Wondering on Wednesday (v215)

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Where to start with today's wondering, I wonder? 

How about with the retirement of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman? He was one of the people who responded to a Congressional subpoena and testified before representatives in the House impeachment hearings, compared to the lesser men who responded, well, lesser-ly. 

Here's an excerpt from a statement released by his attorney.

You'll recall that Senator Tammy Duckworth, a veteran, was holding up promotions to top positions, pending a response from Defense Secretary Mark Esper on whether it was going to go ahead or suffer at the hand of the president's interference.  We've learned that Vindman's promotion had been approved by the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, and by Esper, and it was set to go to the president by the end of the week. 

So, here's the wondering: Who has confidence that Trump wouldn't try again to interfere, I wonder? Not me.  And who thinks that Esper or McCarthy would leave their positions, as Vindman did, in the face of the president's interference, if it came, I wonder?  Again, not me.  

What else am I wondering about today?  How long before a business owner declares a deeply held moral belief for not requiring their employees and customers to wear a mask? Or, conversely, one declaring a deeply held moral belief that masks must be worn, no matter what, by everyone on their property?  And what happens when an anti-masker demanding their constitutional rights to spend money runs into a business with a constitutional right to have convictions?  What's that court case going to look like, I wonder? And let's have one of the aggrieved parties be LGBTQ - that'll really put a mess in the gears, don't you think? 

Attorney General Snitty Snitty Bill Barr has said he doesn't think that law enforcement is systemically racist, but he does "think it is a widespread phenomenon that African American males, in particular, are treated with extra suspicion and maybe not given the benefit of the doubt.  I have to wonder what, in practice, the difference is between the two?  Any takers? 

What else?  Mary Trump's book is coming out early - goody for us, or something like that. The race is on to get snippets of it out in the public domain, so we've "learned" that Trump had someone else take the SATs for him, unless of course he didn't; we learned that lying was the rule of thumb, and apologies and showing emotion were not.  That, I don't think we'd argue with. And why did Mary write the book?

Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.

So. What's the wondering here?  Simply this: if anyone reads the book, I wonder if they'll believe what they've read? I'm guessing that's another no, but I could be wrong. My guess is this book will be about as exciting as learning about Trump's $130K payouts to the porn stars - 'wow' followed by 'eww' followed by 'ick, or something.  The other wondering on this? of all the folks who have written about Trump, which one will win the book sales race? 

And finally, it seems that the administration may be contemplating banning TikTok from America, even if we don't know for sure why. On the one hand, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it's to protect American data and national security.  The president said it's being considered because of the coronavirus. The real reason might be something entirely different: Kellyanne Conway's daughter is apparently a #neverTrumper and a pro #BLM TikTok activist (unless she's just being a normal teenager).  So, which is it, I wonder - national security, coronavirus, or Claudia Conway?

What are you wondering about tonight?

The Update Desk: General Milley's Apology

In our Sunday School Extra Credit earlier this week, we learned from the conversation Martha Raddatz had with Gen. Martin Dempsey (Ret.), former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that both Defense Secretary Mark Esper and current Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley tried to talk the president out of calling for active duty military personnel to help out with controlling the protests in DC.

AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY

Esper, as we know, went on to send mixed signals about his participation in the Bible photo op, in which Milley also participated, in uniform. And now, we learn that Milley has also decided to speak out about his actions that day. 

In this CNN article, which is where I got the pic of Trump and his minions, we learn that 

America's top general has apologized for appearing in a photo-op with President Donald Trump following the forceful dispersal of peaceful protesters outside the White House last week, calling the move a "mistake" and saying his presence "created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics."

Gen. Milley's comments came from a taped speech for graduates of the National Defense University, and per the article, he "regrets accompanying Trump" on the walk to St. John's Church.

As senior leaders, everything you do will be closely watched. And I am not immune. As many of you saw, the result of the photograph of me at Lafayette Square last week. That sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society.  "I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.

He also spoke to the killing of George Floyd, which sparked the continuing protests around the country and around the world as well, where protesters have leveraged what happened here to raise (again) issues of systemic racism in their own countries.

I am outraged by the senseless and brutal killing of George Floyd. His death amplified the pain, the frustration, and the fear that so many of our fellow Americans live with day in, day out. The protests that have ensued not only speak to his killing, but also to the centuries of injustice toward African-Americans ... we should all be proud that the vast majority of protests have been peaceful. 

He also said that the military has done a good job with inclusiveness, "we too have not come far enough. We all need to do better, pointing to the high proportion of African-Americans in the service compared to the overall population, but a low percentage of high-ranking officers. 

... although the United States military has a higher proportion of African Americans serving in our ranks than in society at large, only 7% of our flag and general officers are African American...we must, we can, and we will do better. 

But wait - it's not all lovey-dovey for Milley, it seems.  In this article in The New Republic, he's not getting a lot of sympathy.  Citing the same speech, the article suggests that "Mark Milley is sorry. For the photo op, not the invasion of American streets with soldiers." And there's more.

