This is Adam’s turf, so I will just chuck this out there and he can issue a corrective if one is needed:
A former D.C. National Guard official is accusing two senior Army leaders of lying to Congress and participating in a secret attempt to rewrite the history of the military’s response to the Capitol riot.
In a 36-page memo, Col. Earl Matthews, who held high-level National Security Council and Pentagon roles during the Trump administration, slams the Pentagon’s inspector general for what he calls an error-riddled report that protects a top Army official who argued against sending the National Guard to the Capitol on Jan. 6, delaying the insurrection response for hours.
Matthews’ memo, sent to the Jan. 6 select committee this month and obtained by POLITICO, includes detailed recollections of the insurrection response as it calls two Army generals — Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff — “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their characterization of the events of that day. Matthews has never publicly discussed the chaos of the Capitol siege.
And yes, that is Mike Flynn’s brother.
sab
Is it just me, or do we lose a lot of good officers when they do the right thing as colonels (ybe honest and forthright) and thereby blow up their careers.
Balconesfault
I am so hoping that an aggressive push on terminating the careers of those military who refused to get vaccinated will have a beneficial side effect of ridding the ship of many of these rats.
Parfigliano
Im shocked. Gen Flynn is a scumbag piece of shit like his brother. Wonder if is also a Soviet stooge.
Betty Cracker
Public hearings soon, I hope.
artem1s
I can’t wait until the transcripts/reports/timelines of the conversations between Pelosi/Dence/National Guard comes out. What did Dence know and when did he know it? Was he pressured to stall the vote; stall the evacuation? and who pressured him? How/Why did the VP have to get involved when TFG refused to call out the NG? How long had he been in charge of the military/country if TFG wasn’t able to perform his duties? When did the transfer of power occur if TFG was busy yapping on the phone with Gym Jordan? That’s the smarmy little asshole I want to see pay. The Xtian Nationalists conspired with a foreign power and the GOP to put TFG on the throne because they wanted Dense in the VP seat. The root of the insurrection started with the Dominionists and Xtian Nationalists who want the US to be a fascist oligarchy. You want to keep the next Domioninist puppet out of the WH? Make Dense pay for his complicity.
Another Scott
I hope they get Mayor Bowser to testify. She (rightly) had severe misgivings about having federal troops in DC after their over-reaction/fascist tactics during protests in 2020 (summer, and December). She wanted them restricted to doing traffic control, etc., in January.
July 22, 2020.
PBS Newshour (from January 4, 2021) – yeah, it wasn’t even a year ago…
To be clear, I’m not blaming her in any way. She has an important perspective of what what done and said to whom and she needs to be part of the record.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Ooof. So bad.
I’m glad the (alleged) liars answered so specifically and under oath, though. I don’t see how they wriggle out of those answers. They are denials.
Snarki, child of Loki
Flynn took an oath to protect and defend the USA.
Now nail him with the Klan Act.
raven
@artem1s: My new rescue pup is Artemis!
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: FWIW McMaster basically did that. He was passed over a couple of times for his first star because he had written a book critical of top brass in Vietnam. One wonders if his subsequent performance was because he had “learned his lesson.”
artem1s
@raven:
pictures? what kind of pup?
Ruckus
You expected perfection out of military people?
Some of you had to be in the military at some point, and realize that all those stars and bars did not always signify anything but time. There are great and horrible people at all levels and in all jobs in the military, just like everywhere else. There are people who do their job to the best of their ability and there are people who have so little ability that it is unmeasurable. Just like everywhere else in the world. And there is no selection process in the military that keeps them out of the officer core, any more than any where else. There are excellent people in the military, there are excellent people in congress, there are excellent people working at the post office, there are excellent people picking the grapes for your wine. But there is always the gamut of skills, reasoning, abilities, realities, concepts of self, personalties, allegiances, ideals, among every group of people over a very few.
If you doubt this look at who was elected president to fill vacancy #45. Or look at the previous 45 office holders and tell me they were all top picks.
sab
@raven: We were thrilled when my Ponyo got next to your Artie in the calendar. Don’t want to politicize, but pitbulls get a bad rap from a few psychopaths, much like human teens.
scav
So, they’re really more interested in protecting a colleague than protecting the reputation of the forces? I must be missing something. Or, their loyalty is measured in such focused microns.
