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No Justins, No Peace

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / GOP Xenophobia Electioneering : Trump Will Build His Wall Out of “His” Soldiers’ Bodies

GOP Xenophobia Electioneering : Trump Will Build His Wall Out of “His” Soldiers’ Bodies

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… because those troops mean as little to him as the crappy green plastic ‘army men’ figures normal kids use as disposable toys.

If he’s gonna watch Fox News like it was a paid job, can’t his aides at least add some Shep Smith segments to his playbacks?


Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Cheryl Rofer

    David Roberts shared some thoughts on the response to the caravan. I won’t do the whole thread. You can click over.

    I think there’s something to this. As things keep going wrong for Trump, and as he spins up toward election day, he needs more and bigger fantasies. I’m not sure this is even playing with his base, except in the identity-reinforcing way Roberts describes. And the MIGRANTS ARE COMING TO GET YOU fantasy seems to work for him. Recall how he complained last week that his more murderous fans were stepping on THE message.

    Friggin’ nuts.

  2. 2.

    jl

    Woah, there. Is it safe for those troops to be carrying weapons while they do logistics for chain link fencing supplies? Mattis on top of this operation, or not? Where are the adults in the room?

  3. 3.

    Adam L Silverman

    I agree with the Warax! Some of the most fulfilling days I spent in Iraq was doing humanitarian assistance missions with my professional cousins on our Civil Affairs Teams – Alpha (CAT-As) or with our battalion and their companies and platoons. Whether it was handing out foodstuffs or doing medical ops and basically helping out the medics do basic triage in a village or handing out other supplies. It was incredibly rewarding and at the same time incredibly overwhelming. It made one feel small. Like you’d spent all day trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

  4. 4.

    Mnemosyne

    Two months from now means that refugees will be begging us for shelter just in time for Christmas.

    That will be a great look for us on the world stage.

  5. 5.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: I’m sure it is a mix of things. A long con running out of tricks, so they pull on the same big magic lever, but the threads are almost completely stripped out of the gearing. So they have to frantically pull harder and harder.

    Does Trump understand completely? Not sure, since this is just an extension of his hard sell cons. Trump probably has a dim understanding, but he doesn’t care enough to bother with it much. If more people get hurt, he’ll just say what the hell, we needed to do it for win, and then go out and publicly blame and target anyone who questions him. What they hell, that’s just what you do for a win too.

    People like Pence, and the Congressional GOPers and media GOPer moutpieces know exactly what they are doing, and I can’t believe I am reading people even hinting at excuses for any of them.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: The events of last week, including Saturday, have taken control of the media cycles away from him. He’s trying to reassert control. I’m not sure he’ll be able to between now and next Tuesday. If he goes to Pittsburgh tomorrow it is going to go badly for him. He’s expecting to read whatever statement Kellyanne Conway writes for him (as if he’s being forced to at gun point) and then pivot and start ad libbing at one of his rallies. Jewish funerals and memorial services are the very antithesis of one of his rallies. He is going to be faced with an exceedingly large number of grieving, angry, fearful, and frustrated American Jews tomorrow at the Tree of Life synagogue. They are not going to respond well to his schtick. And they will let him know. He will then get angry, double down, and make it even worse. It has taken two years, a mail bombing campaign, and the worst singular attack on American Jewry in American history for the President to lose control of the narrative. And the harder he fights to get it back over the next week, the harder it will be for him to do so. And that’s not even counting what happens if one of the additional pipe bombs that Sayoc mailed before he was captured goes off, regardless of whether it kills its intended victim or just some postal workers and other bystanders. Or what happens if there’s a copycat attack this week or someone is inspired by Sayoc or Bowers and it isn’t a copycat so much as a homage.

  8. 8.

    Wapiti

    On the bright side, Donald isn’t starting a new war. As far as I can figure, the entire point of Iraq War 2.0 was to get George Bush re-elected. So putting a large brigade on the border is a stunt, but one unlikely to get a shit-ton of people killed dead.

    It isn’t likely to win him the hearts of the military that gets used as a prop.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: They won’t be carrying weapons. US military personnel, other than Military Police/Shore Patrol, Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID), Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the US Air Force Office of Special Investigation (AFOSI) or uniformed personnel assigned for live fire training at the range under supervision, are not authorized to carry sidearms, rifles, and/or carbines while on duty in the US.

