Mattis siding with Obama…
SAD!
I wish I could say it is comforting that there is an adult in charge of at least something.
Except, we know how Donnie Two Scoops deals with adults. If they’re not canned, they’re circumvented and neutered.
Shit, Trump’s going to lose this one, too! And he’s Commander in Chief.
Loser.
Civilian control over the military… I’d rather see him resign and force a constitutional crisis than to have him put the brakes on the Nazi-in-Chief most outrageous impulses.
See if he could bring Tillerson and Cohn with him if he quits…
Certainly a huge issue here in a complicated situation. Technically he is a civilian. And slow-walking a stupid order is not a huge break with normal behavior in that town. But it’s disquieting to see even a former general tell the top civilian they’ll be getting back to him about that last order.
And then as honorable as mass resignations of the decency contingent would be, there’s the 25th to consider. Holy Multiple Dilemmas, Batman, this is a devil of a pickle.
My gut tells me that after CVille and Arpaio there have to be at least 30-40 GOPers in the House just waiting for some kind of signal to vote in favor of impeachment articles. If it gets to the Senate today, I believe he’s toast already.
Mass Cabinet resignations could be just the ticket. I’m tired of waiting for Mueller. I respect he’s doing his job carefully, the way it needs to be done, but there’s more than enough public evidence already available to impeach him now. If Mueller’s report comes out before the trial is completed, we’ll just add the Russia stuff to the bill of particulars.
I can’t argue with any of that and for all I know it’s absolutely correct. But I guess I’m less confident that the House in particular is at all eager to act. You see too many instances in history and life of people allowing cowardice, wishful thinking, and lack of imagination to box them into courses of inaction that prove fatal. It’s just, again, an awful dilemma, like trying to decide to leave an abusive relationship if you’re the only protection the kids have.
So will these be real experts, or religous ideologues selected to keep Trump’s christianist base happy? Stay tuned …
This is standard DoD protocol, so it’s not some grand gesture of defiance. It’s simply that Trump’s imperial edict – ban those weirdos!!! – is not how the brass at the Pentagon operates.
(My sense is the outcome will be determined more as a function of how badly troops are needed and how difficult recruitment is, rather than the science, which is fairly clear cut.)
No, we need him and the few remaining adults to stay. Mass resignations won’t change anything in the minds of the deplorables. It won’t weaken his approval rating and it won’t move Congress. All it will do is make a bunch of people’s lives much worse.
We’ve had the SecDef and the Joint Chiefs rebuke the CiC in terms that are not all that subtle. This is totally unprecedented as far as I know. Just, wow…
Indeed, folks like Mattis and Kelly may be the reason we are not at war with North Korea right now.
Mass resignations might be exactly what some of these folks need to flim them over to the “impeach” side. Some of them have already made public statements flirting pretty closely to it.
No one can be certain which specific members would do so, but among those who would seem likely to do so, without any guarantee of course, would be, in alphabetical order, Barbara Comstock of Virginia; Carlos Curbelo of Florida; Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania; Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida; Lynn Jenkins of Kansas; Peter King of New York; Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Darin LaHood of Illinois; Leonard Lance of New Jersey; David Reichert of Washington; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida; Elise Stefanik of New York; Fred Upton of Michigan; Greg Walden of Oregon; and Lee Zeldin of New York.
This totals 15 members, just a dozen or so shy of the needed number, leaving only about another dozen needed to join them.
Even if some of the above did not follow through, it is hard to imagine that the small number of 24 or more could not be persuaded to join the cause given the size of the Republican Main Street Partnership.
As usual, tRump thought he could snap his fingers and, poof…still thought Mattis would respond with, “your wish is my command”.
“Ah yes, Master…but not until a panel of experts tells me how we should proceed.”
Mattis clearly has a mind of his own. He knows that troop cohesiveness and fair play is at the heart of running an effective military. I really think he’s going to get his pink slip before he’s able to complete his panel of experts…but at least he’ll go out having done due diligence and on his own terms.
As a stall tactic, its not bad either…because by the time this panel is over its possible President Pence will have to make the final decision. The real question here is which will come first, President Pence or Mattis getting recommendations from so-called experts. Chances are Pence will be just as reticent about transgender folks serving in the military, and allow his religiosity to get in the way of his decision-making too. In fact, this is probably a plea Pence slipped under the Oval Office door on a slip of paper in hopes it would get some attention from Daddy Warbucks.
I think if Trump were in any way a normal CIC, I’d agree with you. But he’s not-- he’s a 5-deferment wussy boy whose understanding of the military comes from binge watching the “Rambo” series.
I think this shows just how much smarter Mattis is than 5-deferment Donnie. This is the bureaucratic equivalent of flipping Donnie off with both fingers. My guess is that this study will last just long enough for Trump to get tossed out of office. Then there will be further study until Tammy Duckwoth takes the oath of office and becomes CIC. Then, miraculously, the study will recommend that this stupid ban (which NONE of the service chiefs wanted) be tossed in the paper shredder. President Duckworth will then follow that recommendation.
Trump: Mattis is Obama’s plant. He should be fired.
It’s a breakdown of civic order in favor of the spirit (but not the currently-adjudicated law) of the Constitution. Takes me back to 538’s 14 Versions of Trump (which I swear I read approximately weekly to re-center myself)
12. Resistance to Trump from elsewhere in the government undermines his authority but prompts a constitutional crisis. Have you ever heard talk about the “deep state” or the “military-industrial complex”? We may soon see how much power it actually has. […]
I often see liberals rooting for outcomes like these — and they might, in fact, be effective in subverting Trump. But in this case, people should be careful what they wish for. It’s one thing if people in the chain of command are nobly refusing to obey illegal or unconstitutional orders, or are serving as whistle-blowers against a corrupt administration — it’s quite another if they are behaving extralegally against a democratically elected president.
How can one feel about that? I don’t know. It’s fucking spooky, even if I find the current outcome favorable in flavor.
Honestly, either one-carrying out orders from an evil, insane but democratically elected President or disobeying them-is bad. The question is which one is less bad in both the short and the long term. I don’t have a good answer. In this case, Mattis isn’t truly disobeying the order, so much as following a reasonable process to determine how to implement it in the least harmful manner.
And it might not. Having members of his Cabinet quit, is not a constitutional crisis, and is not going to be considered a high crime or misdemeanor. Trump will simply nominate even more sycophants to replace them…keep in mind that many of the people he appointed was done while the RNC via Priebus still had some influence on the Administration. Now they don’t, and now Trump is even deeper into a bunker mentality.
The GOP wants/needs Mueller to present an ironclad cast for a criminal indictment; anything less simply won’t be enough for their base.
Consider that the list your provide includes a bunch of people who refused to stand up to Ryan and the HFC on a healthcare bill they knew sucked, and was going to hurt them in their respective districts. Instead they caved and voted for it. And no impeachment papers hit the floor of the House without Ryan’s approval (and Ryan isn’t approving any articles of impeachment until he has the blessing of the HFC).
I still don’t think we see impeachment before 2019. The window for the House to even consider that this year is rapidly closing (already closed?). They are going to be consumed trying to keep the lights on via a CR and raising the debt ceiling before the end of the fiscal year. And the likelihood of the House considering impeaching a GOP President during an election year are slim and none. Not a one of the people you listed wants to run a campaign on impeaching Trump, and that WOULD be the #1 campaign trail topic if they start impeachment proceedings in the House.
In 2019 a Democratic House can and will start impeachment proceedings, on any number of issues. I believe they would actually prefer to impeach him on something else besides Russia (national security concerns).