Month: November 2019

Joe Biden, whose own kid somehow managed to avoid arrest and imprisonment for his cocaine habit in the Navy, is out condemning President Trump for pardoning a few military small fry whose draconian sentences didn’t match the ‘crimes’ they were convicted of.

Here’s Biden on Twitter:

 

Trump’s intervention in the American military justice system to pardon service members accused or convicted of war crimes betrays the rule of law, the values that make our country exceptional & the men and women who wear the uniform honorably. He is not fit to command our troops.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 17, 2019

 

The obnoxious tweet was in response to Trump’s pardon of these troops in the past week, described well by PJMedia’s Matt Margolis:

Last week, President Trump granted full pardons for Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who’d been accused of war crimes. Lorance had served six years of a 19-year sentence, and Golsteyn was facing trial for killing an alleged Taliban bombmaker. Navy SEAL Edward R. Gallagher, who was found not guilty of war crimes, but still had his rank reduced, was granted clemency and restoration of rank.

Lawmakers had been pushing for pardons for Lorance and Golsteyn because they’d taken actions to defend themselves on the battlefield and were charged with war crimes for it. 

The troops were guilty of minor offenses, such as posing for a private picture with the body of a dead Taliban terrorist, as was the case of Gallagher. In earlier ages, that was called a victory dance. The others were imprisoned for heat-of-battle crimes uner terrifying circumstances, entirely entitled to some kind of clemency given the courage they showed and the sacrifices they made. They weren’t crooks out to gain something for themselves when they became foot soldiers. If these guys aren’t entitled to clemency, why the heck is Hunter Biden not in the brig? 

They were little guys, forced to pay a huge price, and their families were ecstatic with appreciation for President Trump’s mercy shown. While Joe was condemning Trump as “unfit” for throwing them a few crumbs of mercy, here are the families Biden insists deserve no mercy whatsoever:

 

“Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, one of two U.S. Army officers granted clemency Friday by POTUS Trump, was released from prison in Kansas on Friday night & reunited w/ family members.” ➡️https://t.co/SjeGn8CnoP

Below, Clint reunites w/ family, after 6yrs (19yr sentence) in prison. pic.twitter.com/dpoSwanojS

— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) November 16, 2019

 

There they are, screaming and squealing with joy, little kid bouncing up with a flying ponytail in between all of them:

 

 

Look like a bunch of crooks? Look like the sort of elites Joe pads around with? In light of these pictures, the whole tweet from Biden is revolting.

Suddenly this jackass is concerned about America being exceptional? What is it about presidential pardons for out-of-proportion sentences for combat vets that makes it not so very exceptional, as if he actually cared?

And speaking of wearing the uniform honorably, where’s Hunter?

Unfit for command? Only if you care more about bureaucrats and overzealous prosecutors than you do about the well-being and justice deserved for the fighting troops. 

Joe Biden declaring President Trump, who’s just decapitated the ISIS leadership, somehow “unfit” is a real doozy of irony.

Margolies noted that sanctimonious Mr. Saint, Pete Buttigieg, also was quick to condemn the pardons for the foot soldiers.

Yet, when President Trump pardoned them, it immediately sparked controversy and outrage. Pete Buttigieg joined in the outrage chorus, claiming Trump “dishonored our armed services.”

Which is weird, because it suggests that there’s some coordination of the talking points on the left. JournoList, anyone?

Margolies notes that the Obama administration has pardoned all sorts of disgusting characters in its own past, people in a lot less need of mercy than these hapless troops. Private Bradley Manning, who engaged in what’s historically known as treason is Exhibit A.

He also mentions the scads of petty drug dealers, many of whom have since resumed their lives of crime, that President Obama also doled out.

I’ll throw in one more, seeing that it involves Democrats: Marc Rich, pardoned by Bill Clinton just hours before he made his appalling exit in 2001. Rich was a sleazy fugitive who’d made a pile of money, thumbed his nose at Iran sanctions in the name of making a buck, and effectively bought himself his pardon through campaign donations to House Clinton.

