CNN is previewing “Peril,” the new book about the fall of Trump by WaPo’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. It contains some super-interesting facts, such as that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Milley was actually in charge of the U.S. nuclear arsenal from January 6th until noon on January 20 of this year.
(THIS year?!? Readers, I had to double-check, and YES!)
Milley knew Trump was nuttier than a squirrel turd and gave his team a pep talk on how they were going to deal with that, vowing “we’re going to land this plane and we’re going to land it safely.” An excerpt:
Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, ‘was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.’
Milley worried that Trump could ‘go rogue,’ the authors write.
“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.
A very good reason not to give a walking collection of untreated personality disorders the so-called “nuclear football,” huh? Yeah, let’s not do that ever again. Ever.
Also, the legend of Nancy Pelosi grows:
Then Milley received a blunt phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to the book. Woodward and Costa exclusively obtained a transcript of the call, during which Milley tried to reassure Pelosi that the nuclear weapons were safe. Pelosi pushed back.
“What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?”
Pelosi continued, “You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”
To his credit, Milley agreed with the Speaker of the House.
The book alleges that Trump was despondent the day after the election and seemed to acknowledge defeat but that Giuliani, Bannon and their network of kooks sucked him down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Color me skeptical. Trump was telegraphing “election fraud” for weeks if not months.
Maybe Trump’s pre-election “voter fraud” lies were bubble wrap to protect his exquisitely fragile ego from the extinction-level blow of an election loss. Maybe Trump wouldn’t have wound up a mob of baying lunatics and set them down Pennsylvania Ave toward the Capitol without Giuliani and Bannon. But that lets Trump off the hook, IMO.
Anyhoo, I don’t plan on reading the book, but I’m finding the salacious tidbits interesting, and maybe you do too. If nothing else, it sounds like Trump was thoroughly humiliated, and since that’s the only justice we’re likely to see meted out to that gelatinous heap of putrid offal, I’ll take it.
Open thread!
Baud
If only someone had warned us!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus, him again? still?
I’ve always said Woodward was the Norma Desmond of the Beltway press corps (“I am still big, Mika, it is the scandals that have gotten small” * ), now I’m starting to feel like he’s Henry Kissinger’s twin brother from another mother. Fucker just will not shuffle off this mortal coil, or at least out on to the rocker-filled porch
(* if you hear this in my killer imitation of Woodward’s flat, nasally, whiny speech pattern, it’s fucking hilarious)
ETA: Oh yeah, it should be a huge fucking scandal that the JCOS felt he had to sideline the President from military decisions. And of course he did, and we’re all glad he did, but…. What will it take to get the lumpenmitttel to wake up?)
Baud
It can get confusing with all the recent media debate over whether the Biden presidency is salvageable.
JPL
CNN just reported that on January 5, Trump told Pence he “didn’t want to be his friend anymore” if he didn’t send the results back to the states for a recount. ??????
twitter
oldster
Trump was frantic, because when he lost the presidency, he lost his shield against indictment and prosecution.
And he knew that once he lost that, he would be facing legal jeopardy on many fronts — a cascade of depositions, interrogations, evidence, witnesses, plea-bargaining by confederates, all leading up to his conviction on many, many crimes.
That’s why he fought like a cornered rat.
And now?
Ha Ha! Jokes on us!
There has been no concerted effort to investigate him, no all-out, full-scale investigation into his many crimes, no hearings, no indictments.
What the fuck? He spent his last months in office screaming, “I’m guilty! I’m guilty of some really grave crimes! Bribery, corruption, and some other stuff too! I’m in deep trouble if I ever have to answer in court!”
And instead of doing the work to show the world that, yes, Trump is guilty, the Biden administration has decided to let bygones be bygones.
It’s a horrible error of judgment, and all of us will pay for it in not many years.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What incredibly important piece of news did Woodward withhold to increase his booksales THIS time?
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernstein was always the brains of the W-B reportage collab, IMO. Ugh, and Woodward’s droning speech pattern! That was probably the only contribution he made to the 70s era WaPo dynamic duo: sources would spill their guts just to shut him the fuck up!
