Top Military Officers Unload on Trump

[KeithD]

Trump dumps on all of his supporters--and a good many of them just love him back.

 

[Schlank]

Trump's betrayal to U.S. troops is impossible to overstate

We've had incompetent presidents, and dumb presidents, and dishonest presidents. But we've never had a faithless president, who is faithless to his oath, who refuses to defend the country from a hostile foreign power, whether it's an attack on the lives of our military or it's an attack on our election process, which so many hundreds of thousands of Americans have died to preserve and protect. It's a shameful, shameful despicable hour in the history of the American presidency, and of all of his degradations and desecrations of his office, this is the most severe. It's the most scandalous and it's should shock the conscience of every American. We have never had a president who refuses to fulfill their oath when it comes to being the Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States quite like Donald Trump.

-Republican strategist Steve Schmidt on Trump's inaction against Russia's well-documented program of paying bounties for dead American soldiers in Afghanistan:

 

[allison22]

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman retires, citing campaign of ‘bullying’ and ‘retaliation’ by Trump after impeachment testimony

An Army officer who played a high-profile role in President Trump’s impeachment proceedings is retiring from the military over alleged “bullying” and “retaliation” by the president, his attorney said Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a national security aide at the White House until earlier this year and was up for promotion to colonel, will leave the military instead, his attorney, David Pressman, said in a statement.

“Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between honoring his oath or protecting his career. Between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers,” Pressman said. “LTC Vindman’s patriotism has cost him his career.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...4bc6ba-c12e-11ea-864a-0dd31b9d6917_story.html

 

[allison22]

Donald Trump Is Now ‘America’s No. 1 Traitor,’ Says Veterans Group


"No one has betrayed those in uniform like Donald Trump,” said the voiceover in the latest ad released by VoteVets on Friday.

The 65-second spot references Trump’s siding with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his dismissal of reports that U.S. officials knew Russia paid Taliban members to kill American troops.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vete...mp-benedict-arnold_n_5f003c3bc5b612083c5c90fa

 

[Jesus_Ateo]

Retired U.S. Navy Admiral and former Navy SEAL, William McRaven destroyed Trump in just a few words:

"Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation."

I agree with McRaven

 

[Schlank]

‘A lying draft dodger’: Republican military veterans slam Trump and declare their support for Biden in new attack ad


The Lincoln Project is not the only right-wing group that has been running ads slamming President Donald Trump; the group Republicans Voters Against Trump has been running anti-Trump ads as well. And a new RVAT ad, Ed Mazza reports in HuffPost, features Republican military veterans who do not want to see Trump reelected and are supporting former Vice President Joe Biden.


The ad, Mazza notes, will air on Fox News later this month during the 2020 Republican National Convention. And it will air in key battleground states that include Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona — all of which Trump won in 2016. Recent polls have shown Biden to be quite competitive in those states as well as in Michigan, where Trump’s campaign has suspended its advertising following an abundance of polls showing Biden with a double-digit lead.


In the ad, one of the veterans says of Trump, “We’re looking at a lying draft dodger who berates those who serve our country honorably, rewards those who do not.”


Veterans featured in the ad not only explain why they oppose Trump, but also, why they are supporting Biden. One of them declares, “I would not consider myself liberal, but Biden’s the only choice.” And another veteran stresses that she is putting “country above party” by choosing Biden.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/a-...nd-declare-their-support-for-biden-in-new-ad/

 

[Schlank]

WATCH: Trump flees Bedminster press conference after reporter busts him for lying about veterans

President Donald Trump held his second hastily arranged press conference in two days at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey on Saturday.

Trump began the press conference by falsely claiming credit for the Veterans Choice bill that was signed by President Barack Obama.

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has recorded Trump lying about the bill more than 140 times.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/wa...-reporter-busts-him-for-lying-about-veterans/

 

[MMM_wms]

‘A lying draft dodger’: Republican military veterans slam Trump and declare their support for Biden in new attack ad


The Lincoln Project is not the only right-wing group that has been running ads slamming President Donald Trump; the group Republicans Voters Against Trump has been running anti-Trump ads as well. And a new RVAT ad, Ed Mazza reports in HuffPost, features Republican military veterans who do not want to see Trump reelected and are supporting former Vice President Joe Biden.