    ETA: If they live off post, and it’s allowed, they can conceal or open carry depending on the laws where they live. And some bases have authorized uniformed personnel to conceal carry on duty with permission of their chain of command and the base commander.

  10. 10.

    Felanius Kootea

    Lopez Obrador’s term as president of Mexico begins on December 1. I bet he does a lot to address the migrants’ issues and refocus on the problems they face in their home countries. I’ll be surprised if more than a few hundred make it to the US border by Christmas. It’ll be a nice look for the US: 4-5 soldiers per migrant woman and child to placate a bunch of chickenshits.

  13. 13.

    Wapiti

    @Adam L Silverman: When I was stationed in Panama, our battalion would alternate deploying to Central America and South America to do construction and nation building. When we deployed, working to help people, we never had any problems getting soldiers to re-enlist – the soldiers uniformly (pun intended) loved that work.

  14. 14.

    Wapiti

    @Felanius Kootea: Someone at LGM did a post in the last year about how Mexico is this hidden mid-weight country. It has the GDP and population of France, without the military and foreign adventurism of France, and very little external affairs (because the US outweighs it so heavily in military and foreign influence, why compete?) But that suggests that Mexico actually has spare capacity to help it’s neighbors if we decide to step away.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Wapiti: I spent a lot of time both doing that work and have spent the better part of the past decade working with Civil Affairs Branch and US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) on a variety of projects. I was even assigned, under temporary assigned control, as the Cultural Advisor at Civil Affairs Branch for a little over a year. That is some of the best work the US military does and is one of the best arguments for and examples of why the US military should be the size it is and be expeditionary as well.

  17. 17.

    Mary G

    @Adam L Silverman: I think he’s going to double down on the crazy – his tweets aren’t getting as many likes and the rallies aren’t being covered wall to wall by even Fox, and President Obama has been holding events and getting the adoration Twitler thinks should be his. Not being the center of attention has to be driving him crazy. I shutter to imagine what he’s going to come up with.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    What will be the tone deaf name given this fiasco? Operation Wetback? Operation Secure and Protect Interior Country?

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I know that some of us, not me of course, have language sensibilities.
    But could we dispense with euphemisms and just say, in this time of needing to be straight up, what we mean?
    The word is fuck. We all know that, we all use it, most of us do it or would at least appreciate doing it once in a while, let’s be honest.

  20. 20.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He is going to be faced with an exceedingly large number of grieving, angry, fearful, and frustrated American Jews tomorrow at the Tree of Life synagogue.

    These poor families should not be subjected to this. There must be a way for them to not have to face him? Let him give his speech to an empty room, or filled with his minions, or whatever. But ….. just reading your description, I’m filled with not anger or loathing, but just *sadness*. Nobody should be dictated-to about the manner in which they mourn their dead.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    US military personnel, other than Military Police/Shore Patrol, Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID), Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the US Air Force Office of Special Investigation (AFOSI) or uniformed personnel assigned for life fire training at the range under supervision, are authorized to carry sidearms, rifles, and/or carbines while on duty in the US.

    Sorry to be copy-editing you again, but is there a “not” missing in this sentence?

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: Not unless they suspend either the Posse Comitatus Act or they deploy National Guard under state, not Federal, authority. I suppose they could issue the weapons and mandate they be carried in condition green: safeties on, no magazine in the gun, no round in the chamber.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Do you think the law bothers him, as in not letting him do as he pleases? Do you think he will care about any law or methodology of the military? He will order it. Someone in the military will have to decide that it’s an illegal order. And is it actually an illegal order?
    How well do you think that will go over with numbnuts?

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Amir Khalid: I’m around 5’11ish and run between 265 and 275 lbs. And while I’m making real progress on getting rid of the bloat I put on through changing the way I lift weights and getting all the garbage out of my diet (refined sugars and carbohydrates, fried foods, cut way back on red meat, etc) I will, because of both what I do in the gym and genetics will always have a keg more than a six pack to quote former World’s Strongest Man Mark Henry. But I’m not insulating my keg with 50 lbs of fat. I’m always going to be built more like a power lifter/strong man competitor than a bodybuilder or fitness competitor, but my keg actually has a six pack as the result of getting my body fat down.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I don’t think he has the foggiest notion of what the laws are, let alone that they bother him. But the orders will be filtered through Secretary Mattis and senior officers, from generals to colonels, who do.