MisterForkbeard
@oldster:
West of the Rockies
@oldster:
I concur! There needs to be serious consequences for Trump and his heinous minions.
CODave
From another summary:
“No, no, no!” Trump shouted, according to the authors. “You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”
My God, he truly is a fucking six year old.
Roger Moore
I agree about letting Trump off the hook. Even if it’s true that he was likely to let things go if not for Giuliani and Bannon, he was still the one who made those people his advisors, and he was the one who decided to listen to their advice over other advisors who were telling him the truth. The buck stops at the top.
This gets to an important general point: there isn’t some finite amount of blame to go around. Saying a leader made a bad decision because he was misled by his advisors doesn’t shift some of the blame from him to them. He still gets just as much blame as if he had made the decision all on his own, but the advisors also get some. The more people involved, the more blame there is.
kindness
We’ll get justice one day wrt Trump. I may not feel it till the day I drink several very large beers to go ‘pay my respects’ to his grave. A man has to do what a man has to do.
VOR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Clearly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a flaming liberal. There just can’t be any other possible explanation.
oldster
@MisterForkbeard:
I know that the Southern District of New York is still actively pursuing investigations of the Trump Organization that began during his regime. And that’s good!
Do you know of any other federal prosecutions or investigations?
waspuppet
Atrios: “Woodward book bombshell revelation: Pelosi called Trump ‘fat'”
No it doesn’t. He was still putatively a functioning, legally responsible adult, or at least he was treated like one.
Betty Cracker
@oldster: I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Trump suffers any consequences other than the harsh judgment of history, and even that depends on who gets to write it. Part of the problem with holding Trump himself accountable is that a lot of what he did probably cannot be prosecuted. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is there’s not a big body of law around what the POTUS can and cannot do. The only remedy was impeachment, and the GOP removed that guardrail.
H-Bob
Nancy to the rescue !
I thought she never got enough credit for getting Obama elected in 2008. At the White House “Economic Summit”, after McCain suspended his campaign to avoid the Letterman appearance, Nancy said Obama speaks for the Democrats, which accorded credibility as a Presidential candidate to Obama; basically, it became Obama negotiating with the White House while McCain sat around like a lump on a log. She also prevented the other Senate Democrats from trying to cut a deal, which McCain would have taken credit for.
lowtechcyclist
…and in your brain, you know he’s insane.
(Which I remember as responses to Goldwater’s 1964 slogan, “In your heart, you know he’s right.”)
Gravenstone
@CODave: If only he had held his breath and stomped his feet until he turned blue, then Pence would have known he meant it!
oldster
@Betty Cracker:
I’d be more inclined to agree with you that his actions in office were not outright illegal, if he himself were not so perennially terrified of any disclosure (cf. taxes) and any jeopardy (cf leaving the office).
Let’s just say that he has not conducted himself like a man who believes he is in the clear. So I’m inclined to believe about his innocence the same thing that he clearly believes: he is guilty of some bad stuff.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
Good thing this was reported 9 months after it happened.
I used to follow Costa on Twitter to get the general sense of the beltway conventional wisdom, but he just got to be too much of a tool.
As for Woodward, the beauty of his books is that all the good parts get printed in the press and you can get the gist without lining his pockets.
Rocks
“Gelatinous heap of putrid offal”. Perfect name for a new alt heavy metal band.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: What will get tRump will be one of two things; his arteries/brain, or his business practices. I’m quite confident about the former and I’m not writing off the latter yet.
Ruckus
Woodward only seems to be 156 yrs old, in reality he’s half that.
The legal world revolves at it’s own pace, and needs evidence. And can he even be tried for much of what he did in office, the president has a very wide birth of privilege and a very narrow birth of responsibility – legally. The fact that the nuclear football needed to be protected from him should tell you that. I doubt the founders ever had any idea that we might ever be where we got in the last 4 yrs, although remembering Regan’s run…
My point is I’m unsure that much can be done, it depends on the evidence that can be gathered and used against a sitting president. Trying him for his tax evasion, etc will likely be more effective at defeating him in any event, or getting people to roll on his involvement in Jan 6. All of this will take time, more time than any of us think it should. So I’ll ask one question – who said President Biden and his crew aren’t doing anything?
