Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[lineygoblue]

So.... Milley's thinking was, it was better to let China know that "it" was coming, so that China could send "theirs" before Trump sent "ours".

Got it.

Sounds like none of them need to be making decisions like this.

And I realize by the opinions here that Trump is/was not able to be truthful, .. but he said yesterday that he never considered attacking China.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Bottom line is that what's presented in the Woodward book (which none of us have even read) is almost certainly not the full picture. And also keep in mind that there's other reporting that the Pentagon initiated conversations with China well before the Election, they didn't happen because of Jan. 6, and Milley was always joined by numerous other officials, including from the NSA and the State Dept.

[Dr. Strangelove]

And here's yet another article suggesting this is being exaggerated.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/15/claims-that-milley-made-secret-calls-to-chinese-leaders-exaggerated-sources-say-511918

[Kapture1]

a lot of people apparently will defend treason so long as it's aimed at Trump.

[Kapture1]

BTW, I would have the same opinion if Milley did the same thing to dementia Joe. It sets one of the worst precedents.

[Mike]

That’s assuming Woodward’s portrayal of events is entirely accurate, which I doubt. I think the Trump presidency set a record for the number of salacious “tell all” books. Enough people want to believe every bad thing written about Trump and, conversely, Trump supporters will defend his every move. I tuned out after the Russiagate debacle.

[Hannibal]

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[Hannibal]

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[lineygoblue]

I'd rather have Chick-fil-a

[Jeff Buchanan]

(Milley) “has no statutory authority over operational forces of any kind. That means that he is not in a position to order anyone in the armed forces to say or do anything. Can’t do it. He is preeminently the senior military advisor to the president. That’s what he is. So in theory, before he would make such a phone call [to the Chinese counterpart], he would discuss the subject of the phone call with the president, the Commander in Chief. He certainly would not do something without coordinating with the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State because this is beyond defense, this is foreign policy statement he is making.”

Retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor

You are correct, theoretically. CJCS is not in the operational COC. But the Department Secretaries are. Here's how this works; The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a five-member advisory body to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense. Note State isn't sitting at the table. It includes the Chiefs of Staff of the three military departments and the commandant of the Marines. Before such an order to conduct any kind of military operations becomes an operational order that might be ordrrf by the president and carried out through the department secretaries, the president seeks advice from JCS, NSC and SEC DEF. Following standard military protocol for military ops, a warning order goes out to SEC DEF from the president that he is considering this. That allows the service chiefs to prepare specific OPLAN options for the president who has the final say.

My take is that it unlikely that it ever came to that. Highly unlikely. I do think the NSC and SECDEF with JCS, maybe the WHO COS, may have convened to consider talking to service counterparts of allies and enemies alike to both warn enemies to not take advantage of the ongoing turmoil to cause trouble in the US or abroad and reassure them that the US has no plans to conduct any kind of military operations against countries or it's allies that pose threats to US security.

No action would have been undertaken by any of those principals to contact foreign service chiefs without the president signing off on it. I highly doubt Milley went rogue to formulate FP as Bernstein is alleging. There are a lot of shades of gray involved here. I do think Pelosi was worried about the president going rogue and sought out Milley to see if there were ways to limit that. If I understand that conversation, Milley told her you'd have to impeach him and all kinds of safeguards are in place to keep that from happening anyway. JMO.

[Kapture1]

That’s assuming Woodward’s portrayal of events is entirely accurate, which I doubt. I think the Trump presidency set a record for the number of salacious “tell all” books. Enough people want to believe every bad thing written about Trump and, conversely, Trump supporters will defend his every move. I tuned out after the Russiagate debacle.

One thing is crystal... nobody would defend him if he nuked China.

I know that. You know that.


What a stupid INSANE notion people thought that is who Trump is... a mass murderer on the scale of hundreds of millions of innocent human beings.

People lost their sanity over Trump.

[Kapture1]

I'd rather have Chick-fil-a

Breakfast chicken biscuit!

[THE_WIZARD_]

...

[iam416]

I would probably not post this article on "Woke Math" (https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/...-of-woke-math/), but the ideas continue to get traction and continue to work their way into our education system.

As anyone might have guessed, Math is racist -- another example of white supremacy.

The ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions “Pathway” characterizes as white supremacy include: a focus on getting the right answer; independent practice over teamwork (that is, the individual’s ability to learn and solve the problem); tracking (permitting gifted students to take advanced courses not available to less capable students); seeing mistakes as failure; control of the classroom by the teacher, as opposed to permitting students to set the agenda; teaching in a linear fashion; and rigor being taught through the difficulty of the problems.

As much as DSL loves to point out how DJT stills runs the R party, these are the people driving the D party (and if not running it now, will be...soon).

[iam416]

Meanwhile, the Chairman is underwater by about 3-4 points (RCP/538). I won't even mention accuracy issues, because that's just not positive. What's even worse is that the data on independents and people who "voted against DJT" is horrible.

However, I'm sure the $3.5T reconciliation jamdown will cure what ails him.

As an aside -- it blows me away that the Chairman scored a real infrastructure win -- it's an issue that polls well AND it's a chance to claim a BIPARTISAN win. And, yet, he's intentionally tied it to his brazen "other infrastructure"/"spend everything" Trillion Dollar Joe plan.

Dude needs a win. And he has one sitting out there ready to get plucked. But....