Well that’s over. Here’s some assassin kitties to brighten your night.
Also, Zeus the stubborn husky would like to speak to the water bowl manager!
Open thread!
Post Debate Open Thread: Let A Thousand Pundits Bloom!Post + Comments (120)
Adam L. Silverman is a consulting national security subject matter expert specializing in low intensity warfare (asymmetric, irregular, and unconventional warfare, revolution, insurgency, terrorism), civil affairs, psychological operations, and cultural considerations for strategy and policy.
He routinely provides operational support to a number of US Army, DOD, and other US Government elements. Dr. Silverman holds a doctorate in political science and criminology from the University of Florida, as well as masters' degrees in comparative religion and international security. Full professional bio available here: https://balloon-juice.com/adam-silverman-bio/
Adam Silverman has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2015.
by Adam L Silverman| 120 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Well that’s over. Here’s some assassin kitties to brighten your night.
Also, Zeus the stubborn husky would like to speak to the water bowl manager!
Open thread!
Post Debate Open Thread: Let A Thousand Pundits Bloom!Post + Comments (120)
by Adam L Silverman| 96 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics
I know everyone is stressed right now. As I’ve written here before, on the front page and in comments, that’s the whole point of the President’s attempt to dominate the news cycle, social media, and digital media 24/7/365. It is to create a bizarro, reverse panopticon where everyone has to pay attention to the President, his surrogates, and his supporters all the time. His supporters do because they can’t get enough of the rage, fear, grievance, and victimization he’s feeding them constantly to keep them engaged, angry, and involved. Everyone else because a failure to pay attention could lead to being caught unaware as bad things are happening. The result is everyone is overwhelmed. All the time. And the intended effect is to make people want to give up, give in, and stop fighting, if not go along to just get along.
And the stress from the President’s never ending influence operation is being magnified by the Democratic primary. A primary that despite having started a year ago has seen exactly two states vote, or, technically, one state caucusing and one state voting, and only 65 delegates out of a total of 3,979 having been awarded as a result. Nevada’s now hybrid early voting ranked choice primary and primary election day caucus will award or allocate another 36 and then South Carolina’s primary will award or allocate another 54. By the end of February a grand total of 155 of those 3,979 delegates will be awarded. The 65 delegates already awarded are from states that are wildly unrepresentative of the Democratic Party and its multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-generational, and ideologically complex constituency made up of everyone from those from the center-right through the center and the center-left all the way out to the left of center. An ideological, ethnic, religious, generational, and even geographic diversity driven by the fact that the Republican Party and the conservative movement that sustains it has fully remade itself into a revanchist white Christian herrenvolk party. The quest for Nevada’s 36 delegates is the first contest in a state that looks more like the Democratic Party and its constituents. The question at this point is how its now hybrid and never before used because it is a response to the mess of the Iowa Caucuses system will actually work. Will we get a nice clean set of results or another election night mess that lasts for several days. South Carolina, where 54 delegates will be awarded/allocated, is the first actual contest of this primary that both reflects the reality of the Democratic Party and its constituents and will be run as an actual election, not a caucus and not a quickly kludged together hybrid early voting rank choiced primary and caucus.
As of right now no one knows anything. The polling is all very interesting. A lot of it is telling us a lot more about the pollsters and the pundits than it is telling us about the candidates, their campaigns, and the actual potential primary results. Even here we don’t know a whole lot about outcomes, but we do know some things about the actual 2020 presidential campaign. The first is that national polls are nice, but they aren’t telling us anything useful because, and bear with me here as I repeat this for the umpteenth time, WE DON’T RUN NATIONAL POPULAR ELECTIONS FOR PRESIDENT!!!!! The presidential election is going to be contested in the Electoral College and that means between 5 and about 20, at the most, states are actually in play depending on who the Democratic nominee will be and whether we have any third party spoilers. For those of you who are now despondent that your votes are pointless because you live in one of the states that are not potentially at play in the Electoral College, THEY ARE NOT!!! Running up the score in the popular vote and ensuring that turnout is overwhelming everywhere will have a gigantic effect on keeping the House and flipping the Senate. So don’t despair.
The second thing we know is that this election isn’t really about policy. It is about the President, whether he deserves a second term, and whether his surrogates and enablers in the House and Senate deserve to continue to be reelected. If the President is reelected, not one of the policies being proposed by the Democratic candidates will ever happen. If the Democratic nominee is elected to replace the President, but the Republicans retain their Senate majority and Senator McConnell remains majority leader, the new Democratic President will NEVER be able to enact those policies. I’m not even sure she or he would be able to properly staff their administration with the senior appointees that require Senate confirmation. You can kiss filling judicial vacancies, regardless of whether they’re Federal district, appellate, or the Supreme Court, good bye. It isn’t that I think one candidate’s policy proposals on any given issue are better than another’s. It is that none of those differences matters, from the small disagreements to the large ones, if the Republicans maintain their Senate majority.