The article says that Milley has, "as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made a franchise of slumping in a chair beside the commander-in-chief with a look of shame," but notes that he's better than some others in Trump's inner circle.

...he is a sight better than Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the West Point grad whose honor code led him to explain away his presence in Trump’s photo op as a misunderstanding: He was just expecting to go “observe” a damaged public bathroom. Esper, in turn, is slightly less greasy than Attorney General Bill Barr, who falsely claimed pepper spray wasn’t a chemical weapon and denied responsibility for the order to violently clear protesters from the square. (“My attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it,’” he said.)

 It's "easy to applaud" the general for "moral courage of some sort," something that I've found lacking with all of the folks in the Administration, Republicans in the House and Senate, and at the state level, too. But his apology only goes so far. It

covered only his appearance beside Trump, not his own troubling role in the violence and terror carried out in Washington by uniformed, oath-swearing American citizen-soldiers during a dark week that three Times defense reporters—among them an Afghanistan War veteran—called “a debacle for the National Guard.” 

And what was that debacle? Pitting "undertrained, mostly-minority Washington-area National Guard soldiers against their peacefully protesting neighbors and relations." Milley's plan was to convince Trump that the part-time Guard troops could handle things and that the active-duty troops weren't needed. And, it's been reported that Milley and others put quite a bit of pressure, mostly on the DC Guard, to get it done or Trump would send in the 82nd airborne to clean things up. And, throughout all of the stuff the military has been required to do during Trump's three-and-a-half years in office, none of it

can remotely touch the spectacle of the U.S. military’s top general and the Army secretary pleading with National Guard leaders to kick ass in what the Times called “a last-ditch attempt to keep active-duty troops outside the city.”  

Again, from the article,

"...what I saw was more or less really f---ed up,” one told Politico. “The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line. A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo op.” 

A photo op for which Milley has apologized, but the apology is not going to soften

his ultimate legacy, one that should persist long after his green-suited, Trump-adjacent photo appearances are forgotten: He will forever be known as the American general who decided that the main difference between a functional democracy and an unconstitutional junta lies in which uniformed troops you use to beat protesters.

Clearly, the second article is addressing much more than just the apology - it's going to the larger issue of how the adults in the room are failing us - if they're even in the room, which is often in doubt.

TGIF 6/5/20

Another Friday rolls into town, and so it's time for the good week/bad week exercise. I'll drop the stories, and let you decide the good week/bad week part.

Let's start with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who sent an email around this week talking about justice, and George Floyd. After saying that his death was "both horrifying and inhumane, but not unique," she adds

People have had enough. They are angry and in pain. And they are calling out for justice.  

The email includes her promise to fight for justice for Minnesotans and everyone. And all of that is good, and it makes sense that elected officials are sending this kind of email right now. 

Klobuchar, though, once was the prosecutor for Hennepin County, and according to this 2019 article, when she had the opportunity to prosecute alleged police brutality, she didn't.

Klobuchar, however, chose not to criminally charge any fatalities involving law enforcement . Instead she routinely put the decision to a grand jury, a process widely criticized for its secrecy and for mostly allow the police version of events. 

Some see this as dooming her probably limited chances of becoming Papa Joe Biden's veep and I was actually waiting to see if someone modified one of her 'hot dish' messages into a 'hot mess' message. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere, don't you agree?

Defense Secretary Mark Esper is having a week, for sure. I'm having a hard time believing that he has any opinions of his own, after walking back both a statement about the Insurrection Act and keeping troops in DC, and a statement about that presidential photo op at St. John's church which he didn't know about, until he did, unless he didn't. Until he got yelled at by the president, we're told.  Anyone else thinking about John Kerry right now?

Speaking of the president, there's this, from the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, which says, in part (as the president was set to visit the Pine Tree State today)

In just the last week, you gleefully tweeted about shooting fellow citizens; you goaded governors into escalating violent situations so the don't "look like jerks;" and you authorized the use of rubber bullets and tear gas to clear peaceful protesters out of a public space so you could pose for a Bible-waving photo op.

These are just a few examples of why you lack the character, maturity, and judgment to lead our country in this perilous time. You should resign.  

One more thing on Mark Esper. When asked Wednesday whether the president still had confidence in his Defense Secretary, here's what Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany had to say.

As of right now, Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper. And should the president lose faith, we will all learn about that in the future. 

Yeah, we'll read the tweet, I'm sure.

And there's this remarkable, if unfathomable set of comments the president's Rose Garden whatever-it-was today, in which the president announced nothing at all related to equality or George Floyd or racism or violence or anything else. Just these words, which directly followed comments about "dominating the streets." (Note that this is an unofficial transcript, and I will update it with the official link when posted).

Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, color, gender, creed, they have to receive fair treatment from law enforcement. They have to receive it. We saw what happened last week. We cannot let that happen.

Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying "there is a great thing happening in our country." It is a great day for him. It is a great day for everybody. This is a great day. This is a great, great day in terms of equality. It is really what our constitution requires. It is what our country is all about.

And, I'm thinking, maybe the president meant that George Floyd would be happy that this happened in DC today.

It was a week, for sure.  TGIF, everyone.