Rich is fine for a pardon and these military families are not? The whole travesty just goes to outline how out of touch Joe is with the little guy, how anything goes for the elites, but tiny people must be made to pay full fare and stay in their places. They don’t have the connections Hunter Biden or Marc Rich did. They pay retail.

Hypocrisy? It’s all over Joe’s face. He needs to be called out on this and called out over and over. What a creep.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

 

 

Joe Biden, whose own kid somehow managed to avoid arrest and imprisonment for his cocaine habit in the Navy, is out condemning President Trump for pardoning a few military small fry whose draconian sentences didn’t match the ‘crimes’ they were convicted of.

Here’s Biden on Twitter:

 

Trump’s intervention in the American military justice system to pardon service members accused or convicted of war crimes betrays the rule of law, the values that make our country exceptional & the men and women who wear the uniform honorably. He is not fit to command our troops.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 17, 2019

 

The obnoxious tweet was in response to Trump’s pardon of these troops in the past week, described well by PJMedia’s Matt Margolis:

Last week, President Trump granted full pardons for Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who’d been accused of war crimes. Lorance had served six years of a 19-year sentence, and Golsteyn was facing trial for killing an alleged Taliban bombmaker. Navy SEAL Edward R. Gallagher, who was found not guilty of war crimes, but still had his rank reduced, was granted clemency and restoration of rank.

Lawmakers had been pushing for pardons for Lorance and Golsteyn because they’d taken actions to defend themselves on the battlefield and were charged with war crimes for it. 

The troops were guilty of minor offenses, such as posing for a private picture with the body of a dead Taliban terrorist, as was the case of Gallagher. In earlier ages, that was called a victory dance. The others were imprisoned for heat-of-battle crimes uner terrifying circumstances, entirely entitled to some kind of clemency given the courage they showed and the sacrifices they made. They weren’t crooks out to gain something for themselves when they became foot soldiers. If these guys aren’t entitled to clemency, why the heck is Hunter Biden not in the brig? 

They were little guys, forced to pay a huge price, and their families were ecstatic with appreciation for President Trump’s mercy shown. While Joe was condemning Trump as “unfit” for throwing them a few crumbs of mercy, here are the families Biden insists deserve no mercy whatsoever:

 

“Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, one of two U.S. Army officers granted clemency Friday by POTUS Trump, was released from prison in Kansas on Friday night & reunited w/ family members.” ➡️https://t.co/SjeGn8CnoP

Below, Clint reunites w/ family, after 6yrs (19yr sentence) in prison. pic.twitter.com/dpoSwanojS

— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) November 16, 2019

 

There they are, screaming and squealing with joy, little kid bouncing up with a flying ponytail in between all of them:

 

 

Look like a bunch of crooks? Look like the sort of elites Joe pads around with? In light of these pictures, the whole tweet from Biden is revolting.

Suddenly this jackass is concerned about America being exceptional? What is it about presidential pardons for out-of-proportion sentences for combat vets that makes it not so very exceptional, as if he actually cared?

And speaking of wearing the uniform honorably, where’s Hunter?

Unfit for command? Only if you care more about bureaucrats and overzealous prosecutors than you do about the well-being and justice deserved for the fighting troops. 

Joe Biden declaring President Trump, who’s just decapitated the ISIS leadership, somehow “unfit” is a real doozy of irony.

Margolies noted that sanctimonious Mr. Saint, Pete Buttigieg, also was quick to condemn the pardons for the foot soldiers.

Yet, when President Trump pardoned them, it immediately sparked controversy and outrage. Pete Buttigieg joined in the outrage chorus, claiming Trump “dishonored our armed services.”

Which is weird, because it suggests that there’s some coordination of the talking points on the left. JournoList, anyone?

Margolies notes that the Obama administration has pardoned all sorts of disgusting characters in its own past, people in a lot less need of mercy than these hapless troops. Private Bradley Manning, who engaged in what’s historically known as treason is Exhibit A.