Mike in NC
The Flynn brothers belong in prison along with virtually every other person who had a role in the Trump Crime Cartel’s reign of error.
Almost Retired
Nice family, those Flynns. They must have been the 1960’s version of the Crumbleys.
West of the Rockies
@Almost Retired:
The high-flyin’, always-lyin’ Flynn boys…
Corrupt to the core.
CraigM
@Betty Cracker: Must not have gotten enough sleep, I read this as “public hangings soon” ….. Not sure which way I prefer
Ruckus
@scav:
In humanity it is often the focus of the loyalty that is the issue, not the level of it.
Some are focused on the past, on themselves, on friends, on advancement, on the paycheck, on the glory, on the danger, on staying out of the danger… Some are actually focused on doing a great job. Some are focused on doing a great job for themselves. Some have the focus of a moldy potato.
kindness
I believe there were heads that wanted the insurrection to succeed. Otherwise there is no good reason the police there weren’t dressed properly for the occasion and that the Guard wasn’t called in before the violence started. We need to identify who those heads & helpers were so we can kick their asses out of any public office they may have.
MattF
@Almost Retired: Makes you wonder about Mama and Papa Flynn… but upon reflection, I probably don’t want to know.
Kay
@kindness:
I think so too. It is inexplicable to me why there wasn’t more of a response after it was clear they overrunning police who were there, because it isn’t, actually, comparable to a BLM protest in DC or anywhere- they were in the building hunting members of congress.
Betty
@Another Scott: I think we would all here agree that this attack wasn’t just a noisy protest. The urgent calls from the Capitol Police should have had everybody on board right away.
jnfr
Apparently the 1/6 Committee plans a lot of public hearings after the turn of the year. I can’t wait.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: The problem (even with these specifics) is that we don’t really have a way to confirm they lied, I don’t think.
We have some phone call records, but most of this stuff is going to be recorded somewhere. It’s going to be slightly lower-level people like this guy, whose testimony will be challenged and (in my view) won’t be good enough for real consequences.
laura
Is this an open thread- because if it is, I’d like to mention that the Adam Schiff book is really, really good and listening to him read it even more compelling.
lowtechcyclist
I still want to know why the plan in advance wasn’t to have a couple thousand law enforcement officers protecting the Capitol, i.e. they’d have been there at daybreak and stayed until the crowds dispersed. Everybody paying even minimal attention knew that’s where the focus of the protests would be.
Mike R
@Ruckus: This is absolutely correct. Some officers and NCOs had it, meaning a commitment to being good at what they did, but like everywhere there are people some of them suck.
@Ruckus:
scav
@Ruckus: Indeed, but I’ll admit to being more forgiving of such common humanity if the possessors of it weren’t so constantly in my face proclaiming their innate superiority and demanding immediate respect, thanks and obedience for their hypothesized, certainly claimed moral perfection because they’re sporting a uniform.
stinger
@Mike in NC: Thank Dog for the Vindman brothers, a great counteractive to the Flynns.
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
I agree. We don’t really have the tools to handle this problem. A lot of it is “norms” and that’s just not equal to the problem at hand. For some of it- the state legislature “nullification” theory they’re promoting- I don’t even know how federal legislation could address it. I don’t think they can reach it.
Brantl
Let’s hope that “in like Flynn” becomes a phrase for how they both went to prison.
gvg
I actually understand the mayor’s position not wanting the National Guard armed for fear of Trump trying to give them orders to support his coup. I also think that the numerous prior rightwing rallies that turned out to be flops with few participants was a factor in the preplanning errors. Remember, we are now operating with hindsight. We KNOW what happened. Beforehand, they didn’t. Beforehand I was worried about Trump using the military or National Guard myself. I am not convinced that having more of them on hand and armed would have actually had better results. It really might have been the other way around.
