Old Handsome President Biden Doing Coast Guard Academy Graduation, WATCH IT LIVE!
WonkTV presidential feature!
Hey remember that time Donald Trump forced graduating West Point cadets to watch him limp down a ramp in the first months of the pandemic, just because he needed attention?
President Joe Biden is doing the US Coast Guard Academy graduation this morning. It will be better than that thing we just mentioned.
Watch it live!
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Former Trump Acting SecDef Christopher Miller Is A Real Piece Of Sh*t, We Mean Work
HE REGRETS NOTHING.
Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee hosted two former Trump Administration officials who were "serving" the people on the day of the January 6 Capitol terrorist attack Donald Trump incited. It was Christopher Miller, the dude Trump shoved in as (acting) secretary of Defense, and Jeffrey Rosen, who became (acting) attorney general after Bill Barr was quit-fired.
In this post we'll focus on Miller's testimony, and the only nice thing we can find to say about it is that he at least did agree that the January 6 attack was terrorism. The rest of the time he was just absolutely full of shit and a coward.
One moment really stuck out in that regard.
In Miller's prepared remarks, he said he stood by previous statements where he blamed Trump's comments for "encourag[ing] the protesters that day." We assume he prepared his remarks to the Senate the previous night, or maybe over the weekend. But when it came time for him to say words out loud to the Senate, he just skipped that line! Maybe he saw what happened to Liz Cheney yesterday and he was scared.
That led to this amazing exchange where Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch openly called Miller "ridiculous," as in "you're ridiculous."
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) goes after former acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller for taking back his written stat… https://t.co/vOpvJdqggi— The Recount (@The Recount)1620833470.0
Lynch wanted to know once and for all if Trump had incited the violence. Miller said Trump "clearly offered that they should march on the Capitol," but suddenly he sees a difference between the innocent "marching" Trump told them to do and the "terrorizing" they ended up doing.
Some transcript from Politico:
"I think now I would say that is not the unitary factor at all…I have reassessed," Miller said. "It seems clear there was an organized assault element in place that was going to assault regardless of what the president said."
As for Trump's responsibility? Oh, he's just "reassessed" his thoughts on that! Between writing his opening remarks and saying them? Fuck you, asshole.
When Lynch noted Miller's sudden flip-flop, Miller denied it, saying, "Absolutely not. That's ridiculous."
To which Lynch yelled back, "YOU'RE RIDICULOUS."
Both Miller and Rosen testified that at no point during that day did they try to get in touch with the president, because it was fine, they had all the authorities they needed to do the things they needed to do that day.
And what did they need to do? What was their job? This exchange between Miller and GOP Rep. Byron Donalds was revelatory, as Miller testified that on January 3, three days before the attack, when Trump heard of a request from DC Mayor Muriel Bowser for a beefed up National Guard presence for January 6, Trump's directive was to "Do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators that were executing their constitutionally protected rights."
You know, like he did for Black people tired of getting murdered by police-Nazis last summer.
Wow https://t.co/92K3ULobDd— Acyn (@Acyn)1620846283.0
And as for why there wasn't heavier troop presence on the day? Why he wasn't able to protect the Capitol? Well, it was the MEDIA'S fault, because they were making HYSTERIA about COUPS, therefore he just couldn't send the troops in too quickly. (Does he mean the kind of coup his boss was trying to undertake to overturn the results of the election he lost, based on his Big Lie? Because that's the only coup that happened that day, asshole.)
Here's some video of Miller bitching and moaning about "irresponsible commentary by the media about a possible military coup."
here's former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller blaming "irresponsible commentary by the media" for secur… https://t.co/v0bdsLT9Nm— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1620831356.0
Miller said that "No such thing was going to occur on my watch, but these concerns, and hysteria about them" — the HYSTERIA! — "nonetheless factored into my decisions regarding the appropriate and limited use of our Armed Forces to support civilian law enforcement during the Electoral College certification." He said he stands by "every decision" he made that day. He regrets nothing.
And why is he so confident in his decision-making skills under pressure? Uh, well, uh ... let's go to the prepared remarks!
I have been in more crisis situations than I can meaningfully recall. I have personally been in riots, fist fights and brawls, gun fights, aircraft mishaps, mortared, rocketed, attacked with Improvised Explosive Devices and, as a leader, I have commanded forces engaged in the most complex and hazardous military activities and operations known to humankind.
He's been in fist fights and brawls, y'all.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna was extremely not amused by all of this, and it will make you feel better to watch him yell at Miller.
