Given this afternoon’s and evening’s Executive Branch reassignments and terminations, we’re going to need these to get through the weekend.
I believe we’re somewhere in the elevated range on the advisory system.
We’ll have to wait to Monday to see if Senator Collins makes it all the way to sternly worded letter. So stay tuned.
Open thread!
Rob
What a day, what a day. Also in the DC area, there was a tornado in Leesburg west of the city in the morning, and snow falling not an hour ago in Germantown north of the city. No snow in my closer in suburb. I did hear thunder, in the morning, and winds were up all day. I mostly avoided the news until work was over and I had a rum and apple cider in my hand.
Omnes Omnibus
There seem to be a couple of schools of thought on where Vindman’s military career goes from here. One is that he is essentially done since he has effectively been fired from a high profile position. The other is that he is still a serving LTC and the army will protect him. I lean toward the second with the caveat that he is an FAO and COL would probably be his career ceiling anyway. Your thoughts?
sdhays
At this point, is she even bothering above “Moue of of Mild Disappointment”? I think now she’s pretty much stuck at, “I’m only on record, in the most official way possible, saying that whatever he does is ‘perfect’, so I don’t see the point in going to the effort of pretending I give a shit anymore.”.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Storms here yesterday, and a possible tornado took the roof off of a school. Our new roof developed a seeping leak. Hubby was in the attic last night and spent more time herding the Underfeet than looking for the leak. Maysie trotted right up the ladder and tried to explore the furnace.
That kitten has no sense of self-preservation.
They’ve been cut back on kibble since we noticed that they’re growing out instead of up. Loki is approaching the density of osmium.
Kathleen
She just scheduled an appointment for a brow furrow transplant.
Shalimar
Sternly worded letter to whom? Does anyone seriously think she has the guts to draw Trump’s attention?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Almost all the Foreign Area Officers (FAO) I know max out at colonel. I think there’s one or two that make it to brigadier and maybe beyond that, but that’s not the usual career trajectory. I don’t know the current Chief of Staff of the Army, but I do know the Vice Chief of Staff. He was the Chief of Staff when I was assigned to III Corps as the Cultural Advisor. He’s a sharp guy who takes good care of his Soldiers. My guesstimate is, provided he stays in and doesn’t decide to retire, that one of three things will happen here. LTC Vindman will be assigned to Department of the Army Training (DAMO-TR), which overseas the development of Foreign Area Officers for the Army Staff. This would keep him close to the Army leadership where he could be protected. It is also possible that LTC Vindman will be assigned to his senior O5 and ultimately O6 level assignment as a Defense Attache (DAT). The final possibility is that he’ll be sent to one of the Senior Leader Colleges as a regional studies professor. It would not surprise me if he isn’t assigned to US Army War College as the 48E (Eurasia specialist FAO) in the Department of National Security & Strategy as one of the Eurasian regional specialists on the faculty. I think the latter is more likely as sending him to either US Embassy Moscow or US Embassy Kyiv would set the President off. If he’s stashed down in Carlisle, he’s out of sight and out of mind. And given that USAWC is a direct reporting unit to the Chief of Staff of the Army, this is an easy way to resolve the problem. He could also, potentially, be sent to the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) or Command & General Staff College (CGSC) or even to the Point to teach regional studies as well. SAMS and CGSC are a little more difficult as they aren’t direct reports to the Chief of Staff, but I doubt that the TRADOC and CAC Commanding Generals or the SES Deputy at CAC would refuse him the assignment. West Point is a direct report to the Chief of Staff, so here too this would be an easy fix.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
I hope if we can win back the White House that he and Yovanovitch can be given some great position where they can do some good.
Gin & Tonic
Came out to SLC to ski, and several of the best ski areas were closed all day. Too much snow.
Was supposed to come late yesterday, but the weather in the southeast played havoc with flight schedules. Gotta go with the flow.
DocH
She’s disappointed, I’m sure. https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1124008916004872194?s=09
FlyingToaster
She’s gonna hunker down and hide from the press, hoping that nobody in Maine notices.
I just saw over at the Great Orange Satan that she’s got one or more questionable donations, likely illegal. Alas, the FEC has no enforcement arm anymore, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: So, with a lot more detail from you, we essentially agree.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. I was just gaming out what I think will happen.
Mike in NC
As somebody who spent 30 years in the Navy, I believe that Fat Bastard’s minions will ensure that the Vindman brother’s careers are done. They will be forced out at the earliest opportunity and be obligated to seek new jobs in the private sector while trying to avoid regular attacks by the vindictive filth at FOX News.
Mai naem mobile
What about Lisa Murkowski and more importantly Martha McSally being that she was in the military. I am going to call McSallys office on Monday and see if I can talk to a live person – her office is famous for hiding and no answering the phones – awesome constituent service.
Part of me kind of wants Bloomberg to pick up Vindman as an advisor and pay him some crazy amount of money for it but not sure if that is a good thing to do as far as what Trumpov and his buddies would say about the Dems planting Vindman in the WH etc.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
But the “firing” is kind of soft. Several stories have pointed out that Vindman was due to be rotated back to the Pentagon anyway and that he had already requested that the date be moved up. So all that Trump accomplished by having Vindman—and his brother, an NSC staffer—summarily marched out of the White House was a piece of fake reality-show drama.
