The American space fantasy is already being successfully challenged by Russia, China and India. US domination of space is infantile and a waste of needed resources to fix our badly deteriorating infrastructure and society. Besides, the US doesn‘t have the money.
Hello Bill Astore... Of Note, A Russian Spy Ship, the Yantar, has deployed to U.K. waters... It has fired Lasers at surveilling NATO Aircraft... Seems that Putin is trying to take advantage of DJT's Destruction of the USA... I fear for the small Baltic States, and Poland.... Nonetheless, Slava Ukrainii!!!
I follow George Hazim from Australia as religiously as I follow Bill. Getting 100+ email daily to read this or that, I read everything from their email notice.
'America’s Delusional Peace Plan Exposed Brutally'
Larry Johnson dismantles Washington’s fantasy diplomacy and shows why Russia - not the US - holds every strategic advantage in the war.
There are many reasons why, when reading Trump’s 28-point “peace plan” to end the Ukraine war, it feels like the product of a Hollywood scriptwriter hired to indulge a narcissist’s fantasy - one where Trump, drenched in delusion, emerges as the hero who saves the world and intimidates the “evil Russians” into submission.
Fantasies can be harmless. Delusion, when weaponised as policy, is not. This is Trumpian politics wrapped in the broader American diplomatic stupidity that has defined Washington for decades. Trump, the self-styled misunderstood saviour, is nothing more than a failing, flailing fraud.
Totally off-topic; but i would like very much to get Your thoughts on this, Bill. Thank You.
TRUMP SAYS DEMOCRATS’ MESSAGE TO MILITARY IS ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR’ PUNISHABLE BY DEATH" by Meg Kinnard / AP 20 Nov 25
President Donald Trump on Thursday accused half a dozen Democratic lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” after the lawmakers — all veterans of the armed services and intelligence community — called on U.S. military members to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.”
The 90-second video was first posted early Tuesday from Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s X account. In it, the six lawmakers — Slotkin, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan — speak directly to U.S. service members, whom Slotkin acknowledges are “under enormous stress and pressure right now.”
“The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution,” Slotkin wrote in the X post.
Trump on Thursday reposted messages from others about the video, amplifying it with his own words. It marked another flashpoint in the political rhetoric that at times has been thematic in his administrations, as well as among some in his MAGA base. Some Democrats accused him of acting like a king and trying to distract from the soon-to-be-released files about disgraced financier and sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
WHAT DEMOCRATS SAID IN THE VIDEO
With pieces of dialogue spliced together from different members, the lawmakers introduce themselves and their background. They go on to say the Trump administration “is pitting our uniformed military against American citizens. They call for service members to “refuse illegal orders” and “stand up for our laws.”
The lawmakers conclude the video by encouraging service members, “Don’t give up the ship,” a War of 1812-era phrase attributed to a U.S. Navy captain’s dying command to his crew.
Although the lawmakers didn’t mention specific circumstances in the video, its release comes as the Trump administration continues attempts at deployment of National Guard troops into U.S. cities for various roles, although some have been pulled back, and others held up in court.
ARE U.S. TROOPS ALLOWED TO DISOBEY ORDERS?
Troops, especially uniformed commanders, have a specific obligation to reject an order that’s unlawful, if they make that determination.
However, while commanders have military lawyers on their staffs to consult with in helping make such a determination, rank-and-file troops who are tasked with carrying out those orders are rarely in a similar position.
Broad legal precedence holds that just following orders, colloquially known as the “Nuremberg defense” as it was used unsuccessfully by senior Nazi officials to justify their actions under Adolf Hitler, doesn’t absolve troops.
However, the U.S. military legal code, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice or UCMJ, will punish troops for failing to follow an order should it turn out to be lawful. Troops can be criminally charged with Article 90 of the UCMJ, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, and Article 92, failure to obey an order. .......
Jeff, I heard somewhere the video in question was a phony. Not sure of its veracity.
Of course, troops can refuse to obey an illegal order; in fact, they should refuse to obey. The problem is it's not always easy to determine what is legal when it comes to using deadly force. Certainly, killing innocent people, civilians, e.g. My Lai, is (was) illegal.
