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Posts Tagged ‘MARK MILLEY’

LOVE THY DICTATOR: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 20, 2024 at 12:10 am

“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”

“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”    

On July 26, former President Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.

And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.

The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced: 

Connor Royse - Ohio Field Representative - Turning Point Action | LinkedIn

“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.  

“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.

I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

Why would they not have to vote again? Because there won’t be any more elections for President because Trump would be President until he died.

In Context: Trump tells Christians they 'won't have to vote anymore'

Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit

From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the almost eight months the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media has repeatedly ignored the threats he poses.

But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit have grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:

  • MSN Metro
  • Reuters
  • CBS News
  • The New York Times
  • Mother Jones
  • News Nation
  • USA Today
  • Newsweek
  • The Hill
  • CNN
  • National Public Radio
  • The Washington Post 

Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.” 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.” 

Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.” 

In fact, it has been Donald Trump who created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” 

As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.

If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.

His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.

File:2021 storming of the United States Capitol 2021 storming of the United States Capitol DSC09363-2 (50820534723).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building

Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.

He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.

“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” 

By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud. 

In fact, Trump’s  ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.

DONALD TRUMP’S GOAL: “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 15, 2023 at 12:21 am

In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, President Donald Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government

He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” 

The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors. 

Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.

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Donald Trump

Among these:

  • American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and NSA that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
  • “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”   
  • And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning. 
  • American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
  • On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
  • He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election. 
  • He intended to fire Mueller during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
  • American military agencies: In 2020, Trump declined to visit an American cemetery near Paris in 2018, and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”  
  • While President, Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
  • The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes@NBCNews@ABC@CBS@CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
  • Appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
  • The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first travel ban. 
  • In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”  
  • At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
  • President Barack Obama: For five years, Trump popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya—and was therefore not an American citizen or a legitimate President..
  • Even after Obama released the long-form version of his birth certificate—on April 27, 2011—Trump tweeted, on August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
  • Trump was later forced to admit he had no evidence to back up his slanderous claims.

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Barack Obama

* * * * *

Nor, since leaving the White House, has Trump stopped trying to undermine one American institution after another.

  • Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he has discredited the judicial system, attacking judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
  • He has attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
  • He has attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
  • Milley had successfully averted war with China by calling his Chinese military counterparts in the final weeks of Trump’s administration to assure them that Trump was not planning to attack China.
  • He claims voter fraud where none exists, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
  • He claims himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
  • He attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding. 

Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.

He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. If he succeeds, there will be:

  • No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
  • No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
  • No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
  • No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
  • No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
  • No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”

THWARTING A TRUMP COUP

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 20, 2021 at 12:06 am

On August 2, 1934, German President Paul von Hindenburg died.

Adolf Hitler was then serving as Reich Chancellor—the equivalent of prime minister. Within hours, the Nazi Reichstag [parliament] announced the following law, back-dated to August 1st:

“The office of Reich President will be combined with that of Reich Chancellor. The existing authority of the Reich President will consequently be transferred to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.” 

Immediately following the announcement of the new Führer law, the German officer corps and every individual soldier in the German Army [Wehrmacht] was made to swear a new oath of allegiance:

“I swear by God this holy oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and People, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this oath.” 

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Soldiers swearing the Fuhrer Oath

For Germans—especially officers of the Wehrmacht—taking an oath was a holy act. Previously they had sworn obedience to the German state. Now they swore personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

President Donald Trump wanted to resurrect “the German experiment.”

On February 5, 2020, Republicans refused to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump quickly began purging independent officials throughout government—and appointing political loyalists in their places. 

On May 6, 2000, Foreign Policy magazine carried an alarming story under the headline: “Trump Taps Point Man to Remove Pentagon Officials Seen as Disloyal.” 

Specifically: “Michael Cutrone, who has been detailed as Vice President Mike Pence’s top national security aide for South Asia, is set to arrive at the Pentagon to serve in a behind-the-scenes role vetting Defense Department officials for loyalty to the president, according to two current administration officials.” 

Veteran Pentagon officials feared that the few remaining professional appointees who could resist illegal or irrational  policy ideas would be removed from their posts or undermined. This would ensure far tighter White House control than had been the case under Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Their fears reached a crescendo during the months after Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election—from November 3, 2020 to January 20, 2021.  

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley feared that Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures. He and the other Joint Chiefs planned to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

General Mark A. Milley.jpg

Mark Milley

Milley shared his fears of a coup with friends, lawmakers and colleagues.

“They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” Milley told his deputies. “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 the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building, 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 saw Trump as the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose.

“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides—referring to the February 27, 1933 arson of Germany’s parliament building which enabled Adolf Hitler to assume dictatorial powers.

The military’s plans to thwart a Trump coup are revealed in the new book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. 

In a July 15 statement, Trump attacked Milley: “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government. So ridiculous!

“Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.”

Which implies he would choose some other general to plot a coup.

William Kristol—a Right-wing political analyst—has been dubbed “the godfather of neoconservatism.” And with good reason. 

Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, was one of the leading instigators of the 2003 war with Iraq.

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Bill Kristol

But on February 15, 2019, Kristol posted on Twitter: 

“Members of Congress take this oath of office (see Title 5, Section 3331 of the United States Code): I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.'”

On May 7, 2019, he posted “the new GOP Congressional oath”:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend Donald Trump against all oversight; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to him; that I take this obligation despite mental reservation and in the spirit of evasion of duty. So help me God.”

No doubt Kristol, who considers himself a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, remembers all too well the fate of those who took a similar oath to Adolf Hitler.