  35. 35.

    GxB

    Well, apparently Matt Drudge (yes, that Drudge) is calling out his beloved GoP for hypocrisy over the recent shootings. Only 3 tweets from that twit ever which I find hard to believe, but apparently it is indeed him.

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    When did this go into effect? Or am I misunderstanding you?
    I’ve carried a loaded sidearm with a round in the chamber, safety one while on duty on board in port in the US. We could go on the pier, I don’t recall doing so. This was in the early 70s. I’ve also carried one while on duty in foreign countries. I’ve seen in the last 3 yrs, at a navy weekend, sailors carrying sidearms and rifles on public not military property with magazines. I have no idea if the were loaded but I highly suspect they were from the way they were being handled.

  39. 39.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax:

    Drudge was brought up Jewish.

    Damn. He just found out those face-eating leopards’ll eat his kin’s faces too, eh?

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: US military personnel at home station in the US and based in permissive environments abroad do not carry weapons as part of their daily duties/uniform unless they are military law enforcement, at the gun range for live fire training and/or qualification, or at one of the training centers and in that case the weapons have been modified to be nonlethal as part of the MILES system. If you live in non barracks post housing, and you personally own a firearm, they must be registered with the Provost Marshal’s Office (or whatever the Navy equivalent is), be secured according to regs, and not unsecured on post. After the shooting at the recruiting station a couple of years ago, the DOD did a change of policy allowing uniformed personnel and some DOD and Service Civilians to conceal carry on post if the base commander allows it. This is handled on a case by case basis. Depending on the unit and the base in Iraq and Afghanistan, some echelons at battalion and above (so based at combat outposts, forward operating bases, and camps) were restricted to carrying in condition green on base. Safety on, no magazine in the firearm, no round chambered. This was the rule on my brigade’s command FOB and on all four of our battalion combat outposts. Weapons were loaded and charged after everyone was mounted in vehicles and clearing the base. Weapons had to be cleared, under inspection, at a firing barrel upon returning to base.

    The US military is a zero defect military. No commanding officer is willing to jeopardize their career because Specialist Schmucky has a negligent discharge in the shower or at the gym or in the dining facility.

  46. 46.

    bluehill

    After each Pittsburgh and subsequent tweets, I always wonder if this is the final straw for Trump supporters, but of course it isn’t. Then it makes me wonder how much worse it has to get before someone like Ari Fleischer will renounce Trump. Is it when they literally come for him? It’s why I think it gets much worse before it gets better. These guys have compromised so much of their ethics and values that there’s no going back for them.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I showered in one of those trailers at one of our smaller combat outposts. The bigger problem is someone way up the chain at Army or DOD medical authorized the use of grey water in the shower and latrine trailers on the command FOB (which was FOB Hammer. 3ID built it in the middle of nowhere and there were many issues in addition to this that we inherited when we replaced them, like building the FOB on the old Bessmayah artillery range’s impact area – we were living on bits of depleted uranium and other bits and bobs from when it was the impact area). This wasn’t waste water, officially, nor was it potable water. It was something in between. The brigade public health doc, a colonel from FT Belvoir, was both amazed and horrified at the same time. His advice was not to ingest any of the water while showering. So keep your eyes and mouths shut while the water was on and breathe out forcefully through the nose when rinsing your hair/face/head.

    ETA: I’ve got like a 20 page or so supplemental report about what we were exposed to, or what he thought we were exposed to, that he gave me to put in my medical file and give to every doctor I see for the rest of my life.

  49. 49.

    piratedan

    Since Trump NEVER folds (unless he’s declaring Bankruptcy to say Fuck You to his creditors and lenders)… I’m sitting here thinking of what may be left on his “to do” list that will make his thralls adore him once again and return him to the 24/7 limelight that he appears to crave….

    so at this point, I expect him to pick from the list…. and for all I know, he may pick of multiples from this list

    a) make abortion illegal via Presidential edict
    b) define genders as being only male and female
    c) son of tax cut, rescind the estate tax
    d) close down the SEC
    e) arrest Hillary Clinton (or another prominent Dem figure on whatever charges he dreams up) for treason
    f) fire Mueller
    g) shitcan the ACA by Presidential Fiat

    He seems too cowardly to actually start a war, not enough focus on him and what if we lose or are perceived to be losing? To be honest, no one in the GOP has the balls (much less the wherewithal) to stop him from trying any of the items on the list, besides, all of that shit would give them cover to keep raiding the country financially and stack the judiciary.