My ex-Navy gunny husband said, in reference to the video, that most of the average sailors he worked around in the mid-to-late '80s were basic grunts, not well educated, with few critical thinking skills. He said it would be hard to know when an order would be illegal (short of shooting unarmed civilians), and most of his shipmates would have shot at anyone they were told to.
What I take from that is that the video (which seemed legit to me, but I'm not knowledgeable at detecting AI deepfakes) is a great idea, but "illegal orders" needs to be defined.
To me any way Denise an "Illegal Order" should be pretty obvious to anyone of even basic intelligence ie. a Grunt. The UCMJ should address any of the grey area, and consult a military lawyer when needed in your branch of service I would think, and take it all the way up the chain of command if necessary...!
Your process would work in a situation when there was no immediate action planned, but in the scenario my husband envisioned, if the gunner's mates on his ship were not privy to the background, and they were just directed to "blow that boat over there out of the water"---meaning one of the Venezuelan fishing boats---how would they know the order was illegal? They'd tend to just assume their superior officers knew what was what.
Yes I concur w/ your husband Denise I'm of the Shooting philosophy that Mr. Clintus "Eastwood" in the Dirty Harry Franchise espoused "Nothing wrong with shooting so long as the right people get shot!!" Not so sure when we get into these grey areas!
And that's just it. In the moment, the ordinary sailors are just told, if anything, "Those are bad guys," and who are they to question? They have no way of knowing---at least, at first they didn't---who the boats belonged to, or that it's been opined that blowing those boats out of the water is "likely illegal." Even now, there's been no ruling on it. I, for one, consider the attacks cold-blooded murder, but I'm not on a firing line.
I have to hope that any military service person would draw the line at firing on unarmed U.S. civilians, but we don't know yet.
Hmmmm. If it’s a phony, why haven’t the Democratic lawmakers allegedly in it denied it?
And given that the President, his Deputy Chief of Staff and Secretaries of War and Press, the Pentagon, and the Speaker of The House have reacted and responded to it, if it’s a phony, it’s a damn good one, eh?
And regarding illegal orders: If My Lai was illegal, what about Agent Orange?
Also, if that illegal order involves using deadly force, refusing to obey it could get that same deadly force used against the refuser.
On Thursday, Trump reposted to social media an article about the video, adding his own commentary that it was “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country.”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!!” Trump went on. “LOCK THEM UP???” He called for the lawmakers’ arrest and trial, adding in a separate post that it was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”
Trump also reposted more than a dozen comments from other accounts criticizing Democrats, including one that stated “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
Asked during a White House briefing on Thursday about the intent of Trump’s messages, press secretary Karoline Leavitt instead honed in on the Democrats’ message, which she posited “perhaps is punishable by law.” Leavitt went on to say that any incitement to “defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders” is “a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do, and they should be held accountable, and that’s what the president wants to see.”
Democrats were swift to react to Trump’s words, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer warning in a floor speech that the president was “lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said he did not believe Trump was calling for violence in the social media posts, saying Trump was merely “defining a crime,” and calling the Democrats’ video “wildly inappropriate.”
“Think of the threat that is to our national security and what it means for our institution,” Johnson added.
Trump’s allies balked at the video. On Wednesday on Fox News, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called the messaging “insurrection — plainly, directly, without question” and said it represented “a general call for rebellion from the CIA and the armed services of the United States, by Democrat lawmakers.”
On X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commented on the video Tuesday as “Stage 4 TDS,” referring to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — a term used by Trump to describe voters so angry and opposed to him that they are incapable of seeing any good in what he does.
The Steady State, which describes itself as “a network of 300+ national and homeland security experts standing for strong and principled policy, rule of law, and democracy,” wrote in a Substack post on Thursday that the lawmakers’ call was “only a restatement of what every officer and enlisted servicemember already knows: illegal orders can and should be refused. This is not a political opinion. It is doctrine.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell challenged the theory that illegal orders were being issued.
“Our military follows orders, and our civilians give legal orders,” Parnell told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We love the Constitution. These politicians are out of their minds.”
The American space fantasy is already being successfully challenged by Russia, China and India. US domination of space is infantile and a waste of needed resources to fix our badly deteriorating infrastructure and society. Besides, the US doesn‘t have the money.