Jeffro
I still want him tarred, feathered, and marched across the country at the point of a pitchfork, pelted with rotten tomatoes all along the way. If he makes it from Mar-a-Lago to St. Louis, I’ll consider that a sign from the FSM and he can go free. If not…oh well.
lowtechcyclist
I just don’t see how Woodward has any remaining cred. Not only does he kiss the asses of the powerful, and keep secrets for his books that the public really needs to know in the here and now, but it’s pitifully obvious that he always tailors his books to the way the political winds have been blowing recently. He can go fuck himself, AFAIAC.
Jeffro
This has been my plan since 2015. Bring a cooler with a 12-pack of cold ones and get in line.
Subsole
@JPL: Your ass must hurt after shitting me that hard.
Oh Christ and Buddha. You aren’t, are you?
Jeffro
I’m willing to let the Biden Administration (and the next one, probably) keep bringing charge after charge, to build that big body of law up just as high as possible.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Alas, Woodward’s a couple decades younger than Kissinger, who I still hope lives long enough to face a war crimes tribunal. (Yes, I know the likelihood is infinitesimal, but a guy can hope.)
MisterForkbeard
@oldster: Is the Biden Administration supposed to direct the DOJ to investigate specific people?
Subsole
@CODave: This is how I know most conservative voters are comprised of a delicate 60/40 melange of spite and horseshit.
There is no way anyone looked at this squealing, quivering little absurdity of a man and saw strength.
CaseyL
“Betty Cracker Epithets” need to be collected into a book.
The inability to hold obvious criminals liable for their acts because they’re a) white; and/or b) wealthy; and/or c) held political office at the time is the mark of a senescent, fossilized, practically useless legal system.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Of course not. He’s supposed to direct the DOJ to use the threat of investigating specific people to get Manchin’s vote. Keep up.
The Moar You Know
That asshole would have never acknowledged a loss for one second…because he never has. Ever.
As an HR person told me back when I was young and idealistic, “the only accurate predictor of future behavior is past behavior”. Time has proven her right, and me wrong.
lowtechcyclist
I’d buy it!
Subsole
@oldster: It is worth bearing in mind most of our institutions have been compromised to some degree, and utterly gutted besides.
We have to rebuild the machine to go after him before we can go after him.
I’m okay leaving it at state until we have a secure federal platform to go after him.
gene108
Years. He was ranting about “rigged elections” in the run up to the 2016 election.
Ruckus
@oldster:
I think he may have run for two separate reasons. 1, to get out of the tax problems – he likely firmly believed he get 8 yrs in office and therefore 8 more years of not landing in jail. 2, He likely also believed that he could do anything in office and get away with it. And I bet he could without the possible treason bit from Jan 6. If he gets tied into it, I think he’ll be toast. Now is there proof somewhere or will enough people roll on him to protect their sorry asses? If he gets tried and convicted of massive tax evasion, I’d bet that changes the entire look of his rational for running in the first place.
Baud
@CODave:
He’s mimicking the Godfather.
cmorenc
What an extraordinarily sharp contrast there is between Pres George H. Bush’s graceful concession to Clinton, referring to his upcoming transition to the “grandfather business”, and Trump. Or, although he was VP and not POTUS, Al Gore’s concession to “controlling authority” in circumstances with infinitely stronger grounds to challenge the potential legitimacy of the results – neither he nor Clinton attempted to provoke any insurrections, and it was GOP operatives who violently threatened the continuation of the Florida recount even before SCOTUS dubiously stepped in 5-4 (which Gore deferred to in the best interests of the country).
eclare
@CaseyL: Speaking of, is anything going on with the Gaetz investigation? Has anyone heard anything?
Ruckus
@CODave:
Is that too much credit?
Omnes Omnibus
Paging s_c! It looks like we have a general who took steps to save us.