  51. 51.

    cthulhu

    I think a lot of people would say, how can you dare work for Fox News at this point? Shep Smith does offer a reason why: there can be opportunities to inject a little bit of sanity against the propaganda. it is a good thing that it is not 100% terrible.

  53. 53.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    That’s what I understood. My buddy, a Marine in Vietnam in if I remember correctly 68, said he carried his M16 with live ammo everywhere and kept in in his barracks at Da Nang. Guys I’ve known served in country just a year later had to barrel clear and store at the armory. But I was navy, serving late 69 to 73 and onboard ship, on in port watch I carried a .45 on sounding and security watch. When I first started this we carried loaded, round chambered and safety on. About a year later we changed to loaded mag, no chambered round. We did this where ever we docked, navy base or civilian port/dock and the quarterdeck watch did the same. In late 72 we docked for my last time in Copenhagen at an open city pier and had to hide the .45 and holster under our coat when on deck. Anti war protestors you know, couldn’t show them weapons, besides of course the 2-5in guns, the missile launcher, the Asroc launcher, the torpedo tubes, the fact that it was an American warship…….
    About 3 yrs ago I went to LA navy days at the LA harbor. Two ships, we went on the DDG, which is a generation later than the one I was stationed on, there were 2 quarterdeck watches both armed with 9 mm, a roving watch, which I assumed was the sounding and security watch-9mm and the pier watch- M4 and 9mm. All had mags in. All watching the crowd closely. These guys looked loaded, and I know the look. I used to have that look when I carried loaded on board. Always ready, ever so slightly tense, eyes and head on a swivel. The Marines who carried loaded at Long Beach Navy yard while I worked SP were armed and loaded and they had the same look. We had night sticks, the Marine E6 and me the E5, we didn’t give quite as much a shit. BTW that E6 was one of the three men I met in the navy that were actual leaders, guys I’d follow anywhere. The rest were leaders by jewelry.

  55. 55.

    Ruckus

    @piratedan:
    As we all know and have been saying for 3 yrs now, the only thing shitgibbon gives a fuck about is the shitgibbon and how far up his ass the world is. If he actually even cared about money he might have tried to actually do better at making some. But he didn’t, he only lied about it.
    Some of his suckups are there because sucking up to him gets them something more than they could ever get by themselves. But none of it is good or positive. They are not good or positive people. They are destructive, bad people, every last fucking one of them. They’d be 500% better if they were only one or the other, bad or destructive. Alas they are both, every last fucking one of them.

  56. 56.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @piratedan:

    He seems too cowardly to actually start a war

    Trump has a proxy war going in Yemen. His good friends the Saudis vs the evil Shiites.

    Trump is as responsible for what goes on there as Mohammed bin Salman.

  59. 59.

    Dan B

    @Mike in DC: Shhssssss! I mean, please don’t tell Trump! A collapse of the market woukd get us to a full collapse and a cleansing by fire from which we will emerge into the Age of Aquarius.

    Shhhhhh! Sincerely;

    S. Sarandon

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    I stood watches on my ship with a loaded .45 in 1970-71-72 when we were not yet in the yard. Not always, but when the Cubans were restless, we were in Key West. When I left the Qdeck at the head of the gangway to wake up the next watch, I left the .45 with the OOD petty officer, which wasn’t “policy” but at 3 am it made sense to us and we were in charge, at 3 am.

    It was my idea, I told him, we don’t want an accidental discharge in a berthing compartment, plus it’s way more needed here at the gangway than in the bowels of the ship. He bought that. But we were armed, someone decided that was necessary.

    We only had Marines on board when we went underway for port visits. If it was to sea for training, we didn’t get a squad. I berthed with the jarheads, didn’t see where their arms were, probably in the Gunners Mates space. This was in the USA always, I was off the ship when it was home ported in Sardinia for the last 12 or 15 years of its seagoing duty.

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