@Danny Ocean) 1585914727.0
The last confirmed Navy Secretary was fired for refusing to obey an illegal order from Donald Trump, because Trump fires people who get in the way of his crimes. He also fires them for being good at their jobs and following the law, in general.
That's why Thomas Modly is the (acting) Navy secretary. Here's what he told the sailors aboard the Roosevelt Monday morning about why he fired their beloved captain. Is Crozier "too naive or too stupid" to command an aircraft carrier? Modly says maybe!
Read the whole thing if you'd like, but here are the important parts that will piss you off:
On Sunday night, he sent that email. And that email went out to a broad audience of people. [...] If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose.
He was betrayal [ sic ] -- of trust, with me, with his chain of command [...]
It was betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing, because he did that, he put it in the public's forum and it's now become a big contoversy in Washington DC and across the country. About a martyr CO, who wasn't getting the help he needed and therefore had to go through the Chain of Command, a chain of command which includes the media.
And then he bitched about the media and China a whole bunch, because that's what Trump people do, and he rattled off more grievances about Captain Crozier. Then he told the sailors that they probably shouldn't love their beloved captain who got fired for trying to protect them:
So think about that when you cheer the man off the ship who exposed you to that. I understand you love the guy. It's good that you love him. But you're not required to love him.
Boy howdy, go fuck yourself, dude.
What Crozier did may not have been kosher. And yes, it's possible that he totally knew that his letter would make it to the media, and maybe that was the point. Or maybe Crozier is just "too naive or too stupid," like Modly told those sailors. But Modly can whine all he wants about how now Crozier has been turned into a "martyr CO," but the fucking story here is that this is just yet another way the Trump administration has bunglefucked America's response to coronavirus, and thereby has a ton of blood on its hands. Every coronavirus death in America has an asterisk next to it that says "Might be alive today if Donald Trump wasn't president of the United States."
So spare us your crocodile tears, Modly, you twit.
By the way, Modly said this on the ship . So, you know, he might very well have coronavirus now. Because did you hear about how Crozier went crazy trying to get the Trump administration to pay attention to how coronavirus was ravaging the carrier, and now is in quarantine because he's tested positive himself? That seems important to note.
To be clear, Modly's decision — which he is just so sure was the right one — was not supported by other Navy officials, including Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday, who said last week that they definitely were not about to "shoot the messenger."
By the way, we really weren't supposed to read this speech, but LOL SUCK IT! The Daily Caller, which is doing some surprisingly real reporting on this, has some details on how hard they tried to keep this speech from leaking, because of how it landed on the carrier like a 243-pound flaming orange turd:
An anonymous Navy officer familiar with the situation told the Daily Caller that commanders immediately began to try and keep Modly's speech from getting out.
"And the CAG (carrier air wing commander, the guy in charge of the aircraft on the carrier, an O-6) sent an email to the entire crew after the SECNAV was done saying 'in order to publish a speech you need that person's explicit permission and you don't have the secant's permission to publish what he just said, so if you recorded what he just said delete it immediately,'" the Navy officer said.
"That's totally not how publishing speeches work, but it's clear they quickly realized how poorly the speech was received and are trying to suppress it."
Hahahahahaha OK. They're just making up rules for speeches and giving orders to delete any recordings, because we guess the 4,000 sailors of the USS Theodore Roosevelt know which guy should fuck right off, and it's not Brett Crozier. Better not let the world know that!
Maybe those sailors know who cares whether they live or die, and they know it's not anybody in the Trump administration. Former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, a veteran, seems to agree:
It’s already been a tough few days for the Navy. This is brutal, and embarrassing for an administration that alre… https: //t.co/U3frHRYkb7
— Pete Buttigieg (@Pete Buttigieg) 1586188122.0
What an embarrassing and utterly predictable shitshow this is.
UPDATE: There is audio now. Listen for when Modly calls Crozier naive and stupid and an actual sailor actually audibly says, "What the fuck?!"
[ Daily Caller ]
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IDEA: Maybe Trump Should Fire His A-Hole (Acting) Navy Secretary
"Trump cultists who know think the left hates the troops" How opposition to Vietnam or the Iraq war, for instance, translated into hate for the troops was just another fabrication by Nixon, the Rumsfelds, the Cheneys and the like.
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