"I can't believe we had someone like you in that role ... it's total self-promotion. All you're trying to do is cov… https://t.co/oCJ7C82QQe— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1620836763.0
KHANNA: I have never been more offended on this committee by a witness statement than yours. You were more concerned about defending your own reputation and justifying your own actions than the sanctity of this Capitol and the sanctity of our democracy. Have you no sense of accountability? No sense of shame? Secretary Miller, I want to ask you today, will you at the very least apologize to the American public for what happened on your watch?
Miller tried to pull some bullshit where he ignored Khanna's question and instead lavished praise on the troops, but Khanna wasn't into it. "Your pugnacious style is not going to override the democratic process," said Khanna. "Learn to respect it." Khanna wanted to know about Miller's "incompetence," and wanted to know if Miller would apologize to America and the troops for what happened on his watch. Miller just stonewalled and deflected and kept saying he regrets NOTHING. Khanna continued to read him for filth.
Seriously, watch those Khanna videos, they are great.
As for other Democrats yelling at Miller for his brazen incompetence and his refusal to take any responsibility for the lack of troop response to the literal terrorist attack his former boss incited, Politico's got some other highlights:
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) seemed angry about Miller's stance.
"It's almost like the military saying, 'Sure, we lost the battle, but we carried out our plan perfectly,'" Quigley said. "I had colleagues saying, when does the f-ing cavalry get here? You lost and you don't have the intestinal fortitude to own up to your part of the responsibility."
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) suggested Miller was shifting his position to curry favor with Trump. "Maybe the wrath of Donald Trump came down upon you," she said. "That is disgusting."
Sounds about right.
What an absolute coward.
Speaking of cowards — and also seditionists! — in our next post we will focus on the worst, most ridiculous Republicans on the Oversight Committee, which is all of them, brazenly defending the terrorists and insisting no insurrection even happened on January 6.
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If These Retired Military Idiots Were Your Grandpa, You'd Take 'Em To A Neurologist
#BeBest
Remember that January 3 letter Liz Cheney orchestrated, where all living former secretaries of Defense said in no uncertain terms that the military shouldn't allow itself to be used to make coups upon the American people in service of dumpster fire authoritarians desperately trying to steal elections after the fact? Remember all the retired military bigwigs, including former Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other former Trump officials, who condemned Trump's little fascist Bible-gassing photo-op stunt in front of St. John's church in Washington last year?
Well, there's another group of retired generals and other military brass out there who seem to have seen all those condemnations from actual respected retired military and taken them as a challenge, to which they are responding, "OH YEAH, BURP FART? Well we can find a bunch of retired generals and admirals who are way less smart than those other officials, who have let their brains atrophy entirely into egg salad, who can also too write letters! We can find some retired brass dumpstupid enough to sign open letters supporting Donald Trump's Big Lies and attacks on the United States! YOU THINK WE CANNOT FIND GUYS THAT SMALL OF DICK AND DUMB OF BRAIN? Hold our beers!"
Politico reports on just the best letter ever, released by "Flag Officers 4 America," which definitely sounds like a legit group of very cool military guys whose breath smells really good and who have clean underpants on right now. It was put together by some retired guy named Maj. Gen. Joe Arbuckle, and is signed by 124 of America's retired best and brightest, obviously:
Among some of the more notable signatories are retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Boldoc, who is expected to run for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire; retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, who stirred controversy for some of his anti-Muslim views; and retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter, who was the deputy national security adviser for President Ronald Reagan convicted in the Iran-Contra Affair.
That Boykin dicksnot actually said back in 2013 that military people he talked to wished the military would "'fulfill their constitutional duty and take out" President Barack Obama. So that's fucking insane.
Point is, definitely not a #BeBest cohort we're dealing with here.
Do you want to read their letter? Click over to read the whole thing, but here are the parts we want to make fun of.
Our Nation is in deep peril. We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776. The conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty.
Snoooooooooooort.
During the 2020 election an "Open Letter from Senior Military Leaders" was signed by 317 retired Generals and Admirals and, it said the 2020 election could be the most important election since our country was founded. "With the Democrat Party welcoming Socialists and Marxists, our historic way of life is at stake." Unfortunately, that statement's truth was quickly revealed, beginning with the election process itself.
Guessing we are talking about a clownfuck letter much like the one we are reading right now.
Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the "will of the people" our Constitutional Republic is lost. Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State Legislature's approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc. Today, many are calling such commonsense controls "racist" in an attempt to avoid having fair and honest elections. Using racial terms to suppress proof of eligibility is itself a tyrannical intimidation tactic. Additionally, the "Rule of Law" must be enforced in our election processes to ensure integrity. The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020. Finally, H.R.1 & S.1, (if passed), would destroy election fairness and allow Democrats to forever remain in power violating our Constitution and ending our Representative Republic.