With Elon Musk's neuralink implants in everyone's brain, they'll be able to dominate our inner space as well. Call it 'The Inner Space Force'?
Hello Bill Astore... Of Note, A Russian Spy Ship, the Yantar, has deployed to U.K. waters... It has fired Lasers at surveilling NATO Aircraft... Seems that Putin is trying to take advantage of DJT's Destruction of the USA... I fear for the small Baltic States, and Poland.... Nonetheless, Slava Ukrainii!!!
I follow George Hazim from Australia as religiously as I follow Bill. Getting 100+ email daily to read this or that, I read everything from their email notice.
'America’s Delusional Peace Plan Exposed Brutally'
Larry Johnson dismantles Washington’s fantasy diplomacy and shows why Russia - not the US - holds every strategic advantage in the war.
There are many reasons why, when reading Trump’s 28-point “peace plan” to end the Ukraine war, it feels like the product of a Hollywood scriptwriter hired to indulge a narcissist’s fantasy - one where Trump, drenched in delusion, emerges as the hero who saves the world and intimidates the “evil Russians” into submission.
Fantasies can be harmless. Delusion, when weaponised as policy, is not. This is Trumpian politics wrapped in the broader American diplomatic stupidity that has defined Washington for decades. Trump, the self-styled misunderstood saviour, is nothing more than a failing, flailing fraud.
https://georgehazim.substack.com/p/americas-delusional-peace-plan-exposed
Totally off-topic; but i would like very much to get Your thoughts on this, Bill. Thank You.
TRUMP SAYS DEMOCRATS’ MESSAGE TO MILITARY IS ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR’ PUNISHABLE BY DEATH" by Meg Kinnard / AP 20 Nov 25
President Donald Trump on Thursday accused half a dozen Democratic lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” after the lawmakers — all veterans of the armed services and intelligence community — called on U.S. military members to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.”
The 90-second video was first posted early Tuesday from Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s X account. In it, the six lawmakers — Slotkin, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan — speak directly to U.S. service members, whom Slotkin acknowledges are “under enormous stress and pressure right now.”
“The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution,” Slotkin wrote in the X post.
Trump on Thursday reposted messages from others about the video, amplifying it with his own words. It marked another flashpoint in the political rhetoric that at times has been thematic in his administrations, as well as among some in his MAGA base. Some Democrats accused him of acting like a king and trying to distract from the soon-to-be-released files about disgraced financier and sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
WHAT DEMOCRATS SAID IN THE VIDEO
With pieces of dialogue spliced together from different members, the lawmakers introduce themselves and their background. They go on to say the Trump administration “is pitting our uniformed military against American citizens. They call for service members to “refuse illegal orders” and “stand up for our laws.”
The lawmakers conclude the video by encouraging service members, “Don’t give up the ship,” a War of 1812-era phrase attributed to a U.S. Navy captain’s dying command to his crew.
Although the lawmakers didn’t mention specific circumstances in the video, its release comes as the Trump administration continues attempts at deployment of National Guard troops into U.S. cities for various roles, although some have been pulled back, and others held up in court.
ARE U.S. TROOPS ALLOWED TO DISOBEY ORDERS?
Troops, especially uniformed commanders, have a specific obligation to reject an order that’s unlawful, if they make that determination.
However, while commanders have military lawyers on their staffs to consult with in helping make such a determination, rank-and-file troops who are tasked with carrying out those orders are rarely in a similar position.
Broad legal precedence holds that just following orders, colloquially known as the “Nuremberg defense” as it was used unsuccessfully by senior Nazi officials to justify their actions under Adolf Hitler, doesn’t absolve troops.
However, the U.S. military legal code, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice or UCMJ, will punish troops for failing to follow an order should it turn out to be lawful. Troops can be criminally charged with Article 90 of the UCMJ, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, and Article 92, failure to obey an order. .......
Jeff, I heard somewhere the video in question was a phony. Not sure of its veracity.
Of course, troops can refuse to obey an illegal order; in fact, they should refuse to obey. The problem is it's not always easy to determine what is legal when it comes to using deadly force. Certainly, killing innocent people, civilians, e.g. My Lai, is (was) illegal.
