Donald Trump declared an emergency yesterday…sort of. No, not over opioid addiction—we’re still waiting for the formalization of that Trump ad lib—but over the “immediate threat of further attacks” that apparently may be as bad as the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Yesterday the White House issued an amendment to Executive Order 13223, the emergency declaration President George W. Bush signed three days after 9/11 and under which state of emergency we apparently still live, now and forever. (Psst—Donald! Maybe we could “Make America Great Again™” by getting over our fears and putting an end to our endless state of war.) As Salon explains, declaring the country to be in a 9/11-esque state of emergency allows Trump to call retired military personnel back to active duty.
Look out, Senator Stace Nelson. Trump isn’t just going to send your daughter into an ill-considered distraction-war; he’s going to get us in so deep he’ll have to call you back to arms!
I’m sure all these whitey wingnuts that love to parade around public with guns won’t mind stepping up to the plate and offering to die for nothing.
They’ll be just fine until the bullets fly their way. Then they decide they love life more than parading around with guns where someone is getting shot at.
Is there any irony in a draft dodger calling soldiers back into service?
Ah yes, the peace and quite of the rural areas, did your 20 to 25 years, retire and work on that other job….No way Jose, it is back to the MRE’s for you old timer. Drag that walker and yank up those suspenders. You’re off to see the wizard. 2 year stretch at your old pay (maybe). Is it the sandbox of the Mideast or sub Sahara. Maybe the frozen Choisen, with the lying liar at the helm, who knows.
Trump was highly critical of President Obama and other presidents for releasing information about war strategies and telling the enemy our plans.
How could the Trump White House announce or leak this troop recall when during his campaign he said it would never happen with him as Commander-in-Chief.
Of course there’s always that “universal, no deferment draft” to consider, eh ?
There’s always that “universal, no deferment draft” to consider, eh ?
I lot of folks came back on active duty after 911. They were asked as well.
When an officer retires from Active Duty they already know they can be recalled for the rest of their life. Enlisted on the other hand were not being they were enlisted for a specific time frame.
Some gave all, most of you never gave and will never give. You aren’t wanted anyway.
9-11 was something of an actual emergency, not a figment of a draft dodger’s imagining ways to take the heat off his legal problems. Stoopid bass in the WH country club does not pay enough attention to his PDBs to form an intelligent conclusion about imminent dangers.
I hope all you Russian sympathizers and wingnuts are thrilled with what you have done to America by stealing elections and a Scotus seat.
If we are in such immediate danger of attack, why not bring back the draft? So far the only attack I have seen are the attempted bombing in Asheville, North Carolina https://www.snopes.com/2017/10/12/asheville-airport-bomb-attempted/ and the 600 casualties suffered in Las Vegas, Nevada. These were both done by two American men, born and raised in the USA.
All the kids are registered, so there ya go. Me, I would rather have a young fit dude or dudette manning the perimeter than some fellow with a walker, reeking of Ben Gay watching for sappers. trump/Putin is no doubt are behind this to further weaken the United States.
Tactically and morally, I wonder which is preferable: recalling old soldiers or drafting new ones? If there’s a serious war to fight, do we benefit more from old soldiers’ experience and institutional knowledge or young soldiers’ physical stamina? If we face a real danger, should we not ask everyone to pitch in?
We are still loosing in Afghanistan. We have no direction there but more money and more blood. Afghanistan is our longest war of wars and we are still getting whipped, with no way out. Now imagine Iran in the game, who are we kidding. Take a look at the footage of the last troops leaving Saigon and follow that same pattern. In a few years, we will be buying shirts and backpacks that say made in Afghanistan. Pack the bags and come on home, I guess we are in immediate danger here.
Story on the street has it there are a 1000 retired air force pilots getting recalled. Sounds like someone has a massive bombing campaign lined up.
