I see.
If you’re right, with any luck, these hundreds of retired flag officers might reach your level of understanding regarding the totality of the situation.
yeah the generals and admirals really know their shit, huh.
Stopping the Keystone Pipeline eliminates our recently established energy independence and causes us to be energy dependent on nations not friendly to us, while eliminating valuable US jobs. We must open the Keystone Pipeline and regain our energy independence for national security and economic reasons.
Keystone XL was NEVER online, or even close to it. 8% has been constructed. 92% is still in design/permitting/construction. so i fail to see how putting it back into rightful environmental review which it skipped “eliminated recently established energy independence”. WTF?
How many of these kooks read the first paragraph repeating a trump sychophantic Qanon lie and signed on there without reading further? If they did read further and still signed on, they are obviously incompetent fools. Take your pick.
I see.
If you’re right, with any luck, these hundreds of retired flag officers might reach your level of woke comprehension regarding a wide array of policies.
What would you recommend they do, if you could advise them right now?
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Tell them to learn the basic fucking facts before they put their name behind something.
Credibility. They lost it.
I understand. I appreciate the candor. It is, after all, much easier to understand each other when we speak clearly.
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Energy independence and the Keystone Pipeline are not one and the same. Energy independence is a policy and an outcome of which the pipeline was a (future) part.
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126, not 100s.
Agreed. I was talking about during his admin though, but agreed.
Also agreed on all counts.
I do, at least from a lives saved perspective. But this is something that can be discussed.
I don’t think all of them were “great”, particularly some gutting of the EPA that I think went too far, but can generally agree they were decent.
However I do disagree that we’re seeing left wing totalitarianism in action from the administration specifically. If you want to talk about other groups (BLM, university, etc) ok.
Dude, he deserved it. He was given more rope than anyone and insisted on hanging himself with it. We will have to agree to disagree here. He brought it on himself, and any other POTUS would never have gone even 1/5 of the distance he went off the deep end.
Tell that to Liz Cheney and a lot of the Trump dissenters in the GOP.
Agreed.
Maybe, but I think it’s arguable and anyway the benefit of hindsight exists with Trump. My point is that IF you take one seriously about Biden’s health and his administration, you should ALSO have taken the letters about Trump seriously.
I assume you did.
You didn’t quote the important modifier, which was “as far as government policies go.” If anything, it shows how important it is for government to aspire to do less and just get out of the way whenever possible.
Results don’t lie. Just like training.
It makes little difference to me if it is by private sector proxy or direct government law or policy. The outcome is the same, and these forces in government and private sector are clearly working in tandem. The outcome is that you can effectively silence your political opponents while leaving the constitution intact. That’s actually more terrifying to me than if they were to out-right repeal the 1st Amendment. The former requires a level of deception and government cooperation that’s out-of-the-public-eye, whereas the latter would have to be done openly where it would raise a lot more concern.
You can also argue that silencing your political opponents is, in fact, explicitly endorsed by the government due to their failure to reign it in by re-visiting the 1997 communication law and section 230 of it. This law was voted on by guys like Ted Stevens, who infamously believed the internet was a series of tubes. Or Strom Thurmond, a racist old coot who was old enough to have ran for President against Roosevelt. Or Robert Byrd, the last open Klansman to grace the Democratic party until 11 short years ago.
Yet we have people who insist that the collection august figures I mentioned somehow got the 2021 social media landscape right in 1997, when it didn’t even exist.
“Deserve” has nothing to do with it. And if you really believe he deserved it, how many other politicians do too? What about terrorists or CCP members? Do they “deserve” it?
A sitting president was silenced. The outcome we are living with is that one party has the ability and willingness to silence their political opponents. If you aren’t on social media in 2021, you aren’t a viable candidate. This notion is completely antithetical to the core American value of free speech.
I remember when liberals loved the phrase “I may disagree with you, but I’ll defend your right to say it.” Where did those liberals go? Who knows, maybe they’re all conservatives now, like me.
It was a mixed bag. A handful of experts in a narrow field raising concerns about Presidential conduct/policy affecting their narrow field is one thing. An “expert” speaking about policy that’s completely out of his wheelhouse is another thing. I’d have to know which person and which letter you’re talking about to make a call on it.