And last, it really is a serious flaw/problem when the head executive of the country is a self absorbed traitor. The President is supposed to have a lot of power. Trump was not supposed to be elected really. Even when he wasn’t actively malicious, his lazy cop outs of most of the work were also attacking our functioning.
germy
@CraigM:
Hearings first, then hangings. We are, after all, a Democracy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
The section in the constitution that allows Congress to decide how federal elections are conducted
Jackie
If these allegations are true, what are the odds of Brother Flynn keeping Mike Flynn up to date during the Insurrection – who in turn kept Trump informed?
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
From the Wikipedia page on Artemis:
We’re getting into BJ After Dark territory awfully early in the day!
Betty Cracker
@gvg: You’re right. The constitutional checks on presidential power proved wholly inadequate to the task since they rely on the patriotism of a simple majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate. I’m not sure how/if we can fix that.
Eolirin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, so about that… that power cuts both ways and is kind of terrifying.
SiubhanDuinne
@laura:
I’ve been reading it on my Kindle app, but I’m thinking of also getting the audiobook with Schiff narrating.
Josie
First, we were told that Flynn was not in the room when decisions were made, and now we hear that he had direct input. It will be interesting to see how they propose to square that circle.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: The bigger problem is that that simple majority in the house and super majority in the senate require a significant majority of Americans to be patriotic and pro-democracy, in a real sense, and not in a performative sense.
That’s even harder to solve.
Jackie
@SiubhanDuinne: Schiff’s writing is so clear, in my head I hear him “narrating” as I read lol
lowtechcyclist
Maybe, but I told my wife at first light that morning not to worry about the protests, they’d have a couple thousand cops there protecting the Capitol. Because I figured, of course they would. Didn’t think it was even a question.
Eunicecycle
@lowtechcyclist: I remember thinking, too, when it was taking so long to clear the building that the police were arranging to arrest all the people there. It sure would have solved the problem of tracking the people down later! I understand there would be huge logistical issues but in a city like DC surely there are contingency plans for mass arrests.
WaterGirl
@laura: @SiubhanDuinne:
I got the audio book to listen to as i am falling asleep and and an electronic copy for my iPad so i can get the whole picture for book club planning.
In iBooks, the audio version was 19.99 and the electronic copy was 14.99.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
There were absolutely people who wanted the insurrection to succeed. But there were other factors, too. As the BLM protests showed, when the police show up ready for a riot, it’s a lot more likely that a riot will happen. The police wanted to take a lower key approach to the march on 1/6 in the hope they could avoid provoking the marchers. This turned out to be a terrible idea, because the marchers in 1/6 were going to riot whether or not they were provoked.
There’s huge element of White privilege there. The 1/6 marchers were given way more benefit of the doubt than BLM protesters were, and you just can’t ignore the role race played in that. I think the people who wanted the riot to succeed used those factors as an excuse for setting the Capitol and DC police up to fail.
laura
@SiubhanDuinne: You’ll not be disappointed.
lowtechcyclist
@Eunicecycle:
There sure used to be. I was seventeen when the last big anti(Vietnam)war protest, the May Day 1971 protest, took place, and they rounded protesters up by the thousands. (I’d intended to go, but at the last minute, a friend talked me out of it, alas.)
Chief Oshkosh
@Eunicecycle:
Oh, there are, but the plans are for mass arrests of Dirty Fucking Hippies or The Blahs. There were no plans, nor will there ever be plans, for mass arrests of good Christian white folk exercising their rights!
Chris
@sab:
That was my grandfather. West Pointer, three tours in Southeast Asia, Green Beret, was almost certainly going to make general some day. Then told a reporter Vietnam was a “dumb war.”
After that, he apparently was flooded with calls from his shocked classmates. Not shocked because of what he said… shocked because he’d said it out loud. “Dude, WTF?” “What? It’s true.” “Yeah, but you don’t say it!” “Why not? It’s true!”
It’s an interesting insight into the minds of the kind of people who kept their heads down and did go on to be the Colin Powells and James Mattises of the world.
Comrade Colette
Fred Hiatt has died. I guess he had a heart attack last month and did not recover.
sab
Fucking moron husband.
Stepkid turned up yeaterday. Okay. Wanted to do laundry. He is a machinist. Also okay. Told husband to switch the dryer balls out, because his stuff is oily, and the dryer balls all come out gray and smelling like a gas station. Husband said okay. When kids stuff was done husband pulled oily dryer balls and told me kid’s wash was done.
So I did my wash. Meanwhile husband came up with another load of stepkid’s wet wash not yet dried stuff without telling me. Put that in with the new clean dryer balls. Ruining them. Acted all innocent this morning. ” Of course I told you” No he fucking did not. How hard is basic communication about what you actually intend to do in the next two hours. Grrr.
sdhays
@MisterForkbeard: I’m hoping that if the Colonel is this forthright, there’s a lot of documentation behind him. Never forget that these people aren’t very bright and also convinced that they are blessed by Almighty God, which is a great cocktail for “taking notes in a conspiracy”.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
I think this overlooks the difference between taking a purely defensive position, which was all that was needed on 1/6, and what the police were doing during the BLM protests.
Even aside from Trump having them abruptly clear Lafayette Park of protesters, they weren’t just assuming a defensive position to protect the White House from protesters; they were out there in a fluid situation. But all they had to do on 1/6 was have a ton of cops behind those flimsy temporary barriers, sending the message that you can do whatever you want out there, but if you come in here you’re in trouble.
lowtechcyclist
One more addition to my list of graves I’d like to piss on.
WaterGirl
@laura: If you count all the parts that played while I was asleep, i am on chapter 8 already. :-)
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Anyone notice that BLM people disappeared as soon as violent protesters turned up at protests? BLM people apparently very much do not want violent protests. Antifa wants to fight. BLM folks know better.
JaySinWa
The certification of the election was the provocation. I can only imagine that too many people in power thought that the protest violence would be limited and manageable with the forces at hand.
A bad plan both in hindsight and foresight, but so much of the prior activity had failed to get to critical mass that there was a failure of imagination. The over reaction to BLM and the underwhelming response to anti-BLM violence helped set the stage for what turned out to be unwarranted restraint.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Yow. Younger than me. So apparently it is not only the good who die young.
There go two miscreants
@sab: I’m glad I bought a female dryer!
gbear
The big stuff I’m seeing in that Political piece was out in the public shortly after the insurrection. I can remember hearing then about Flynn being in the room and participating in the planning even though the army said he wasn’t. We knew right away that the army had lied. I probably heard the story from a Maddow segment, but it was certainly stuffed down a rabbit hole quickly.
West of the Rockies
@There go two miscreants:
Ba-dum-TSSS!
Geminid
@sab: “Antifa” covers a wide range of people. At the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, they included people singing “This little light of mine,” and people who were prepared to fight, but defensively. There was some push and shove between them and the fascist marchers. But the real street fighters, the “Black Bloc,” stayed away. The mother of one of the anti-fascist organizers told me that this was because they were asked to stay away. I thought it might have been because Virginia has a mask law, and those folks like to mask up.
A lot of the violence and burning last summer was by right wingers and anarchists. They were being opportunistic, and the right wingers were trying to make the BLM movement look bad
The violent opportunists were a constant thorn in the sides of BLM organizers. The organizers tried their best to keep the anarchists from taking advantage of their protests, without a lot of success.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
The problem isn’t even lack of patriotism, it’s lack of self-interest. The whole logic behind the divided government we have was that people in the three branches of government would check each other simply to maintain their own status. Self-interest is supposed to be part of the program here. Except it isn’t anymore, as we can see from 1/6 and the aftermath.
The founding fathers wouldn’t have been surprised that congresscritters would have so little patriotism that they’d collude with someone like Trump against the public interest. But they’d have been flabbergasted that congresscritters would have so little basic self-interest, or even survival instinct, that they’d see with someone like Trump and try to put him back in power after he literally tried to kill them.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: That’s how I remember it. It seemed to me as if there was something of an East/West divide: the Black Bloc-ers were always more active on the West Coast and they adopted the “antifa” label early on, but in the East, “antifa” groups seemed more likely to provide crowd protection and counter-demonstration at fascist demos.
And the people smashing and burning things were often actually right-wingers. Some of them weren’t even actively trying to be a false flag or discredit anyone–in 2020, some very bizarre violent far-right splinter groups decided they were actually allied with BLM. Basically, they were not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
West of the Rockies
@Geminid:
Was that A-hole who was breaking windows and trying to inspire looting ever ID’d and apprehended? (A white Trump supporters, I believe it was revealed.)
Soprano2
@Ruckus: This is why it’s wrong to say that just because someone was in the military they’re a “hero”. My husband the many-time-shot-at-with-shrapnel-scars combat veteran hates that; he says it degrades the meaning of the word “hero”. It also makes it seem like you cannot question anything the “hero” does or says, and that’s just wrong. Same way with characterizing all police officers and firefighters as “heroes” – I think they want it because they think it makes them untouchable.
JoyceH
Post – DOJ sues Texas over new voting maps, saying they discriminate against Latinos.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/texas-maps-garland-latinos-justice/2021/12/06/4011ce78-56aa-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html
JaySinWa
@Matt McIrvin: I believe antifa to the extent it exists has not associated itself with Black block on either coast. Black block has always used other protests as cover for their actions. They might claim to be on the side of one group or another, but I think it is rarely reciprocated.
Chris
@Geminid:
I didn’t have much use for Antifa until one particular moment at the Charlottesville rally, when the neo-Nazis grabbed people, doused them in oil, and were threatening them with torches, and a bunch of “Antifa” jumped in and literally put their bodies between the two.
All while the police sat around with both thumbs up their asses. Like they always do when the people committing crimes are people they happen to like.
I’m sure there’s plenty of Antifa people that I wouldn’t like much if I sat down and talked to them, but the fact of the matter is, right now they’re literally the only ones even trying to protect people the neo-Nazis decide are targets and the cops decide are not-our-problem. Until that changes, all I can say is I wish them the best.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jackie:
i suspect the same is going to be true of Jamie Raskin’s forthcoming book — which I am also greatly anticipating. Should be an interesting pairing with Schiff.
eclare
@Soprano2: My ex was a firefighter and the entitlement was astounding. Luckily he never got away with anything really bad from police, but wow, he was *furious* when he got a ticket for expired tags. His entire attitude was just wait til that officer gets hurt and needs my help (he was also a paramedic.)
Of course others got away with much worse, mainly DUI’s.
West of the Rockies
@Chris:
I’d not heard about dumping oil on people thing. Is that true and confirmed? Did the police have to explain their inaction?
Hmmm, I wonder what the police response would have been if, say, some bkack men poured oil on a squad of white cheerleaders and then waved around torches…
oatler
The generals will always side with the fascists whenever there’s a coup (or coup attempt).
trnc
@JaySinWa:
No, the explicit provocation by DT and his minions was the provocation. If there had been no “rally,” there would have been no riot when the vote was certified.
scott (the other one)
@Roger Moore:
@Roger Moore:
You’re absolutely right, but mixed in there is the awareness that the BLM protestors were highly unlikely to be armed, while the insurrectionists were likely to be. Another kind of privilege.
WaterGirl
Cole, you spelled “Unsurprising” wrong.
GoBlueInOak
@Chris: That’s a common experience for anyone who has been present at protests at which the fash/Proud Boy types show up at (along with false flag MAGAts). The cops – many of whom are hardcore MAGAts – sit on their hands giving the white nationalists free reign. And its the “antifa” types who are the ones to put their bodies in harms way to protect other protestors from the Proud Boy types. Seen it first hand even in “liberal” places like Berkeley.
There’s a reason in the 20th century, the fascists would first go after the socialists and communists before they’d go after the liberal bourgeoisie. They know who will put up the real fight first when things get dirty.
Chris
@West of the Rockies:
I definitely remember hearing about it from the time of the rally, but can’t find anything about it through Internet searches, so mark it down “unconfirmed.”
Roger Moore
@JaySinWa:
I think part of the problem is that Antifa is a broad coalition that’s largely defined by willingness to call oneself Antifa. Here on the West Coast, there are a lot of people who look and act an awful lot like the black block who had decided to call themselves Antifa.
sab
@Geminid: I am not by any means anti antifa. My stepson was one in his youth. He was basically an antiracist punk music fan who didn’t mind fighting. I just meant BLM doesn’t do or condone violence at all. Antifa is okay with vlolence against people they disapprove of. Sometimes it’s useful. Mostly it’s counterproductive.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Subliminal.
Geminid
@Chris: The police response at the Charlottesville rally certanly was deficient. Part of the problem was they were not ready for the scale of the rally. They lacked extra manpower to grab offenders and haul them away. And they were really worried about worse than simple assaults. Hundreds of the marchers were armed, and a dozen or so antifa people came up from North Carolina with rifles, ostensibly to protect counterdemonstrators. There was a very fraught moment when a Maryland klansman fired a warning shot next to a knuckled-headed counterprotestor using a lit hairspray can like a torch. That could have touched off a firefight and a bloodbath. Authorities tracked down the klansman and a Charlottesville judge gave him 7-8 years prison time.
There were failures from city on up to state government. The ACLU did not help either. The city had moved the rally to spacious McIntyre Park a mile away, but the organizer got the ACLU to help move it back to crowded downtown, in front of the statue that was the pretext for the rally. Of course, the federal judge did not have to go along.
The scale of the rally was a surprise. I knew the rally was coming. I was taken aback, though, when two days before the rally I heard a local radio reporter report that the State Police said it would be the largest gathering of white supremacists in decades. She had just returned from the briefing. I don’t think the authorities realized this much before that, but they should have.
Local and state law enforcement were behind the curve throughout, and poorly coordinated. For instance,there was a cop car blocking the street down which Fields attacked a crowd and killed Heather Heyer. The cop pulled out a half hour earlier because of safety concerns. But the National Guard was staging two miles away with enough Humvees to block twenty intersections.
Ruckus
@scav:
Every human is flawed in some way. Some far more than others. There is the small thing of survival of those capable of survival. There are even a few who will sacrifice themselves for others. Many, most mothers do this a lot for their kids. In the military some will sacrifice their lives for others. In combat many/most are asked to make sacrifices. Many do, some willing, some reluctantly but they do. But some will sacrifice anyone else in their goal of survival. Some will do this so badly that no one wants to be around them. Never forget that some humans are just fucking horrible, and there is almost nothing that will change that. And there are far fewer who will sacrifice their life so that it’s possible that others will survive. It’s humanity, the horrible, the OK, the good, the heroes. We hope that the majority fall into the middle groups, we know that the last group is by far the smallest, and we hope beyond hope that the first group actually is the smallest – all the while knowing it isn’t. Right now, in my mind the conservative parties are grasping for something and falling right into the first group, selfish, horrible, humans in search of who the hell knows.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: This is a really great comment. Your categories have reordered my thinking. Or aligned completely with what I felt but had never articulated. Thank you!
VOR
@West of the Rockies: I think you are referring to “Umbrella Man”, the person who started the window breaking during the Minneapolis protests. Yes, he was identified and yes, he was a white supremacist trying to spark a riot.
Jackie
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh! I didn’t realize Jamie Raskin has a book coming out – but, I’m not surprised! That, too, should be a great book!
WaterGirl
@VOR: But not apprehended, right? No consequences/
gene108
Mike Flynn would’ve done jail time, but Trump pardoned him. A lot more f people got out of jail time with Trump pardons for their lack of cooperation and dishonesty in dealing with prosecutors to protect Trump.
***************
Unfortunately, the wheels of justice move slowly, while those planning to wipeout our democracy move fast. If Dems lose control of Congress, in 2022, I expect the 1/6/21 instigators and organizers in Congress to be thrown parties in their honor.
We realistically have about eleven months or so to start seeing prosecutions, otherwise we’re going to have to trust the white American voter to stay mad at Republicans, which doesn’t seem possible for more than two election cycles (2006 & 2008), and hoping against trend they stay mad at Republicans going into 2022.
Chris
@gene108:
I said at the beginning of the year that Democrats needed to hit the ground running and pass as much shit as possible, so that voters would have the most chance of noticing an improvement in their daily lives, so that the bread-and-butter jobs and infrastructure stuff would have the most time to work, and so that the controversial stuff would have the most time to be forgotten, before the 2022 midterms.