We will have to pitch in, all of us. From personal experience, I would rather see a savvy, hard charging Company Commander, evaluating in real time in a crap storm than some old Colonel sitting on his arse back at Battalion Tactical Operations Centers. As far as planing on the actual terrain, that same Captain and the fit NCO’s make the moves, not some far off detached Battalion commander. Pack that 100 pounds of gear around and you cannot do that as an old fart, add the heat of the day or the freeze of the day, and it takes it out of the fittest. This is really no place for old men.
Things change quickly in a fight or campaign. An old guy may be able to continue in a supply chain that has about 15 men to support 1 grunt, but in the heat of the fight, allow me to follow ground competence. Then I will know that if I take that, to whom it may concern round, the logistics will be there to haul my sorry behind out of there to either save my bacon or put me in a body bag. We gave our word to one another of that debt and responsibility, it was solemn.
Given George W. Bush’s military background this could just be karma at work. Perhaps Trump will soon have W flying missions over Iraq.
How many trained military personnel did Drumpf deport?
https://www.snopes.com/united-states-deporting-veterans/
Snopes says we deported vets under Obama and then congress passed a law to allow them back into America. Some have not been allowed back-yet.
Even so, so many of the deportees had been hard working, tax paying citizens not hurting anyone.
The recall of 1,000 retired USAF pilots is connected to a broader shortage of pilots.
Senator McCain made some noise about the pilot shortage in June. This shortage has many causes:
If the Air Force recalls those thousand pilots, regional airlines will see their pilot shortage get even worse. Recall that last year, Senator Rounds wanted to ease the training requirements to make it easier to fill those regional cockpits. His colleagues kaboshed that idea.
Meanwhile, my morning paper complains that SkyWest didn’t schedule a third daily flight to Aberdeen during pheasant season as it has in previous years. SkyWest says “scheduling needs” kept them from adding that flight. If Donald Trump keeps us in perpetual war, we may see even fewer flights to Aberdeen.
Bush played Bill Pullman on that aircraft carrier in 2003. Bannon is now saying Bush doesn’t know his head from a tailhook; maybe Trump can use this executive order to get Bush back in a jet and out of his hair.
Cory, you know as well as anybody that “Carrier” was intentionally misconstrued by the media. The Lincoln was returning from their first deployment and Bush spoke to that crew. Not the war, which is still ongoing, but that crew. Blaming Bush for the medias idiocy is below you.
As far as Bush back into the air, he could do it but he is well beyond in time away from what the AF is trying to fill. Cockpit currency, mental memory, familiarization, and air knowledge is what they are looking for. A new pilot was take many many more years to get to the skill level of someone who retired even 10 to 15 years ago. These folks are in demand for the same reason you don’t fight retired boxers.
There is no war to fight, no need for calling up old soldiers and no need to institute a draft. In Donald Trump’s mentally ill mind, there is. The guy played a billionaire executive on a “reality” TV show, and now he thinks he’s starring in WWIII, along with his sidekicks, known to us all as “The Generals.”
Trump, though, is proving to be as incompetent in helping France wage a neo-colonial French war in the Sub Sahara as he is at everything else he has undertaken. His botched incursion into Niger exposed a new uranium scandal: not the overhyped Hillary scandal, but the one where Trump may be failing to prevent Islamic extremists from getting their hands on yellowcake mined in Niger and Mali by French and Chinese interests.
This is serious. There is uranium that could be diverted by dedicated terrorists. But France has been ripping off Africa for generations, regime-changing any government that doesn’t agree to its colonial economic interests, and we are once again going to follow France into a quagmire.
The linked article provides some background.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201707030478.html
That carrier was purposely held at sea so dumbass dubya could make a dramatic entrance with his codpiece and all. Even lush Peggy Noonan swooned when she saw the most ridiculous part of W’s flight suit.
ps it was to avoid being sent into a hot zone like VietNam that dumbass dubya and thousands of other kids of pols and the wealthy were allowed into National Guard units. In Bushes case he scored the absolute minimum and was jumped over about 500 previous candidates for the last spot.