Seriously though, if Milley did that he is to be commended and he should immediately resign.
CaseyL
@eclare: Nothing happening there. I don’t know why. Gaetz’s dad is very rich and powerful, and has gotten Matt out of legal jeopardy before, so maybe he did so again.
burnspbesq
Dan Quayle, Savior of the Republic?
That’s a plot twist that I guarantee you nobody saw coming.
Yes, I pre-ordered it. I’m a sucker for this kind of shit.
The Moar You Know
@Ruckus: The Founders would have told you that it was utterly impossible for a numpty like Trump to ever be elected, that an educated and informed citizenry would make such a thing impossible.
You can see the fatal flaw in their thinking that Americans would be either “educated” or “informed”, and I might add that there was plenty of evidence that they were wrong about that assumption in their day, never mind ours.
burnspbesq
@eclare:
DOJ can be leakproof when it wants to be, especially when Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is involved.
All in good time.
A Ghost to Most
We walked right up to the edge, and most of America was only prepared to accept their fate.
hueyplong
@burnspbesq: Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Hoodie
@burnspbesq: Guess it turns out there was some purpose for Quayle’s existence. The scary thing is that Pence apparently was considering doing what Trump wanted.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: I know, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Just because no one wanted to shout “Wolverines!” and play act as the partisans with you doesn’t mean that that they were going to nothing.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I wanted to do that. Seems like more fun that dressing up as comic book heroes.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Um, do we want generals making decisions to cut the Commander-in-Chief out of the loop? Really?
burnspbesq
@oldster:
Not Federal, but the Fulton County DA has an open investigation into the phone call with Raffensperger.
lowtechcyclist
@cmorenc:
Followed several weeks later by his Christmas 1992 pardons of the entire Iran-Contra crew.
GHW Bush clearly learned the lessons in Rich People’s Finishing School about how to publicly appear to be a good and gracious person without actually being one.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
According to the excerpt at LGM, he didn’t do that. He sat his officers down and reminded them that protocols must be strictly followed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I will amend my statement to say “no one but Baud….” Happy now?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Wolverines!!!!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Also, trump is a career criminal who early on learned to use a very few trusted henchmen to do his dirty work. For instance, Roger Stone was (I believe) the interface between trump and groups like the Proud Boys and 3%-ers that spearheaded the insurrection, just as he was the interface between trump and the Russians during the 2016 election. The Muellar team could not break Stone over the Russian subversion, though, and if prosecutors work their way up to Stone in their investigation of the insurrection I don’t think Stone will let them get any further. Stone is a freak.
But as a lawyer friend reminds me, documents don’t lie or take the 5th. There may be other avenues to prosecute trump. I don’t think federal prosecutors would have to go very far out of their way to find crimes of money laundering in just about any state where trump has done business. I have not seen any news about this, but that does not neccessarily mean that there is not a grand jury in New York, North Carolina, or Florida looking into it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Hence my suggestion that he resign. He may have done the right thing in the circumstances, but it was a violation of civilian control of the military which makes him no longer viable in his position.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: He seems to have ignored your suggestion. Which leaves me back where I started.
SpaceUnit
Slightly off-topic, but I recently watched a deranged rant by Giuliani in which he threatened to rip off Milley’s stars and ram them down his neck. I would literally pay anything to watch that attempt. All three seconds of it.
eclare
@burnspbesq: Gotcha, thanks. Things churning below the surface…
JoyceH
@The Moar You Know:
Actually, at least one of the founders would have been surprised and delighted that we made it this long. After the Constitutional convention, in that famous exchange where the woman asked Franklin what they had given us, he said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” But the truth was, he didn’t actually believe that we could keep it. Everyone knew that Washington was going to be the first President, so he thought we’d okay for a while, maybe manage to survive as a Republic for a generation, but eventually we’d devolve into some sort of strong-man or oligarchic arrangement. In his defense, there had never been a long-surviving republic in modern history – people liked to theorize about it, but it seemed utopian.
We’ve exceeded Benjamin Franklin’s expectations by two centuries. Let’s continue to surprise him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Okay. This, of course, changes nothing that I said.