The presidential election is a referendum on the President. The various Senate elections in the different states are all referendums on the Republican majority Senate’s and specific Republican senators abasement and fealty to the President. The House election, in the various House districts in every state, are about maintaining at least one institutional check on the President. That’s it. I know that doesn’t sound inspiring. I know that isn’t what supporters of specific candidates want to hear. But it is the cold reality of where we are. The only policies that happen if the President gets reelected are unconstitutional, anti-Constitutional, and frankly anti-American. The only policies that happen if a Democrat gets elected and Senator McConnell maintains his majority is none. Nada. Zippo. Nil. Bupkes. This election is not about whether any of the remaining Democratic candidates’ policies would be better than the others. It isn’t whether the Green New Deal can be sold to voters in states where the Electoral College is in play, Senate seats need to be flipped, and House seats need to be maintained. This election is about one thing and one thing only: the preservation of what is left of the democratic-republic, as imperfect, battered, and bruised as it is, that is our inheritance as Americans. A preservation necessary so that the long hard work of fixing what is left to be preserved can be undertaken to prevent the potential slide into kleptocratic authoritarianism from ever happening again. That’s it. If that isn’t inspiring enough for you, then nothing I’m going to write will make any difference.
This leads to third thing we know about this election, which is whoever gets selected as the Democratic nominee needs to have coattails. And that’s where the first point flows into the second. Some of the candidates have greater potential down ballot effects than others. Both positive and negative. So whether you live in a state in play in the Electoral College for the presidential election or not, we all have the same job:
That’s pretty much it. Doing this, – ensuring massive, overwhelming turnout – is how we can ensure that the Electoral College doesn’t get weaponized for the third time in 20 years and that the various senators representing the mild moues of disappointment and the tightly clutched pearls of hysteria that need a nice, quiet retirement receive their so justly earned desserts. It is how we ensure that the current Democratic House majority, which is one of only two real institutional checks left on the President and his anti-constitutional administration is preserved. And it is how we ensure that Democratic state governorships and Democratic state legislatures, which are the only other real institutional check right now on the President and his anti-constitutional administration are preserved and, wherever possible, expanded by flipping governorships and state legislative seats.
And, at least here at Balloon Juice, how about we try not to kill the various messengers who are either trying to explain how process works or what potential concerns might be for various candidates might be or even why you should support any of the candidates might be. We can all, me included, do a better job of not making all of us more stressed, more overwhelmed, and more freaked out.
Or we can defeat and destroy ourselves. The choice is yours. And for now, you still have a choice. That may not be the case after November 3rd.
Open thread.
by Adam L Silverman| 247 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Open Threads, Politics
Now: USDOJ won't pursue charges against Andrew McCabe. Letter from prosecutors: https://t.co/Rt7c1SZVnj Statement from McCabe's lawyers @mrbromwich and David Schertler: pic.twitter.com/L1QclMUdTq
— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) February 14, 2020
Here’s the letter from the DOJ to Deputy Director McCabe’s attorneys:
As we know from both his statements and tweets this week, as well as AG Barr’s kayfabe interview last night and the subsequent reporting about how the President views the DOJ, we can expect that he’s not going to take this well. I have updated the Presidential Daily Temperament Advisory System accordingly. Please take all appropriate precautions!
Update at 1:20 PM EDT
It has just been reported that AG Barr has appointed an outside counsel to review LTG Flynn’s case.
More political inference at DOJ. https://t.co/hf9rpginj7
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) February 14, 2020
Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review is highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors.
Mr. Barr has also installed a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review the handling of other politically sensitive national-security cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, the people said. The team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, who is handling the Flynn matter, as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen.
Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases — some public, some not — including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Open thread!
by Adam L Silverman| 70 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Open Threads, Politics
The 2020 presidential election IS NOT A NATIONAL ELECTION! It will truly be contested in anywhere from about 5 to 20 states depending on who is the Democratic nominee, what is happening with the economy, and what else may or may not be going on in October and November of 2020. The national polls are nice in the feel good sense, but they are not and cannot tell us anything important about what is and is not going to happen in the 2020 presidential election. Ignore them lest they lull you into a fall sense of safety and security.