Don’t forget dumbass quit flying after he got a transfer to Alabama.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/the-reckoning-how-trump-has-left-the-world-in-revulsion-ed-letter
sarge – “Some gave all, most of you never gave and will never give. You aren’t wanted anyway.” Like Trump. Never could rise to the occasion in the 60s. “Trump likely is the most childish man ever to hold… public office”
So what? You got Trump only because you do nothing more than stand at the side while Rome burns. This is how the majority of people see this now and saw it before the election. Health care= government forced, Guns to Mexico= government initiated, IRS prosecuting Conservatives= government controlled, BLM taking land= government over reach, Benghazi= secret wars by government, Uranium= lining the government officials pockets, Obama= government employee and over night millionaire. You can trash Trump but Trump doesn’t matter. You can defend the “status quo” and the people will continue to fight you and continue to win. You chose the wrong side. Hypocrisy is clear, visible and obscene. The people see it and you are losing, will lose and will continue to lose.it is one thing to win a “fair” fight but the side you choose decided it was better to cheat and benefit themselves. It is over. You can now all sling back to your slug filled existence wondering why the wife left, children don’t call and you sit alone in your local diner sipping coffee served cold.
OldSergio- show me one single conservative the IRS prosecuted. Don’t bother. You can’t because it did not happen. Most of the rest of yer yapping is 100% fake noise bologna.
Another IED bombing. Another American guy triggering the device. A typical Saturday Homecoming. Man the fortress, we have met the enemy and it is us. http://www.dailypress.com/va-vg-wm-homecoming-1021-story.html
Let the bombing begin on target USA. What state and county will be the first brought to heel? We now will have 1,000 more geezer pilots to practice run the highway to the danger zone.
Mike is irate~ You need to understand what the word “prosecute” means first.
Here, read even wikipedias view of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
The facts remain what they are. . . You may “wish” there was one incident that would nullify my premise but it no longer works. The people spoke. The people picked a man that is not of your establishment ranks. He is not who we all wanted but he is not “one of the boys”. The people have tired of your unsubstantiated arguments and calling everyone a “racist”. Those days have passed. You have qualified yourself as an “idiot, a fool, a cretin. You are no longer counted among those with a qualified opinion. You are no more seen as anything other than a leech sucking off today’s society.
Old Mr. Sarg, please remember that Mr. Mike is from Iowa. He does not live and has never been in the Great State of South Dakota. And that’s a good thing.
mike who is admittedly from Iowa is a welcome voice on DFP, we at least know where he is from.
What we don’t is whether grudznick and OldSarg are truly South Dakotans since they post under anonymous names.
We don’t even know if OldSarg was in the military, a lot of people make up military experiences when in fact they were never in the military.
We know that mike claims to be from Iowa. We have not seen his tax return. We also know that you and I often eat in downtown Rapid City, and have had many a policy discussion there. In fact, I was just down there this morning, for breakfast and a couple of meetings with fine folk. If you feel that some bizarre wizards fly me home to Utah or something after I breakfast at Talleys, I do admire that thought.
You have seen me, often, and I have seen you less lately, but we all have not seen mike. Because he’s in Iowa.
And the old Sarg? I’m going to sign over your free breakfast at Talleys to him, Mr. C, since you are so rudely not cashing it in even after the dozens of breakfasts I have bought for you.
grudz,
I worry about your delusional state, I have never shared a breakfast or any other meal downtown, you don’t know the eating establishment I frequent downtown. Since I don’t know who in the hell you are I can safely say we have never shared any policy discussions.
grudz’s, I’ll accept your free meal once I know who you are.