Woodrow/asim
There’s a reason Owing Land was a requirement to vote in more of early America than we generally talk about.
Mike in NC
I registered to vote when I was 18 and that was damn near 50 years ago. Never did any candidate for any office anyplace I lived ever suggest that elections in this country were “rigged”. Only a malignant narcissist in hock to the Kremlin would say that. Every Republican in Washington should be considered a traitor unless they can prove otherwise.
The next assault on our democracy is scheduled for Saturday. I hope the National Guard will be out in force, with weapons locked and loaded.
Jay C
@Omnes Omnibus:
I wonder when some nutball Congresscritter is going to
stand uptweetstorm and demand that Gen. Milley be court-martialed for “disloyalty” or whatever.My guess is MTG will be the first, but I won’t take sucker bets….
piratedan
tbh, I really do want to see 45 prosecuted by the DOJ should they find grounds to do so and I’m even okay if it happens later than sooner… because sooner, I want to see this unfold along the same lines as Watergate (I know, I know). A slow methodical dismantling of the entire GOP house of cards… following the money and rounding up who got paid to overthrow the nation and who coordinated the foot soldiers, who stood down the defenses, who passed intel along and who spun this in such as way to provide clearance to them.
bit by bit, block by block, round them all up, Congressmen, staffers, GOP admin folks, generals, media types… get them all, put them in jail slowly, sans fanfare. If we’re confined to using the legal methods at hand… use them.
karen marie
@gene108:
I read an article the other day that detailed the Republican “rigged election” myth going back far earlier than even Bush-Gore. Sadly, I cannot find it with a quick google. But I think we all lived it and should be familiar with the drumbeat.
Citizen Alan
@The Moar You Know: The Founders expected the fucking Electoral college to fulfill the purpose for which it was created.
karen marie
@burnspbesq: If Epstein could get his child rape charges to magically disappear, I don’t see why Gaetz couldn’t get his to go poof. All you need is a friendly prosecuting office.
karen marie
@Hoodie: Pence might have shrugged at the time but he’s now playing to the insurrection crowd.
Mike in NC
We know goddamn well that the Orange Clown is still surrounded by his entourage of seditious assholes in Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago, scheming for a way to install him as dictator for life. He has to be put down like a rabid animal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Woodrow/asim: It wasn’t necessarily owning land that was required. Generally, one had to own or lease taxable property. It allowed well-off city dwellers, for example, who might not have title to the land on which their warehouses, etc., were built but were solidly of the respectable classes to vote.
Bill Arnold
@VOR:
DJT tweeted this on Dec 11 2020 (no link because his account is gone. :-) :
It freaked some people out because it could plausibly be read as a threat to destroy the world if his Ego wasn’t saved. Pretty sure it (and similar unpublished vocal-only chatter) got the attention of the military chiefs and others.
Geminid
@karen marie: Lincoln once remarked that once the worm of presidential ambition starts to gnaw, it gnaws deep. But I think Pence has no chance to win the 2024 presidential nomination, and he’ll find this out when he tries to raise campaign money.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Well we do have Rupert’s misinformation “news” programs still on air, 24/7, so the concept of misinformation actually may be worse than not informed at all is possible correct.
Sister Golden Bear
I didn’t have Dan Quayle saving the republic on this timeline.
mrmoshpotato
I thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore by the actions of the Kremlin’s orange fascist shitstain, but HOLY FUCKBALLS, BATMAN!
Driftglass (of the Professional Left) was right. We had a soft military coup in this country.
Sister Golden Bear
@The Moar You Know:
That was whole purpose of the Electoral Congress, to serve as the last ditch barrier against a demagogue winning the popular vote (such as it was). Of course the irony is….
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: No. We had the military specifically say that they were not down with a coup.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Damn, it’s really uncomfortable the military felt the need to do that, but it’s also reassuring they won’t let the president bring the apocalypse just because he is having a hissy.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nor down with a global thermonuclear war started by a delusional narcissistic mentally-chaotic madman.
(Gigacide, or saying no to the crazy person?)
JPL
Could Pence be the friend of the cousin of Nicki Minaj? Nevermind, Pence doesn’t have balls does he.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Echo Chamber like with The Blob, they gaslight each other.
JPL
@Sister Golden Bear: I didn’t even know he was alive.
karen marie
@Mike in NC: You hadn’t been paying very close attention. I’m 63, and I remember very clearly Republicans bitching about election rigging and stolen elections going back decades. Republicans still like to say that LBJ only got elected through ballot box stuffing.
Bill Arnold
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They knew Trump was mostly physically surrounded by people who would do nothing to stop him from starting a global thermonuclear war.
BTW this isn’t entirely news. We had a thread about the Nancy Pelosi part of it here: balloon-juice.com/2021/01/08/chain-of-command/
It turns out that Cheryl Rofer (in the 2021/01/08 OP) was wrong:
JoyceH
But that I think was to coddle his own ego, rather than to set up a coup. I was astonished that Trump lasted as a viable force as long as he did. I never expected him to serve out his entire term, and once he did, I expected him to just fade out. When he went to Mar A Lago for the holidays after losing the election, I thought for sure he would just stay there and not return for the hand-over. I was basing that on his track record – he always walks away. He jumps feet first into an exciting new project (that he overpaid for), runs around energetically getting everything thoroughly effed up – and then he gets bored and walks away, with some sort of face-saving cover story about how he didn’t really lose, that the bankruptcy was a smart move and a shrewd deal, and so on. If there weren’t people riling him up for their own purposes, I doubt if he’d stir much further than the buffet at Bedminster.
Roger Moore
@eclare:
You aren’t supposed to hear anything until the indictments land, or don’t land as the case may be. That latter point is exactly why you aren’t supposed to hear anything. The authorities can do immense damage to someone’s reputation just by leaking the details of their investigation, even if it never turns anything up. I’m still pissed at how badly the FBI leaked the Clinton investigation. I want zero leaks to be the accepted standard.
oatler
@kindness:
Remember “One for His Lordship, One For the Road” by Bradbury?
Miss Bianca
@burnspbesq: Uh…I’m missing something here. Dan Quayle? Did Pence call him up about the possibility of committing some light treason and Quayle advised him Not to Go There? Is that what I’m missing?
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
To the contrary. The founders were extremely afraid of some demagogue like Trump getting elected precisely because they didn’t believe the general citizenry would be well enough educated and informed to make wise choices. That’s part of the reason for institutions like the electoral college, which avoided a direct popular election for the presidency.
RaflW
If we had a DC & nat sec press corpse that wasn’t totally fixated on maintaining the narratives they’ve already set spinning, this would be a bombshell in itself. And makes Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan look remarkably smooth and orderly compared to the complete shitshow this woulda been.
Holy heck.
Axios (from the embedded link in the CNN story)
CaseyL
@Miss Bianca: That seems to be exactly what happened. Pence did call Quayle, ask what he could do (to keep Trump in office), and Quayle told him his job was to certify the election and he’d damned well better do so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: that is what I’m gathering from twitter but twitter (on Safari) is doing its twitter (on Safari) thing and I can’t get anywhere with the links
JoyceH
@Miss Bianca: Yes, that was in the article. Pence was wondering if the law suits filed gave him some sort of cover to refuse to certify the election results and called Dan Quayle for advice. Quayle told him that the results had been certified by the states and the that VP’s role was purely ceremonial, and he couldn’t do anything other than certify the results. Pence apparently attempted to argue about it, but Quayle forcefully repeated that there was nothing that Pence could do. Dan Quayle! Whodathunk?
CaseyL
@Miss Bianca: RawStory has the lowdown.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: OK, now I’m not exactly feeling bad about all my Dan Quayle jokes back in the day, but all I’m going to say is…damn. When you get schooled in your Vice-Presidential duties by *Dan Quayle*, you ought to know you’re not fit for your job. (and good for DQ, by the way – yeah, he may have been a lightweight, but he’s not a crook, and by the standards of today’s GOP, that makes him the exception rather than the rule.)