He also mentions the scads of petty drug dealers, many of whom have since resumed their lives of crime, that President Obama also doled out.

I’ll throw in one more, seeing that it involves Democrats: Marc Rich, pardoned by Bill Clinton just hours before he made his appalling exit in 2001. Rich was a sleazy fugitive who’d made a pile of money, thumbed his nose at Iran sanctions in the name of making a buck, and effectively bought himself his pardon through campaign donations to House Clinton.

Rich is fine for a pardon and these military families are not? The whole travesty just goes to outline how out of touch Joe is with the little guy, how anything goes for the elites, but tiny people must be made to pay full fare and stay in their places. They don’t have the connections Hunter Biden or Marc Rich did. They pay retail.

Hypocrisy? It’s all over Joe’s face. He needs to be called out on this and called out over and over. What a creep.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

 

 

We like to think of military officers as political eunuchs, but that fairy tale is a smug myth. No American government institutions, including the military services, thrive or survive in Washington without vigorous internal and external political engagement.

Outspoken flag officers have several things in common. Soldiers with integrity, vision, and conscience honor the wall between political and partisan, the ethic that allows for a distinction between policy differences, honorable service, and sedition. That ethic has been eroded by the post-Vietnam era class of flag officer. Consider a sampling of contemporary military officers whose behavior today is a toxic echo of George McClellan’s ugly Civil War sedition, something other than “duty, honor, and country.”

We begin with General James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, because he is just the latest erstwhile flag officer to step on his crank. Known to his disciples as the patriarch of Paris Island or Krishna Quantico, the monkish Mattis had legitimate policy differences with President Trump. Unfortunately, the general’s behavior since resignation is nothing short of puerile.

After Mattis beat a petulant retreat from the Pentagon, Trump suggested that Mattis was “not a great general,” an admittedly insensitive recitation of the obvious.

Vietnam era flag officers will never be known as the “greatest generation.”

Since the Vietnam fail, the Gulf War had to be fought twice. Iraq is still a hot mess. Syria has become another divided, surrogate killing field. After thirty years of American campaigning, Afghanistan is arguably worse off today than it was under Soviet occupation. Libya is still a smoldering Obama/Clinton era ruin. Now, North Africa has another Specified Command bureaucracy and another spasm of pyric small wars. And the global, so-called, “war on terror” might be the longest and most expensive bad joke in the history of military inertia.

Adding insult to insanity, we now have a new Cold War with Russia. Much of this came to pass with Mattis and company at the helm in the Pentagon.

Rather than disputing Trump’s jibe with facts, Mattis chose the low road and attacked the President’s character, Trump’s lack of military service in Vietnam. “Mad Dog” is fond of referring to those who did not serve in Vietnam as “pussies.” General Mattis fails to mention that the vast majority of American cats do not choose to serve in the military now or then.

Ironically, Mattis’ pique validated Trump’s judgement. Seems the general can’t take a punch.  No one will ever be able to say that about Trump.

Indeed, “service” in the Oval Office today, midst a rolling coup, requires more moxie than killing tribal Toyotas with drones, cruise missiles, tanks, gunships, and fighter planes in a world replete with inconclusive small wars and Third World sierra hotels.

Those who serve in the military, General Mattis, are not necessarily honorable, any more than those who do not serve are dishonorable. And not to put too fine a point on it, strategic competence is not all brass hats, fruit salad, and parade swords.

Another USMC pyrrhic warrior runs a close second to Mattis.  Nikki Haley now reveals that General John Kelly, Jr. was attempting to recruit insiders to “undermine” or resist the President while serving as White House chief-of-staff. Arrogant, unelected DOD mandarins, like their State Department, Intelligence Community, and Justice counterparts, have come to believe that the permanent Deep State is the only real state.

Mattis and Kelly are just two of a host of partisan general officers to join the seditious never-Trump legion. The worst may be erstwhile Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, USAF.

Clapper’s great fail, beyond the “dossier plot,” with an assist from Barack Obama and CIA’s John Brennan, was to shade Intelligence to accommodate a new national security narrative. The threat pyramid was inverted on Clapper’s watch. Islam was elevated as a “great” culture whilst Russians and Putin were resuscitated as Cold War demons.

According to Clapper, and acolytes like Brennan, the jihad is just “ritual cleansing.” By that logic, all that slaughter on 9/11 and every other global Muslim atrocity since are just “ritual” sacrifices to whom or what — Mohamed or Mecca?

Alas, the US Army might occupy a high ground for dysfunctional flag officers. Clinkers like David Petraeus or Stanley McChrystal immediately come to mind. Petraeus literally stepped on his crank by bedding subordinates. McChrystal got caught on a party plane talking trash about the timidity of Barack Obama.

The peccadillos of today’s Army generals are, nevertheless, low hanging fruit. More ominous, Army political partisanship is bleeding into the ranks. The poster child for this kind of venality is Lieutenant Colonel, Alexander Vindman, on loan to the NSC. Yes, that’s the National Security Council at the White House. Seems Vindman is an egoist/linguist who is both indiscrete and treacherous.

Vindman didn’t like, or misconstrued, something President Trump said to the Ukrainian president. Subsequently, Alex went off the DOD reservation to assist the press and Congress with the impeachment follies.

Apparently, a commissioned US Army officer cannot be trusted to assist the Commander-in-Chief and respect the confidentiality of the Oval Office. If Vindman had violated command confidentiality in a combat zone, he might have been court martialed – or fragged.

Silence from Pentagon and Army brass about the Vindman treachery says all that needs to be said about contemporary military standards on the E-Ring. 

And so it goes with Beltway bias. Now, DOD joins the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, and State Department as a source of foot soldiers in the slow-motion coup.

Call it the sedition coalition.

Say what you will about Donald Trump: this President has exposed the reality of the Washington swamp, the partisan deep state, and a bigoted Beltway establishment that may now be too corrupt for words.

Of all the Washington perfidy revealed since 2016, Military partisanship might be the most troubling pathology to emerge since Lincoln had to fire McClellan.

Photo credit: Master Sergeant Ken Hammond

The author is a former USAF Intelligence officer, serving under General James Clapper at USAF Intelligence. Colonel Donovan has served at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Central intelligence Agency.                                                 

We like to think of military officers as political eunuchs, but that fairy tale is a smug myth. No American government institutions, including the military services, thrive or survive in Washington without vigorous internal and external political engagement.

Outspoken flag officers have several things in common. Soldiers with integrity, vision, and conscience honor the wall between political and partisan, the ethic that allows for a distinction between policy differences, honorable service, and sedition. That ethic has been eroded by the post-Vietnam era class of flag officer. Consider a sampling of contemporary military officers whose behavior today is a toxic echo of George McClellan’s ugly Civil War sedition, something other than “duty, honor, and country.”

We begin with General James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, because he is just the latest erstwhile flag officer to step on his crank. Known to his disciples as the patriarch of Paris Island or Krishna Quantico, the monkish Mattis had legitimate policy differences with President Trump. Unfortunately, the general’s behavior since resignation is nothing short of puerile.

After Mattis beat a petulant retreat from the Pentagon, Trump suggested that Mattis was “not a great general,” an admittedly insensitive recitation of the obvious.

Vietnam era flag officers will never be known as the “greatest generation.”

Since the Vietnam fail, the Gulf War had to be fought twice. Iraq is still a hot mess. Syria has become another divided, surrogate killing field. After thirty years of American campaigning, Afghanistan is arguably worse off today than it was under Soviet occupation. Libya is still a smoldering Obama/Clinton era ruin. Now, North Africa has another Specified Command bureaucracy and another spasm of pyric small wars. And the global, so-called, “war on terror” might be the longest and most expensive bad joke in the history of military inertia.

Adding insult to insanity, we now have a new Cold War with Russia. Much of this came to pass with Mattis and company at the helm in the Pentagon.

Rather than disputing Trump’s jibe with facts, Mattis chose the low road and attacked the President’s character, Trump’s lack of military service in Vietnam. “Mad Dog” is fond of referring to those who did not serve in Vietnam as “pussies.” General Mattis fails to mention that the vast majority of American cats do not choose to serve in the military now or then.

Ironically, Mattis’ pique validated Trump’s judgement. Seems the general can’t take a punch.  No one will ever be able to say that about Trump.

Indeed, “service” in the Oval Office today, midst a rolling coup, requires more moxie than killing tribal Toyotas with drones, cruise missiles, tanks, gunships, and fighter planes in a world replete with inconclusive small wars and Third World sierra hotels.

Those who serve in the military, General Mattis, are not necessarily honorable, any more than those who do not serve are dishonorable. And not to put too fine a point on it, strategic competence is not all brass hats, fruit salad, and parade swords.

Another USMC pyrrhic warrior runs a close second to Mattis.  Nikki Haley now reveals that General John Kelly, Jr. was attempting to recruit insiders to “undermine” or resist the President while serving as White House chief-of-staff. Arrogant, unelected DOD mandarins, like their State Department, Intelligence Community, and Justice counterparts, have come to believe that the permanent Deep State is the only real state.

Mattis and Kelly are just two of a host of partisan general officers to join the seditious never-Trump legion. The worst may be erstwhile Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, USAF.

Clapper’s great fail, beyond the “dossier plot,” with an assist from Barack Obama and CIA’s John Brennan, was to shade Intelligence to accommodate a new national security narrative. The threat pyramid was inverted on Clapper’s watch. Islam was elevated as a “great” culture whilst Russians and Putin were resuscitated as Cold War demons.

According to Clapper, and acolytes like Brennan, the jihad is just “ritual cleansing.” By that logic, all that slaughter on 9/11 and every other global Muslim atrocity since are just “ritual” sacrifices to whom or what — Mohamed or Mecca?

Alas, the US Army might occupy a high ground for dysfunctional flag officers. Clinkers like David Petraeus or Stanley McChrystal immediately come to mind. Petraeus literally stepped on his crank by bedding subordinates. McChrystal got caught on a party plane talking trash about the timidity of Barack Obama.

The peccadillos of today’s Army generals are, nevertheless, low hanging fruit. More ominous, Army political partisanship is bleeding into the ranks. The poster child for this kind of venality is Lieutenant Colonel, Alexander Vindman, on loan to the NSC. Yes, that’s the National Security Council at the White House. Seems Vindman is an egoist/linguist who is both indiscrete and treacherous.

Vindman didn’t like, or misconstrued, something President Trump said to the Ukrainian president. Subsequently, Alex went off the DOD reservation to assist the press and Congress with the impeachment follies.

Apparently, a commissioned US Army officer cannot be trusted to assist the Commander-in-Chief and respect the confidentiality of the Oval Office. If Vindman had violated command confidentiality in a combat zone, he might have been court martialed – or fragged.

Silence from Pentagon and Army brass about the Vindman treachery says all that needs to be said about contemporary military standards on the E-Ring. 

And so it goes with Beltway bias. Now, DOD joins the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, and State Department as a source of foot soldiers in the slow-motion coup.

Call it the sedition coalition.

Say what you will about Donald Trump: this President has exposed the reality of the Washington swamp, the partisan deep state, and a bigoted Beltway establishment that may now be too corrupt for words.

Of all the Washington perfidy revealed since 2016, Military partisanship might be the most troubling pathology to emerge since Lincoln had to fire McClellan.

Photo credit: Master Sergeant Ken Hammond

The author is a former USAF Intelligence officer, serving under General James Clapper at USAF Intelligence. Colonel Donovan has served at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Central intelligence Agency.