Check your own voter registration. Nag all your friends to check their voter registrations. Nag all your friends to nag their other friends to check their voter registrations. Vote up and down the ballot for every office and referendum and initiative. Nag all your friends to vote up and down the ballot for every office and referendum and initiative. And nag all your friends to nag their other friend to vote up and down the ballot for every office and referendum and initiative. Turnout, especially in the states that will decide the presidential election in the Electoral College, is all that matters. Turnout, to keep the House and flip the Senate is all that matters. Turnout to take as many governor’s mansions and state legislative seats ahead of the next round of congressional and state legislative reapportionment is all that matters. And these only happen with overwhelming turnout!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled existential dread.
Open thread!
Public Service Announcement: Ignore the National PollsPost + Comments (70)
by Adam L Silverman| 117 Comments
This post is in: America, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security
Elihu Root, the father of the US Army War College (USAWC) stated that its purpose is:
Not to promote war but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate preparation to repel aggression
Today The Washington Post has reported that:
Both of the Vindmans were detailed to the NSC and will return to jobs in the Defense Department, with Alexander Vindman then planning to report to the Army War College in July.
A number of you asked me in comments last night what I thought was going to happen. I laid out several possibilities. One of them being that he was sent to either USAWC or one of the other Services’ senior leader colleges outside of the DC area (either Naval War College in Rhode Island or Air War College in Alabama). This would place him back in school for his O5/O6 (lieutenant colonel/colonel) level professional military education (PME), and get him out of the capitol region. LTC Vindman will be matriculating at the end of July/beginning of August into the resident class at USAWC for academic year (AY) 2021. When he graduates he will have earned both a Masters in National Security and Strategy and his Joint Professional Military Education Phase II certification. Without these he would not be eligible for an O6 (colonel) level command or equivalent assignment. He’s just at the right stage of his career, 22 years in, to be sent to one of the senior leader colleges. Given how the selection process for the Senior Leader Colleges is done, I suspect that this was also always his intended follow on assignment to serving on the National Security Staff of the National Security Council as his assignment was supposed to originally end in May of this year. While it does not always work out that way because life is not neat, the expectation is that the officers who attend the Senior Leader Colleges will serve well past their graduations retiring as full colonels or captains near or at the 30 year mandated retirement or be promoted to general officer/flag officer and serve past the 30 year mark.
Here’s what I think is likely to happen to LTC Vindman and his career based on informed speculation. He will attend USAWC as a student next academic year, graduate, and I would expect that he will be then moved onto the faculty as the Director of Eurasian Studies where he’ll oversee the Eurasian Regional Studies Elective (every student in the resident class is required to take a regional studies elective, but they get to choose which one, which is why it is called an elective even though it is mandatory – don’t ask me, I just worked there…). If this happens, then at some point he’ll be promoted to full colonel and will serve out the remainder of his career at USAWC. He and his family will have eight years of stability in a lovely small town that is close to a medium sized city (Harrisburg) and within a ninety minute to two hour drive of three large cities – Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC – depending on traffic and whether you’re driving like you stole it. During the short summer breaks between resident class graduation and course prep for the next academic year, he, like many of the Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) assigned to the faculty will be available for temporary duty assignments in his functional speciality as a Foreign Area Officer. While the pinnacle of a career for a FAO is usually being a Defense Attache (DAT) or Senior Defense Official (SDO) at a US embassy within their region of expertise, given LTC Vindman’s prominence, I’m not sure that will be possible. I cannot imagine it would be safe to send him back to US Embassy Moscow to be the DAT, especially given how Russian intelligence and security treats US personnel assigned there. I expect that he and his family will have the stability that this type of assignment at USAWC brings: not having to relocate every two or three years, being able to keep your kids in the same schools until they graduate, and allowing one’s spouse to finally begin to put down some career roots.
Prudens Futuri
Open thread
Adam L Silverman served as the Cultural Advisor to the 48th, 49th, and 50th Commandants of the US Army War College from 1 July 2010 through 15 June 2014 as an appointed supervisory civil servant on civilian mobilization orders. In that assignment he also served as Professor of National Security & Strategy with a focus on culture for strategy and policy in the Department of National Security & Strategy, as well as the course director for the US Army War College culture and theater strategic pre-deployment certification course. He is the first and only person to be assigned to USAWC as the Cultural Advisor.
Not To Promote War, But To Preserve Peace… LTC Alexander Vindman’s Next ChapterPost + Comments (117)
by Adam L Silverman| 46 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Humorous, Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Politics
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!
Important Metrics To Get Us Through the WeekendPost + Comments (46)
by Adam L Silverman| 139 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics