I’ll take Malignant Hypotheses for $1000, Alex.
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I find it impossible to believe.
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I’ll stick with incompetence and fear, at least based on what we’ve seen so far. Miller had legitimate reasons to be worried that deploying troops really would look like they were joining the coup like all the MAGA/QAnon people wanted. And dog only knows what kind of orders Trump would have given once the military was in control of the Capitol.
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Pence would have a longer neck.
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Conflicting accounts is a euphemism for lying.
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He could not get away with ordering the DCNG to hang Pence or turn him over to the mob – that would be an unlawful order that would almost certainly be refused. But what if he instead ordered the DCNG to stay out of the Capitol? That’s a lawful order that would certainly be followed. Boom, Trump has just effectively handed control of the Capitol into the hands of the mob.
My point is, there are perfectly valid reasons why you might want to think carefully about deploying a military force that Donald Trump can try to control for his own purposes in those circumstances.
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Maybe. No one refused the order to take children away from their parents, loose them in the system, and render the act so convoluted and hopeless that eventually reuniting them was nearly impossible.
A lot of people did a lot of things during Trump’s term that a properly functioning judicial system would adjudicate unlawful and impose punishment. But alas, we don’t have such a system.
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DHS is not DOD, and tolerating/encouraging petty and malignant cruelties is rather qualitatively different than summarily executing the Vice President of the United States.
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It ain’t the hypotheses that are malignant; it’s the actors.
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I guess I’d ask the parents of children they’ll never see again whether that loss is more, or less, cruel than hanging Pence. Qualitatively speaking.
Huh
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I don’t mean to be argumentative, but consider, for a moment what you’re arguing, here. If I understand your point, you’re suggesting that the Secretary of Defense, of the United States of America, was working to avoid putting the President of the United States in a position to make himself our Supreme, Beloved, Orange Diaper Stain for Life, and no one is saying: “Woah! Why the fsck were you working for a guy like that, instead of removing him from office?”
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“It may seem like a long time to the casual observer but I had to run all decisions past Charles Flynn and he needed to confer with his brother Mike who was kind of busy organizing the insurrection, you see.”
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Ok but where are the valid reasons for lying to Congress about it? He’s changed his story at least once.
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That ain’t the relevant consideration. Which order is more likely to result in compliance by the personnel charged with carrying out the directives of their superiors?
CBP Officer to border workers: “Ladies and gentlemen, from now on it is Border Patrol policy to arrest all adults taken into custody for illegal crossings pending their deportation back to their countries of origin. Any minor children they have with them are to be processed for release to the custody of their relatives or duly-qualified foster parents. Is that clear?”
– or –
Gen. Walker: “Colonel, our orders are to take Mike Pence into custody and summarily execute him as a traitor. Got that?”
Pfft. It ain’t close.
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For those of us who are more visually oriented
Video at the link
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Because, in point of readily-ascertainable historical fact: Trump was President on 1/6. That sees to me like a valid point of consideration.
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I guess it’s just too damn politically explosive to arrest a former POTUS for obviously blatant misconduct which we could list here endlessly. I guess we just have to wait for state-based actors to charge the former POTUS with crimes in order to make him less palatable to the voting public. This is just so much candy-assed bullshit. I’m running out of patience.
The reality is we’ve got a wannabe dictator squatting in Merde-de-Largage (or is that Merde-de-Lardonner?) who is responsible for over half a million American dead, who lies with every stinking breath he takes, who doesn’t give a fraction of a shit for any living American other than himself, and he demands to rule us all while destroying our democracy.
So other than political action against this wannabe tyrant, you really need to ask yourself what you would be willing to do to stop him in the event that he tries again and he has the full and complete backing of all the racists, thieves, liars and power-mad politicians currently in our government. I will leave you with that thought.
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Just so we are clear, this is NOT a semantical argument over the words, “mobilize” and “deploy.” Apparently everyone BUT the former Acting Secretary understands the difference.
Also, is Walker trying to say that there is not a binder on a shelf at the DC Guard HQ on how to use them to clear the US Capitol building? It takes 90 minutes to draft one from scratch?
Bullshit called on both of these stuffed suits.
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Was it sheer incompetence or malfeasance? Some of both, given he worked in the Trumpscrewup administration.
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