In this case we’re talking about retired flag officers, presumably well-versed in civics, presumably having lived lives of high integrity, also having careers literally spent working closely with the highest levels of elected and unelected government. This is a group with obvious insights into the workings of government that, for instance, the best epidemiologists in the world will not have.
Anyone who is able to immediately dismiss the concerns of a group like this is a fool. I repeat. A fool. It necessitates a void of wisdom, humility and meaningful lived experience to assume you know better unless you have lived a similar life with similar levels of meaningful experience, responsibility and ability to reach the highest levels of military leadership.
This is funny since Trump does not believe in the First Amendment. He also is a poster child for cancel culture. His reaction to Colin K is an example of this.
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I find it strange @zecarlo that “Cancel Culture” is yet another one of those terms that the Right has made exclusively attributable to the Left…as every Conservative, non-Trumpian voice is being silenced within the GTP.
(…and don’t get me started on “Virtue Signaling”…)
I have read the letter and it consists of Trumpian/GOP talking points. Biden’s alleged mental health issues are the last item on the list,.
If they were truly concerned about the mental faculties of the POTUS, why bring up that other stuff?
“The POTUS is a senile imbecile manipulated by dictatorial Marxists who want to destroy the country and does not want to build a pipeline”
Sounds very strange that they’re equally outraged by Section 230, protection of the US Capitol building and the Iran Nuclear Deal.
I find it interesting that years of posts, predictions and analysis concerning Trump have now been shown to be completely wrong. Years of fact free media narratives, misrepresentations and downright lies repeated as though they were facts.
Trump is out of office and that’s all you guys can talk about, never making the slightest case for a single Biden policy.
I’m sure the retired flag officers are brainwashed, Trumpian fools acting on his behalf. If only they had the clarity of thought, good information and keen insight of our forum posters who are mostly wrong about everything they’ve written about in the last four years.
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I thought it was self evident we were talking about govt policies compared to each other, but yeah, fair.
Several, but so far none of them have been as loud, constant, and brashly explicit in their lies for so long. Probably ppl like Margorie Taylor Greene are close now, but for 4 years it’s pretty much been the Trump show.
Not to mention it was banned AFTER the capitol riots and AFTER certification of election results. It wasn’t banned during his 4 years in office, save for maybe a 24 hour hold at some point. Banned a lame duck with 2 weeks before inauguration after a break in at the Capitol building by a mob that he had blatantly stirred up, egged on for months (even years). He could have saved his Twitter account at any point in the last 4 years by many means. This wasn’t a dozen or so objectionable tweets.
Color me unsympathetic.
Obviously terrorist recruiters do, and there has been a coordinated effort for years with Intel agencies to stymie them.
That is not at all the outcome we are dealing with.
Very possibly considering the direction the Democrats have been drifting. Who knows?
There were multiple letters on the national security front signed by national security experts. I would consider them experts in their own field.
Yeah, I didn’t do that.
Do you believe that retired flag officers should be the final authority when it comes to building a pipeline? What kind of secret information they may posses that forced them to come out publicly in favor of a pipeline? What about Section 230? Are they also the ultimate authority one should defer to?
What about security for the US Capitol? They are so worried about…checks notes…additional security around the building that was broken in four months ago that they placed the same emphasis on that as on Biden’s alleged senility and the Marxist takeover?
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I would consider this…
Outside their wheelhouse. Energy independence is obviously linked to natsec, but pipeline projects, building, environment impacts, and all the rest itself is not.
Not to mention internet platforms.
Yep.
Here’s the thing: I’m not dismissing their concerns out of hand. I never said that, didn’t even imply it as far as I know. My point is simple - if one believes these kinds of letters should carry serious weight, then one should give weight to letters against both sides when they occur.
Judge each letter individually instead of using the simple presence of a letter as a blanket proof.
Edit - as far as Biden’s senility goes, he’s spoken in more complex and complete sentences more consistently than Trump has so far. So there’s that. Like it or not the ability to communicate is a practical indicator, and thus far he’s well beyond middle school.
Granted it’s only about GWB level.
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Neither did anyone else on the Board, myself included, @Aragorn.
I expressed my DISAPPOINTMENT that these officers signed off on a Document that read like a CPAC Platform Statement.
Expressing disappointment is NOT a declaration that I have greater knowledge or wisdom than they have; and anyone who thinks otherwise is truly the fool…
The biggest concerns these former officers should have is the soft and fragile nature of young Americans and woke culture infiltrating the military. I would include the physical shortcomings of young Americans with the emotional and mental shortcomings.
I don’t know if they are still doing it, but at one point they were handing out stress cards to recruits in basic training.
That was an abomination on just about every possible level
I didn’t mean to imply you did. Others in the thread clearly did.
I agree with your point and I did give consideration to all kinds of Trump criticisms. He was an easy president to criticize, after all. The fact that none of those were strong enough to drive me to vote Biden doesn’t mean I was somehow immune from processing criticism of Trump, Republicans or conservatives in general. Here’s the thing though…
Trump came and went, fulfilling none of the dire predictions whatsoever. Yes, I’m aware people predicted Trump would accuse the other side of election tampering. I’m sorry, but you don’t get points for predicting the sunrise and sunset. Every single Republican presidential election winner of my adult life has faced cries of foul-play, tampering, and even outright theft. Conservatives aren’t the ones advocating for policies that election thieves would want, so I think going along with something simple like Voter ID might do a lot to quell those concerns.
Instead, people ignorant of history and confident of their own righteousness declare they are the new generation of civil rights warriors, doing battle against racist Republicans enacting the new Jim Crow. Pure delusion.
Strangely, none of our resident Trump or conservative thought critics seemed to wonder whether the Republic was unraveling when they were eagerly eating up every bit of fact-free, source-less nonsense about Russia somehow handing Trump the presidency. This is why courts are important (not to mention slow-moving), but that’s another topic that’s still playing out.
I firmly believe it will be very necessary to disappoint a lot of well-meaning liberals if we have any chance of leaving our kids a better situation that we inherited. Unfortunately, the march away from that is continuing full force in the form of easily-predictable, man-made policy disasters advanced by Democrats.
Those are all your words, not mine.
I know you lack the kind of understanding you have about obscure Asian societies when it comes to understanding American civics, values and liberty-minded thought. I can’t fathom why you might think anyone should be considered the final authority on anything, but I’m not a product of communist education or a society that worships its leaders.
As far as Capitol security, it seemed clear to me that they were speaking about the disproportionate response to the hours of disorder that were experienced before the official proceedings were continued and completed. Not the fact that the building was secured, as it should have been. These flag officers seem to share the point I’ve made here that multiple divisions of soldiers and layers of razor wire is an unnecessary use of our troops for pure political theater, not to mention completely antithetical to how our military ought to be used.
Then again, I’m an American whose first language is English and these sort of things are obvious to me.
My point this whole time has been simple. Retired Flag Officers represent a unique set of qualifications, experience and shared characteristics that make a collection of more than a hundred (when only a few hundred are even alive) a dread alarm that’s louder than any I’ve heard in my lifetime. It is not a product of partisan politics. It is not a product of attention-seeking behavior. It is not a product of greed. It is not a product of spite. It is not a group of people who will carelessly put their names on something that they don’t believe in. It most definitely is not a collection of Trump sycophants doing Trump’s bidding after a career spent serving across many administrations and a retirement spent without comment.
The topics they raise are all firmly within their wheelhouse. These are lifetime public servants who attained the highest levels of military service on merit, presumably acquiring a holistic understanding of American society, civics, government and policy cause-and-effect over that lifetime. You need not be a lawyer to have an opinion on section 230 and the civic impact. You need not be a petroleum engineer to have an opinion on the Keystone pipeline and it’s impact on the economy and energy security. You need not be a community organizer from Chicago to have an opinion on the election process.
Anyone dismissing those concerns is a fool. I challenge anyone who believes there is an equally credible collection of people anywhere who suggest that the Democrats are leading us down the right road to present us with those people making that argument.
Or even better, present us with the argument in your own words.