Oh neat, these esteemed retired military folk are signing onto Fascist Donald Trump's Big Lie about "election irregularities," accusing the Trump FBI/DOJ and Trump Supreme Court of "ignoring" those imaginary "irregularities," and they're making overtly political statements about the bill to protect our elections currently sitting in the Senate. Aren't they supposed to be apolitical?
Also, funny that they say out loud that what scares them about S.1 is that it would "allow Democrats to forever remain in power," considering how all S.1 does is make sure elections actually reflect the "will of the people" they mention above. It's like they're telling on themselves, and tacitly admitting that if it were up to the actual American people, the insurgent group known as the GOP would rarely win a national election.
Now they'd like to bitch about Joe Biden a whole bunch:
Aside from the election, the Current Administration has launched a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner, bypassing the Congress, with more than 50 Executive Orders quickly signed, many reversing the previous Administration's effective policies and regulations.
The Biden executive orders that reversed the Trump executive orders are UNCONSTITUTION!
Moreover, population control actions such as excessive lockdowns, school and business closures, and most alarming, censorship of written and verbal expression are all direct assaults on our fundamental Rights.
Snooooooooooooooort.
The letter continues with a bunch of "policy ideas" these dipshits have, which are really mostly just conspiracy theories believed only by the stupidest among us. Illegal voting by illegals? Check! Wingnut whining about Section 230 because the internet makes fun of conservatives and does cancel culture censorship to them? Check!
Also this:
Using the U.S. military as political pawns with thousands of troops deployed around the U.S. Capitol Building, patrolling fences guarding against a non-existent threat, along with forcing Politically Correct policies like the divisive critical race theory into the military at the expense of the War Fighting Mission, seriously degrades readiness to fight and win our Nation's wars, creating a major national security issue.
Yes, this is retired military people saying the military presence at the Capitol after a deranged madman authoritarian president incited a domestic terrorist attack on it is protecting against a "non-existent threat," and somehow manages to include the words "critical race theory" in the same sentence.
Also, with these retired idiots' clear support for Trump's Big Lie and seeming approval for the coup he tried to undertake to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, we are just curious, isn't there kind of a huge thing in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) about how support for sedition is to be "punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct"? Maybe something the Department of Defense should look into.
After some underpants-pissing about "anarchy" in cities (they mean Black people), these obviously non-senile retired brass spread some rightwing bullshit about how Joe Biden is the REAL senile:
The mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief cannot be ignored. He must be able to quickly make accurate national security decisions involving life and limb anywhere, day or night. Recent Democrat leadership's inquiries about nuclear code procedures sends a dangerous national security signal to nuclear armed adversaries, raising the question about who is in charge. We must always have an unquestionable chain of command.
Person. Man. Woman. Camera. TV.
Wait, what were you saying about the "mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief cannot be ignored"?
The rest of the letter is just blah blah Socialism blah blah Marxist. It ends with a demand that the "will of the people" be heard.
We have a feeling they only mean white racist men who are going to die out sometime in the next few decades. That's kind of the temper tantrum undergirding every single thing going on in American politics right now.
Scratch what we said in the headline, if these guys were your grandpa, you'd skip the neurologist and just put 'em in a home.
Fuck 'em.
[Politico / very good and legal and cool letter]
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Joe Biden Ending Forever War In Afghanistan
It's like he doesn't even know what 'forever' means!
Yesterday, President Joe Biden announced that the USA's longest war will finally end, with all US troops being withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the attacks that led to US "involvement" there in the first place. Biden said that after two decades of death and misery, it's time to end this:
"We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result," said Biden, who delivered his address from the White House Treaty Room, the same location where President George W. Bush announced the start of the war. "I am now the fourth United States president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth."
Here's video of Biden's announcement:
Pentagon officials had argued that the US should at least leave behind some kind of residual force, or that a withdrawal happen only when certain conditions were met — like maybe the flourishing of a robust democratic government with a broad popular mandate, something that the US seems to have difficulty managing at home. But Biden decided, as one administration official told reporters, that agreeing to a conditions- based withdrawal would amount to "a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever."
And so the approximately 2,500 US troops still in the country will leave by September, with the drawdown starting in May. Donald Trump had, between attempts to foment the overthrow the US government, set May as the deadline for pulling US troops out.