SD connections to the events in Niger, France and and China are interesting, given these are also connections to uranium. Alex Molyneux is the largerst shareholder and a director of Azarga Uranium, and, until recently, was the CEO of Paladin Uranium. Azarga is seeking to mine uranium at the Dewey-Braddock Mine in southwestern South Dakota. Paladin had projects it was seeking to put into play in Niger. The Niger operations were shut down after some kidnappings occurred in 2015, and they never re-started. Paladin was in hock to the big French utility company over that operation. The utility recently called in a multimillion dollar loan. Molyneux got booted as Paladin CEO after Molyneux couldn’t land a bailout from China National Nuclear Corp.
These guys are all slimy players in a slimy business.
Senator McCain just kicked trump in the arse. “One aspect of the conflict that by the way I will never, ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur. That is wrong, that is wrong, if we’re going to ask every American to serve, every American should serve.” Bone spurs for the cowards way out. Now it is out there once again, this time from a voice of respect.
Jerry, that comment from Senator McCain is keenly interesting. Contrary to OldSarg’s insult above, one does not have to serve in the military to be an effective Commander in Chief, the fact that Trump evaded the draft shows his lack of moral authority to drag retired soldiers back to service for whatever wars result from his provocations and clueless foreign policy.
[Folks, at the point where OldSarg issues utterly rude, unhinged insults that we are all old, fat losers abandoned or soon to be abandoned by our wives and children, he makes clear he warrants no response. Don’t feed the (Russian?) bear.]
Oh Gee Cory, that really hurts. . . Fine to insult me but if I return fire you get all butt hurt.
Again, quick to sow discord, but failing to refute the original position, that Trump’s call-up of retired military personnel only extends the unjustified state of constant war that is weakening America more than any complaint I have lodged from my keyboard or any policy we Democrats have advocated, or to add to our understanding of that policy issue.
I’m not aiming to hurt. I’m aiming to keep the conversation focused on the issues that matter, not on personal insults.
OldGomer- Out of 300 so called conservative looked at by the IRS, over 70% had political activities above and beyond the thresh hold that allows them tax exempt status. And not a one was prosecuted and’or denied their tax-exemption because of threats from wingnuts in congress to take away IRS funding. Which they did, anyway.
So put a stinky sock in it, idiot.
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-us-is-now-preparing-to-put-nuclear.html
More nuke loaded BUFFs will be ready to roll when the button is pushed.
First mission is to take out every Drumpf golf course around the world.
Donald,
I would rather we find a way to have American companies safely mine our own uranium to reduce the coal that we use, if not reprocess our fuel so there is less mining necessary and less waste to deal with.
Are you sure your beef isn’t more with how international businesses operate with respect to natural resources in general, not just uranium? Lumber and rare earths come to mind.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/23/16526884/niger-troops-trump-johnson-dunford
The Pentagon does not know why troops were in Niger and why they were on patrol. Sounds like we have an amateur in the WH in charge.
From that article…
“At its core, the US presence in Niger is about counterterrorism. Since the George W. Bush administration, the US has been working with governments in heavily Muslim West Africa to counter local Islamist groups. The US presence there ramped up considerably under the Obama administration, which sent special forces to train and assist local partners in countering both al-Qaeda and ISIS groups operating in the region. The first US troops arrived in Niger specifically in 2012.”
More accurate to say they don’t know what circumstances led to 4 being killed, but they certainly knew why they were there to begin with.
Spoil sport. Any theories about the competency of the commander in Chief? :)
Not really :^). I don’t really care what he says, just what he does.
For example, if you say you want to have a tax cut that doesn’t increase the deficit, great. But where are the triggers that sunset it when the deficit increases or when the promised economic growth does not occur?
But where are the triggers that sunset it when the deficit increases or when the promised economic growth does not occur?
My best guess is you can put this one to bed. The economic growth he claims he’ll get hasn’t been invented or even imagined by science fiction writers. Last report I saw says to look for trillion dollar deficits as the norm.
But, I am not an economist, so I am not going to worry how bad I have been misled.
Or sure, we’ll give you a rebate for repatriated monies, but pay them back if the job creation and wage increases you promised do not occur.