My ex-Navy gunny husband said, in reference to the video, that most of the average sailors he worked around in the mid-to-late '80s were basic grunts, not well educated, with few critical thinking skills. He said it would be hard to know when an order would be illegal (short of shooting unarmed civilians), and most of his shipmates would have shot at anyone they were told to.
What I take from that is that the video (which seemed legit to me, but I'm not knowledgeable at detecting AI deepfakes) is a great idea, but "illegal orders" needs to be defined.
To me any way Denise an "Illegal Order" should be pretty obvious to anyone of even basic intelligence ie. a Grunt. The UCMJ should address any of the grey area, and consult a military lawyer when needed in your branch of service I would think, and take it all the way up the chain of command if necessary...!
Your process would work in a situation when there was no immediate action planned, but in the scenario my husband envisioned, if the gunner's mates on his ship were not privy to the background, and they were just directed to "blow that boat over there out of the water"---meaning one of the Venezuelan fishing boats---how would they know the order was illegal? They'd tend to just assume their superior officers knew what was what.
Yes I concur w/ your husband Denise I'm of the Shooting philosophy that Mr. Clintus "Eastwood" in the Dirty Harry Franchise espoused "Nothing wrong with shooting so long as the right people get shot!!" Not so sure when we get into these grey areas!
And that's just it. In the moment, the ordinary sailors are just told, if anything, "Those are bad guys," and who are they to question? They have no way of knowing---at least, at first they didn't---who the boats belonged to, or that it's been opined that blowing those boats out of the water is "likely illegal." Even now, there's been no ruling on it. I, for one, consider the attacks cold-blooded murder, but I'm not on a firing line.
I have to hope that any military service person would draw the line at firing on unarmed U.S. civilians, but we don't know yet.
Hmmmm. If it’s a phony, why haven’t the Democratic lawmakers allegedly in it denied it?
And given that the President, his Deputy Chief of Staff and Secretaries of War and Press, the Pentagon, and the Speaker of The House have reacted and responded to it, if it’s a phony, it’s a damn good one, eh?
And regarding illegal orders: If My Lai was illegal, what about Agent Orange?
Also, if that illegal order involves using deadly force, refusing to obey it could get that same deadly force used against the refuser.
That has happened, as well.
Don’t know. Agent Orange was chemical warfare that should have been illegal.
HOW TRUMP AND OTHERS RESPONDED
On Thursday, Trump reposted to social media an article about the video, adding his own commentary that it was “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country.”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!!” Trump went on. “LOCK THEM UP???” He called for the lawmakers’ arrest and trial, adding in a separate post that it was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”
Trump also reposted more than a dozen comments from other accounts criticizing Democrats, including one that stated “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
Asked during a White House briefing on Thursday about the intent of Trump’s messages, press secretary Karoline Leavitt instead honed in on the Democrats’ message, which she posited “perhaps is punishable by law.” Leavitt went on to say that any incitement to “defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders” is “a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do, and they should be held accountable, and that’s what the president wants to see.”
Democrats were swift to react to Trump’s words, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer warning in a floor speech that the president was “lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said he did not believe Trump was calling for violence in the social media posts, saying Trump was merely “defining a crime,” and calling the Democrats’ video “wildly inappropriate.”
“Think of the threat that is to our national security and what it means for our institution,” Johnson added.
Trump’s allies balked at the video. On Wednesday on Fox News, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called the messaging “insurrection — plainly, directly, without question” and said it represented “a general call for rebellion from the CIA and the armed services of the United States, by Democrat lawmakers.”
On X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commented on the video Tuesday as “Stage 4 TDS,” referring to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — a term used by Trump to describe voters so angry and opposed to him that they are incapable of seeing any good in what he does.
The Steady State, which describes itself as “a network of 300+ national and homeland security experts standing for strong and principled policy, rule of law, and democracy,” wrote in a Substack post on Thursday that the lawmakers’ call was “only a restatement of what every officer and enlisted servicemember already knows: illegal orders can and should be refused. This is not a political opinion. It is doctrine.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell challenged the theory that illegal orders were being issued.
“Our military follows orders, and our civilians give legal orders,” Parnell told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We love the Constitution. These politicians are out of their minds.”
Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-military-traitors-sedition-illegal-orders-c5fc3c5bd2fbc6b1204550e4203c24b2 .