Politico has an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how the decision came about, which can best be summed up as plain old civilian control over the military, as the country was designed to work: The generals had input, but ultimately, Biden said it was time to end this, and now the military will do all it can to carry out that policy.
Biden also said that while it's "time to end America's longest war," the US won't "conduct a hasty rush to the exit," and promised that the US would continue to provide diplomatic and economic support for Afghanistan. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken flew to Afghanistan Thursday to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Blinken said he "wanted to demonstrate, with my visit, the ongoing commitment of the United States to the Islamic Republic and the people of Afghanistan." He also met with other Afghan government leaders, and with "members of Afghan civil society, mostly women, at the US Embassy," according to pool reporters.
Following the stop in Kabul, Blinken flew on to Brussels to discuss plans for military withdrawal with NATO leaders; NATO will also withdraw the roughly 7,000 troops it has in Afghanistan at the same time the US does. While there, Blinken said the USA would
continue support for the rights of Afghan women and girls, minorities advocating for their meaningful participation in the ongoing negotiations and their equal representation throughout society, and we'll maintain significant humanitarian assistance to those in need.
It's debatable how realistic a prospect that is, particularly since most military experts believe the Taliban, which already controls much of Afghanistan, is likely to win back power within a year or two, after of course plenty of bloody fighting to retake the capital. At The Atlantic, George Packer says expecting the worst may be the most realistic option:
We should assume that Afghan cities could fall within months or weeks and that Kabul will soon become a bloody battleground, as it was in the early 1990s, during the civil war that followed the departure of Soviet troops. We should also assume that the Taliban will be no more merciful toward women, girls, religious minorities, civil-society activists, political opponents, and perceived infidels and spies than during its years in power before September 11, 2001.
David Ignatius is somewhat more optimistic, or at least less pessimistic:
Those who suspect that the country will quickly tumble back into the Middle Ages and a primitive version of Islam are wrong, I suspect. The years of war have modernized Afghanistan. It's now a richer, more urban country, connected by modern communications. People who gained their freedom in the two decades under a U.S. umbrella won't give it up easily.
Both agree, however, that as the US prepares to leave another war it probably never could have won (particularly not after George W. Bush decided an unwinnable war in Iraq would be more fun), we need to avoid the mistakes we made nearly 50 years ago as the government of South Vietnam fell to troops from North Vietnam. We shouldn't abandon to the tender mercies of the Taliban the thousands of Afghans (and their families) who worked with the US and our military over the past 20 years. Back in 1975, Packer notes, Joe Biden opposed helping the Vietnamese whom the US had promised to save if the North invaded, claiming in a Senate speech, "The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese." Says Packer,
Biden failed to see a moral obligation in 1975. Today he can learn from the mistake and redeem it. Seventeen thousand Afghans who have worked for America in Afghanistan, along with tens of thousands of their family members, are waiting for the excruciatingly slow bureaucratic wheels of the U.S. government to process their visa applications. At the normal pace, they will still be waiting years after the last American troops leave their country. While they wait, trying to hide, many of them will be hunted down by the Taliban. We will be gone, and Afghans who believed our promises will be killed. Our war will be over—Americans might not even hear the news of their deaths.
Packer suggests that as the US prepares to leave Afghanistan, we should evacuate those Afghans who are at risk, using what's been called the "Guam option," similar to how the US evacuated thousands of Iraqi Kurds to the US military base on Guam following the first Gulf War. Then we can do the visa screenings needed to let them come to America.
If you haven't seen the brilliant 2014 PBS documentary Last Days In Vietnam, I urge you to look for it (you can rent it on the major streaming sites). It's a sobering look at the human costs of imperial hubris and wishful thinking. We shouldn't have made war in Vietnam in the first place, but we also shouldn't have abandoned our allies as shamefully as we did.
For 20 years, the absolute hell question about Afghanistan has been what happens to the people there when we leave. To avoid finding out, president after president has kept the US in a conflict that since 2001 has eaten up two generations of our military (2,200 dead, 20,000 wounded) and killed roughly 111,000 Afghans, over 31,000 of them civilians. The Pentagon, as Ignatius notes, is sick of the war too, but the military's desire to get the hell out has long been "checked by a feeling that the only thing that's worse than remaining in what seems an unwinnable stalemate is pulling out troops — and then having to go back in."
But with no prospects of ever reaching a point where Afghanistan will become stable enough to leave without any negative consequences, Joe Biden is betting that leaving now, instead of in another decade or two, is the least terrible of all the terrible options.
[AP / Politico / WaPo / Atlantic / Last Days In Vietnam]
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