Doc and mfi, I don’t think the fact that counter insurgency troops were operating in Niger, we all knew that. In fact, we had troops killed in neighboring Mali some years ago in 2013, so all of this is on going. https://www.thenation.com/article/how-did-3-american-commandos-and-3-moroccan-women-end-dead-bottom-niger-river/
The problems are the numbers of American troops and operations going on there recently is what congress is in the dark on. If a feller like myself knows about operations there 4 years ago, you know that someone in Washington did as well. Nope, it is all about the numbers of active military and contractors in the field there that has everyone clueless.
here’s a perspective:
The expansion of the US-led NATO military alliance, which began in Germany with 13 member states and now stretches to Russia’s borders with 29, is the largest and fastest growth of a “sphere of influence” (American) in modern peacetime history. Throughout the process, Russia has been repeatedly denounced for seeking any sphere of security, even on its own borders. NATO overtures to Ukraine also underlay the crisis in that country in 2014, which resulted in Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the still ongoing Ukrainian civil war in Donbass, and in effect [a] US-Russian proxy war. The Serbian war in 1999 resulted in the NATO occupation and annexation of Kosovo, a precedent cited by subsequent secessionists and occupiers.
The 2003 Iraq War was a catastrophe for all involved and a powerful factor behind expanding organized terrorism, including the Islamic State, and not only in the Middle East. The same was true of the war against Libya in 2011, no lessons having been learned. NATO promises that Georgia might one day become a member state, was an underlying cause of the Georgian-Russian war of 2008, in effect a US-Russian proxy war. The result was the near ruination of Georgia. NATO remains active in Georgia today.
§ Similar NATO overtures to Ukraine also underlay the crisis in that country in 2014, which resulted in Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the still ongoing Ukrainian civil war in Donbass, and in effect another US-Russian proxy war. Afghanistan, initially a NATO war effort but [is] now the longest (and perhaps most un-winnable) war in American history. [T]he far-reaching implications of an emerging anti-NATO alliance centering around Russia, China, and Iran—[is] itself a result of NATO’s 20-year expansion. https://www.thenation.com/article/have-20-years-of-nato-expansion-made-anyone-safer/.
Good news for Donald…Republicans are now investigating an Obama-era uranium deal.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/24/politics/house-investigating-uranium-deal/index.html
“The Republican-led probe from Nunes and oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina concerns a 2010 uranium deal that was struck between the US and Russia while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. President Donald Trump and other Republicans have accused the Russian uranium company of donating to the Clinton Foundation in an effort to sway Clinton to sign off on the deal, though the allegations are unproven. “
Sorry, I guess I should have specified on this blog which Donald, but the above may apply to either one ;^).
The amount of uranium that Russia paid for gets exaggerated every time a wingnut claims this has not been investigated.
The story has been debunked over and over again. HRC didn’t sell anything to anyone. She did not participate in the sale. The donations to Clinton Foundation were mostly made before anyone had any idea she would be SOS. etc, etc.
This is a wingnut ploy to take the heat off Drumpf. He even suggested congress start this new investigation.
Lack of interest by potential volunteers is driving this plan. Now, we are back to allowing the insane to serve in the ranks.
“WASHINGTON – People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.
The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
Expanding the waivers for mental health is possible in part because the Army now has access to more medical information about each potential recruit, Lt. Col. Randy Taylor, an Army spokesman, said in a statement. The Army issued the ban on waivers in 2009 amid an epidemic of suicides among troops.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/12/army-lifts-ban-recruits-history-self-mutilation-other-mental-health-issues/853131001/
So much for a professional military and would explain General Kelly and General Flynn as well for their treachery.
Much worse than Benghazi and no special investigation by Trey Gowdy, why is that? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/15/niger-us-troops-military-ambush-attack
They left an American soldier out in the field that was captured and tortured and then executed, how can that be? No wonder we are short of troops.