Op-Ed in the Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin is well worth reading!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/15/milley-revelation-leaves-us-with-five-questions/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F34b152b%2F614368f79d2fda9d41cf2f25%2F5be88d8dade4e2323ef2d753%2F17%2F72%2F614368f79d2fda9d41cf2f25


We already knew the disgraced former president was suffering from the delusion that he won the 2020 election. We knew he tried to twist arms to overthrow the election. And we knew he refused for hours to call off the insurrectionists whom he inspired to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6. What we did not know is how irresponsible so many other Republicans were and continue to be in tolerating and enabling him.

The Post reports: “Twice in the final months of the Trump administration . . . Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.”

Woodward and Costa also reveal that Milley took special care to instruct the chain of command not to carry out an order for a nuclear strike in the waning days of the Trump administration. They also relay a candid conversation in which Milley and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed that the commander in chief was unstable. All of this leaves us with five questions:

First, what guarantees must be put in place to prevent an unstable president from setting off a nuclear war? Milley is right that, as chairman of the joint chiefs, he is to be included in a decision to authorize a nuclear strike. Beyond that, Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, explains, “No one can countermand [a nuclear strike order from the president]. But the commander of STRATCOM could say ‘this is an illegal order and I am not bound to follow it.’” Nichols adds, “[The president] can then start relieving people until he gets to someone who will follow the order.” (This view was affirmed in a critical Senate hearing in 2017.) Plainly, an order to authorize a nuclear strike without provocation would violate the laws of war, which among other things require proportionality.

The rest at the link.

[Skittles]

1. honestly, the FIRST order of business should be....

making sure a person as psychologically SICK as Trump CANNOT BE PRESIDENT

[littlemissmartypants]

4. Things can change, though. I'd like to see part of the yearly physical

Include a sanity and neurological assessment. I want brain scans.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. We left it to the parties to take care of that. One of them wasn't interested.

Last edited Fri Sep 17, 2021, 03:02 PM - Edit history (1)

Remember when Thomas Eagleton had to withdraw as McGovern's running mate because he had undergone shock therapy treatment ? Here was a guy who had been treated for mental health issues, and he was rejected as a candidate -- TFG was nominated for the top of the ticket despite his obvious *untreated* mental problems !

[tableturner]

2. K and R......

[Grasswire2]

3. Thanks.

I added a couple of comments on site.

If high-ranking officials were asked to yearly AFFIRM that POTUS was of sound mind and able to fulfill the duties of the office -- perhaps at the inauguration and then again yearly, we wouldn't have the same problem with a party putting forward a crazy person again. Because, as we have seen, nobody wants to 25 a crazy and vindictive POTUS.

[Hekate]

5. Looks interesting. Paywall, though.

[underpants]

7. A bit more

Second is about invoking the 25th Amendment. Answer: Cowards

Third, how could former White House officials — including former chief of staff John F. Kelly, former national security adviser John Bolton, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former director of national intelligence Daniel Coats (among others) — not inform the country (before the election even) of the president’s unfitness for office? Again, the short answer is that they are cowards, or at least thought they would not be believed. It might not do any good, but Cabinet-level national security officials should have to affirm in their confirmation hearings that they will report to Congress if they suspect the president is not emotionally and mentally capable of performing his duties.

Fourth, how could Republican officeholders then and to this day pay homage to, take direction from and support for reelection someone who was clearly unstable? Well, we know they are cowards from their refusal to impeach him, efforts to block the Jan. 6 commission and continued reiteration of the “big lie" that the election was stolen. Their reticence to defend the country against an unconstitutional coup remains the most grotesque moral and political failure in memory.

Finally, why did the media consistently underplay President Donald Trump’s incoherence, and why do they still resist confronting Republicans about their blind loyalty to a crackpot? I do not have a good answer for that one. Perhaps they need to rethink their role. They are not custodians of the myth of moral equivalence between the parties. They are truth-tellers whose prime obligation is to democracy. They might start taking that obligation seriously, beginning with asking every Republican if the 2020 election was stolen, if the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were justified and how they could continue to heed the direction of someone whose lunacy has not abated since he lost the election.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. My dear underpants: Thank you for supplying this from behind the paywall! ♥

[underpants]

9. ❤️

[gratuitous]

10. Milley didn't exactly instruct anyone not to carry out an order for a nuclear strike

He called in the people under him to impress upon them the necessity of following the procedure that is in place. And that procedure requires that the Chairman of the Joint Chief (Milley) is involved in the process. I'm sure the folks under Milley understood the implications and ramifications of what he was telling them, but he did not instruct anyone not to carry out a nuclear strike order.

[malaise]

11. Thank you my Dear CaliforniaPeggy

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. My pleasure, my dear malaise!