I was right, and sadly, that’s of course not what happened.
trollhattan
The ghost of Shelby County v. Holder lives on.
I assume “snowball’s chance” applies here, between District V and SCOTUS, but gold star for trying.
Geminid
@West of the Rockies: I don’t think the oil-on-people incident happened. I wasn’t there and I wouldn’t have seen everything anyway. But that would be a fairly notable event, and this is the first time I heard of it.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I don’t have scars and I agree with your husband. I enlisted 2 yrs after my draft physical. I enlisted a couple of days before the draft drawing was announced and I did so because that concept of being drafted as bullet meat was not all that appealing. That first draft lottery drawing my birthdate was drawn very early, #15. If I hadn’t already enlisted I was going, with a 33 1/3 to 50% chance of being drafted into the Marines. I respect the Marines, I believe we need them. I just didn’t want to end up in Vietnam as point man on patrol my first or second day in country. And dead on my third day. From a war we screwed up from the get go, and ended up with 58,281 American deaths and quite possibly over a million Vietnamese dead. I see the after effects of the war of my youth every time I go to the VA.
A hero? No I am not in any way a hero. I served, I did what I was trained and told to do. I didn’t kill or shoot anyone, and yes I carried a loaded weapon when required and would have used it if necessary. I kept a warship navigation system running. Had we shot at anything other than training targets, I would have had some responsibility for being able to do that. I know people who killed people, because that was their duty. It’s not honorable to kill, it is sometimes necessary. War is not good, it is sometimes the last resort, it should never be the first. I am not a hero, the vast majority of people in the military are not heroes. A hero saves lives, often at the cost of their own, I will not sully the word to claim or have someone else claim that I am one.
West of the Rockies
@Geminid:
I concur. And unlike Republicans, I do not want to knowingly peddle half-truths and BS (not saying Chris intentionally did so).
rikyrah
@kindness:
clap clap clap
rikyrah
@Kay:
The Governor of Maryland went on record that he called for the National Guard right away – Hoyer contacted him once he and Pelosi were hidden away safe.
Took 90 MINUTES to get someone at the Pentagon to pick up the phone.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
That still infuriates me. And wasn’t it the undersecretary of the Army or somebody well below Sef Def who finally took the call and acted? It stunk to high heaven that day and the stench has not cleared since.
Searcher
Punishing a traitor’s entire family for their treason (even “mildly”, in removing them from positions of power and prestige) is like a classic regressive dystopian routine, but at the same time…
J R in WV
Yet I recall seeing (IIRC) Richard Spencer, professional Nazi bully, while speaking through a bullhorn to his fellow Nazi supporters, getting sucker-punched to the ground by (what I have always assumed was) a Black-Block antifa activist.
It happened in the middle of little Nazi Spencer’s speech, and shut him off instantly. It should happen to more of them, and on live video also~!!~
Omnes Omnibus
@oatler: But they didn’t. The army did not intervene in support of the coup attempt.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Me too.
My draft lottery number was 78, and IIRC they drafted young men up into the 200s in 1970. I enlisted a couple of weeks before I would have had my draft board physical.
StringOnAStick
I think my grandfather was a pretty decent Navy Captain. He tried the Admiral track but was bounced out, I strongly think now because his wife was such a horrible, loud and in your face drunk. She was so mad about it she burned all his service records so I don’t know any more than that other than it was a extremely sore point for the rest of their married life.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Also, I waited 2 yrs after my draft physical before I could no longer stand the tension of getting home from work and hoping not to see that letter in the mail – You Shall Report to AFES on _______, 1969 for induction. It just so happened it was 2 days before the drawing was announced. Everyday since that absolutely bullshit physical where the blood draw tube and urine sample bottle were put into racks with no identification whatsoever, I knew that they didn’t give a fuck about anything other than having X bodies to throw into the line of fire. That’s flames or lead, either way not very positive for a good outcome for anyone available.
LongHairedWeirdo
@sab: we’ve already lost at least one, to a corrupt act of retaliation that the Republicans ignored completely. Remember this, next time they says they loves them some troopies – they barely noted a protest at one of the most corrupt acts possible, punishing a good officer, for acting honorable and well.