Cermet
@RaflW: You mean tRump actually made a sane and rational order before he was to leave office?! tRump!? I’m amazed; too bad it was stopped.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Bill Arnold: Likely that phone call helped Milley refine his ideas since he had a measure of cover from the Democrats. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s less a coup and more like someone changed the launch codes, forgot to tell someone else, that kind of stuff.
Baud
Can we stop with the coup talk? Unless you find a direct lawful presidential order that was disobeyed, there was no coup.
It’s important, because the media will portray Pelosi as a coup inciter if the liberal internet keeps incorrectly talking about this in those terms.
Persistent Illusion
@lowtechcyclist: I’d buy a book of her epithets just for the very long chapter on TFG.
Low Key Swagger
@Baud: Have to agree.
JPL
@Baud: BAUD The voice of reason..
The Moar You Know
@Woodrow/asim: I didn’t want to drive down that road in the age of universal suffrage, but I am absolutely convinced that extending the franchise to everyone is a horrifically bad idea. Just look at any Facebook posting, Nextdoor thread, or Twitter feed if you need convincing.
Problem is, of course, who gets to vote and who doesn’t, and why? Not a question I’m able to answer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: Those were not sane and rational orders. They were recipes for chaos and bloodshed.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
But the media wouldn’t have cared so much if Trump had done it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Also, a coup would involve either taking power from or preventing from taking power a lawfully elected government. Neither happened here. Trump lost. Biden took office.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Right. Even if Milley had disobeyed a direct order, that would still just be disobeying a direct order. A court martialing offence, but not a coup.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
I think the universal franchise is something like democracy itself. It’s a terrible idea, but all the alternatives are worse.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@CaseyL: If I had to guess, he married her so she couldn’t be compelled to testify against him.
NotMax
“Your order to launch is very important to us but all our joint chiefs are currently busy placating other officials. Please continue to hold.”
Baud
@NotMax:
“Para escuchar este mensaje en espanol, oprima dos ahora.”
JML
blegh, Bob Woodward. His books are compelling because everyone talks to him, but they’re garbage because a) he sits on important news to make a buck, and b) he can be manipulated (and has been) easily by people who know if he can confirm something or not and by those who know he won’t break a story because the only thing that matters to him is access. You can lie to Bob Woodward and get away with it.
(Bernstein was the smarter of the two; Woodward made his bones on the fact that he was willing to outwork literally anyone. Bernstein was also weirdly charming and could get people to open up in ways that Woodward couldn’t.)
RaflW
By the way, any of this Woodward – Costa book that is sourced from Ivanka is likely a stretch, to put it mildly. She’s working harder now to spin her past than she ever, ever worked inside that White House.
debbie
I’m working my way through Adam Serwer’s The Cruelty Is the Point, and I’m thinking this will be my last Trump-centered book. It’s just all too much.
RaflW
@Cermet: Hmm.
Leaving Afghanistan: Sane.
Leaving Afghanistan by secret order with a 64 day deadline: Not sane. Or, at least, fucking recklessly stupid.
Folks yelled that Biden rushed things and left in chaos with hundreds of Americans stranded (though they got months and months of notice). What Trump wanted to do, esp simultaneous with the other pull-outs he ordered, would have been a logistical nightmare that would have entailed huge casualties and losses.
A Ghost to Most
@Omnes Omnibus: Piss off, hall monitor.
J R in WV
@oldster:
Actually, most federal investigations remain closely held secrets until indictments are handed up to the bench and published on the federal justice database system. We shouldn’t know about Trump investigations in FL, DC, Northern VA, etc, for quite a while yet.
I expect we won’t hear anything about Trump’s role in the 1/6 investigation until well into the conviction cycle of the participants, after many interviews with the organizers and funders of that purposeful riot. But I think the AG is well disposed to indict and try Trump as soon as AG Garland thinks the evidence is there.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: You’re learning!
ETA: ;)
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Sure thing, cosplay hero.
