Yabut, you can’t pardon “future crimes” and Flynn made these remarks this week, not before Donnie was dispossessed. It’s my current understanding that retired personnel who receive a pension he can be reactivated and charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There was some kerfuffle about this at the start of the year and I don’t know if that changed anything, but this article (from a conservative site) has some of the details…
And some background on another case that seemed to be going the other way - don’t know if there’s been any further activities or appeals on this one…
I am not an expert or well informed. But what I have been told in the past is after a certain grade, they can be reactivated under certain conditions and this is not exclusive to criminal and legal affairs.
Of course, everything is different for officers. When an officer retires, their commission normally remains in force and effect forever. In return for the privilege of being legally entitled to being addressed by their military rank and getting all their retirement benefits, they basically remain an “officer of the United States” until death. They can resign their commission, but few do.
I did not realize that the entitlement of being called by their rank is just that and dependent on their status in retirement. I also did not realize that their retirement benefits are also dependent on their status. Quite an eye opener. So in my thinking, if they are an “officer of the United States until death”, Flynn is in treason territory. My opinion for clarity.
Democracy is so messy and inefficient. Look at all the people here complaining that Biden hasn’t done this or that thing that they wanted because democracy.
Nothing at all. The Japanese military-fascist dictatorship did really well against the soft decadent Americans who couldn’t stomach losses(*) in battle. And the German orderly unified Volk was easily able to match the capitalist Jew-controlled British system. And … uh … where did those notes of mine get to?
“The worst of systems, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time”, isn’t that how the quote went?
ETA:
*: Fun fact: We were anticipating casualties from the final invasion of the Japanese homeland that were so high that we produced over 1.5 million Purple Heart medals. That’s enough that, through the end of WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and the various unpleasantnesses since then, we haven’t come anywhere near exhausting that stockpile. Units in Afghanistan and Iraq could keep medals on hand to award on the spot as needed. “Soft and unable to tolerate casualties”, my Aunt Fanny.
And that’s before the court cases start to bring to light the true depths of corruption of the previous four years, in ways that only the most willfully obtuse (which we have, I admit, by the millions) can ignore.
Blame the Monroe Doctrine and the following isolationism that continues in large part to this day. We’ve never fully embraced our ability to fully influence the globe in positive ways, dabbled in it during the cold War, but rapidly retrenched once that appeared to be “won”.
Yeah, so here’s the thing. Once you had this vast territory, rich in resources, including a young, dynamic, ambitious, immigrant-fueled population, spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific and stretching its trade relationships and interests across both oceans, there was simply no way whatsoever that this nation wasn’t going to become a global superpower. The old European empires could pretend that it wasn’t so for a while, and the vast reaches of Asia likewise, and we continue to excel in our own skills of self-delusion, but the geopolitical logic just ain’t gonna go away.
The major question is whether this New Colossus (h/t Emma Lazarus) would be a force that acts only in its own narrow selfish (ahem America First ahem) interest, or whether it would lift its lamp beside the golden door (h/t ditto).