I don’t know what the ceiling is for Vindman’s career track, but I can’t believe that this is a killer. There are plenty of slots where he could do good work and Trump would never hear of him again. Also hard to believe that the Army hierarchy is filled with Trump toadies eager to continue hounding Vindman.
ETA: Dunno how it is now, but when my father was in the Air Force full colonel was the end of the line for a lot of successful careers, just because the pyramid gets a lot steeper from there. Diminishing number of slots. And it takes long enough to make full colonel that that is a pretty good career.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: We have a zero defect Army. And it is also an up or out Army. If the Army chain of command does the right thing, he’ll be fine. If they don’t because they’re afraid to set off the President, then we’ll know just how much more trouble we’re really in.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: In terms of the Vindmans’ ability to pay their rent, this may not have been the end of the world, but the theater of it makes the US look like Turkmenistan or Moldova.
Steeplejack
@Shalimar:
Her Word drafts folder (h/t SNL).
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: There were people in threads earlier today who were saying it was a career killer. I will note that some of them were career military but did not come from the army and were not particularly familiar with army officer career progression (especially outside of the the standard nonspecialist areas).*
*I wasn’t in long enough to go through much of the process, but one learns it very early and I have followed friends’ careers with interest.
ETA: Ending as an 0-6 is a successful career.
rikyrah
Can’t tell him anything ????
ThresherK
“Fret Level”!
This makes it worth reading all by itself.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
No argument here.
Gin & Tonic
I also hold no brief for Gordon Sondland, but that’s got to be the worst $1 mil he’s spent.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe he learned a valuable life lesson by having his privileged bubble punctured, however briefly. Must be tough to learn that you’re not a master of the universe, just a spear-carrier in the back row.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Nah!
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Humm… please keep tabs on that for us then. That is an angle I, for one, would never have worked into this, and it sounds like it could be rather important.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: I’m not sure I’m going to know anything any sooner than anyone else does from the news reporting, but I’ll see what I can do.
Ken
@zhena gogolia: First announce that, because Trump has soiled and degraded it as he does everything he touches, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is discontinued.
Then announce the replacement and make Vindman and Yovanovitch the first recipients. Hell, name it after them.
Ken
Oh, nowhere near that good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I think he has about 22 years in. It isn’t a bad time for an O-5 with marketable skills to take the pension and jump.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope, it is not. It is also possible that they route him into one of the student slots at one of the war colleges or into one of the equivalent fellows slots. Send him to the school house for the year, which gets him way out of the way. Especially if they don’t send him to National War College in DC. If they send him to Carlisle as a student or Naval or Air, he’s out of sight and out of mind. They could also send him off to do a PhD at this point, that’ll eat up three years, which gets him to 25, he then pins on as an O6, and does his final five teaching at West Point, SAMS, or USAWC.
Adam L Silverman
@Ken: The Presidential Medal of Liberty.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Do you think his pension could be threatened?
Mai naem mobile
@Gin & Tonic: he gets to spend a boatload more on lawyers and maybe staying out of the Big House.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
How anyone could not know about Trump’s temperament and unpredictability is beyond me. There can’t be a good ending for anyone who works for/with him.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: No. The only way to do that is if he’s brought up on charges under the UCMJ, convicted, and stripped of it as part of the punishment. And I don’t see the Army leadership allowing that to happen. He may be counseled to quietly go into retirement. Or to take an out of the way assignment until he makes full colonel and then retire quietly, but I don’t see the Army leadership either wanting to create that nightmare for themselves or allowing it to happen.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
If they can stand up to Trump, good. But I remember Trump taking away McCabe’s pension just because he could.
mdblanche
@DocH: Collins isn’t mad, she’s just disappointed.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: The uniformed military are different than civil servants.
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: But is where his career goes from here likely to end up in the news reporting, given the daily barrage of nonsense + attention spans of brain-addled gnats? It felt like there was a little “heads-up gang” in your comment. It’s always useful to know just how much trouble we’re really in.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: I don’t think anyone on the Army staff will be consulting me or giving me a heads up. The Vice Chief of Staff knows how to reach me if he has a cultural question, but I haven’t heard from him in three years. So…
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Just took a look at Stonekettle’s twitter thread, he re-tweeted a very good video about Vindman by VoteVets if you haven’t seen it
I meant that the heads up was to us, effectively, to look to whether the Army taking care of its own or kowtowing to Trump. Sorry, I was just being esoteric or something. I’ll just finish my beer and go off to bed.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: No worries. It’s been a long week for everyone!
dww44
@zhena gogolia:
And Medals of Freedom, but Medals of Honor would be entirely appropriate but they’re for bravery in battle, I do recollect.
Also, too, Fiona Hill, also too Ambassador Bill Taylor. Not sure about any others. Those were the stand out witnesses to me, albeit Jennifer Williams is of interest
Also too, especially big ceremony to give a Medal or Medals to John Lewis, who certainly deserved one far and above Rush Limbaugh.
dww44
@Adam L Silverman: Yep, the rot may have gone deeper we suspect. November is so important. As an old I am not in the business of wishing my life away, but I’m ready for a nominee and ready to get DT out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.