Elie
@oldster:
Man, I get your point — a serious one for sure but have you seen what’s been going on in our country and where we were when Biden took office? I mean, its been all he and his admin can do to hold off the tiger from our throats — the Covid, still rampaging, trying to rescue folks and our economy, dealing with the end of the Afghan war to name a few…. and we still have these white nationalists and others from Jan 6 running around and nothing but relentless opposition from the horrible right winged GQP. We are trying to get voting rights and other key legislation through our legislature while fighting our own folks (Sinema and Manchin).
With all humility, when exactly was Biden going to initiate the retribution you desire. What would it cost to do that? If you are an oldster, what are you seeing as the opportunity that I’m missing. From where I sit Biden has both hands filled and then some….
Omnes Omnibus
@Elie: In a properly working system, Biden would have nothing to do with what the DOJ prosecutors are doing. To his credit, he consistently said that during the debates.
J R in WV
@CaseyL:
Shocked and appalled that Dan Quayle is a better patriot than most all other Republicans. Amazed also too…
Another Scott
@StringOnAStick:
What will get tRump will be one of
twothree things; his arteries/brain, or his business practices, or him ending up drowned in a water hazard under one of his supercharged golf carts.FIFY.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It wasn’t in any sense a coup. Maybe at worst a sabotaging of the expected chain of command. There was no intent to seize power; the intent was to do nothing to block an orderly transition of power to Biden, and a whimsical global thermonuclear war would block an orderly transition of power!. Also, there was probably a bit of selfishness involved, because the various generals involved probably did not want themselves and their families and friends to die in a global thermonuclear war! (Probably, they didn’t want the thermonuclear destruction of the USA either.)
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Sheesh. Sounds like one should carry a pair of 12×50 binoculars or a spotting scope when playing golf with DJT, preferably one with a camera.
We broke mister T’s mind when he lost his reelection race. He’s miserable.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
Have not yet read thread, but that doesn’t stop one from being, probably, at least the fifth person to say that “salacious” only has to do with sex. Merriam Webster: “arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination”. Also “lecherous, lustful”. Not the same as “producing satisfying vengeful growls.”
But when even people like the literate Dr. Maddow get it wrong . . .
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Plus, the Pentagon slow-walked all kinds of things for years under TFG (like his transgender ban from the military). The bureaucracy being slow and following every rule and regulation to the t is not a coup.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
Yeah, I think it was very important to make sure that Trump’s orders went through proper procedures. The idea of the President making official proclamations via Twitter was always deeply problematic because he let other people post on his account.
billcinsd
@karen marie:
Republicans still like to say that LBJ only got elected through ballot box stuffing.
I assume you mean JFK, LBJ won in a landslide, with only one state he won having a margin of less than 10,000 votes, and one other with a margin less than 20,000, while JFK had 6 states with under a 10,000 vote margin, with Hawaii at 115 votes the lowest
trnc
I’d flip that on it’s head. I can’t think of anything more irresponsible than detailing Milley’s actions in this particular case. In the entire wingnut world, I’m not sure there’s any bigger sociopath than Bob Woodward.
Another Scott
Hmmm… Maybe. But Woodward’s books get memory-holed within 3 months after they’re released.
(via dick_nixon)
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
If they mean the 1964 Presidential election, they’re FOS.
But there was this minor issue re the 1948 Texas US Senate Democratic runoff primary, in which LBJ defeated former Governor Coke Stevenson by 87 disputed votes, and went on to win the general election, take a seat in the Senate, become Majority Leader and eventually VPOTUS and then POTUS.
FWIW, LBJ biographer Robert Caro (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) said in 1990,
Caro said that Johnson was given the votes of “the dead, the halt, the missing and those who were unaware that an election was going on.”
Urban Suburbanite
My random book subscription box has provided up Civilian Warriors, Erik Prince’s self indulgent autobiography/history of Blackwater. It’s terrible.The ghostwriter was either drunk or racing to hit the word count. It’s mediocre in a way that has you knowing you read it but you’re unable to recall it.
Tehanu
Betty, you certainly do have a way with words!