The ad, Mazza notes, will air on Fox News later this month during the 2020 Republican National Convention. And it will air in key battleground states that include Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona — all of which Trump won in 2016. Recent polls have shown Biden to be quite competitive in those states as well as in Michigan, where Trump’s campaign has suspended its advertising following an abundance of polls showing Biden with a double-digit lead.


In the ad, one of the veterans says of Trump, “We’re looking at a lying draft dodger who berates those who serve our country honorably, rewards those who do not.”


Veterans featured in the ad not only explain why they oppose Trump, but also, why they are supporting Biden. One of them declares, “I would not consider myself liberal, but Biden’s the only choice.” And another veteran stresses that she is putting “country above party” by choosing Biden.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/a-...nd-declare-their-support-for-biden-in-new-ad/

I hope with you, SCHLANK that Trump may be on his last leg finally, and perhaps the growing opposition within his former ranks may do him in.

BTW, I would not call the Lincoln Project "right-wing". They seem to be Republicans concerned about their party getting mis-used by the utter corruption of Trumpism. To me, they are "born-again" REPs, if you pardon the expression.

And BTW, I hope your hopes are justifed. And now I can go admire your picture some more!

 

[Schlank]

"All enemies, foreign and domestic": Military thinkers call for military to assure Trump leaves ...

In a blunt, substantive, and articulate Defense One oped, two retired military officers — both with strong credentials in influencing military thinking over the past several decades — have called on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), General Mark A. Milley, U.S. Army, to be prepared to order military forces to remove Trump from the White House if he refuses to abide by the election results and a House certification of the election results.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...kers-call-for-military-to-assure-Trump-leaves

We have reached the point, in our nation, where reasoned military thought leaders are openly calling on the nation’s most senior military officer to be prepared to order soldiers to the White House to defend Democracy. How sad is that?

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

Katrina hero Russell Honoré goes on epic against Trump

Retired Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré went on an extended and impassioned rant, attacking Donald Trump for hindering the Post Office and for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying he is making the United States looks “stupid” in the eyes of the world.

Speaking with host Kendis Gibson, the hero of the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts noted the slowdown in receiving mail from the Post Office under the president’s new Postmaster General and admitted that he had to leave his home to pick up medications because mail deliveries are running dangerously behind.


“They’re slowing down our medicines, and they’re slowing down the testing,” he exclaimed. “So we’ve got more people dying every day because we don’t have the testing and the PPE we need and now we have more people dying because they’re not getting their medication.”


“This is a crying damn shame and the White House ought to be shameful, and the people in the White House know better, the people in the government know better, the senators know better and I think need to be shamed over this,” he continued. “There’s no way in hell there should be out of money in the post office, taking machines out of the post office that sorts the mail which slows the system down. They’re good people, over 300,000 veterans work in the Post Office. It’s a double whammy, it’s attacking their work ethics in the Post Office, giving the Post Office a bad name because the White House wants to slow the damn mail down.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/ka...ca-look-stupid/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

[allison22]

'‘Don’t Trust Trump With Your Kid’s Life" Says Gold Star Dad of Navy SEAL Who Was First to Die Under President

The father of a Navy SEAL who died in battle days after President Trump took office has condemned Donald Trump, saying that Americans should not trust the president with their lives or those of their children. William Owens' son, Senior Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, was the first person to die in combat during the Trump presidency following a Jan. 29, 2017, raid in Yemen.

"Just five days into his presidency, Trump ordered Ryan's SEAL team into Yemen, not in the situation room with all the intelligence assembled, but sitting across a dinner table from Steve Bannon," Owens tells viewers as the narrator of the ad. "There was no vital interest at play, just Donald Trump playing big man going to war."

He concludes, "If you hear one thing, let it be this: Don't trust Donald Trump with your kid's life -- or your own."

https://m.votevets.org/press/dont-t...avy-seal-who-was-first-to-die-under-president

 

[Schlank]

Report: Trump refused to honor American war dead, calling them 'losers'

In 2018, Donald Trump canceled his visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris. At the time, his excuse was it was too wet outside to see the final resting place of nearly 2,300 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in the first world war. The Atlantic has just published an unbelievable account of what happened during that trip to France, as well as allegations concerning Trump statements about fallen soldiers that, if true, are abhorrent.

We all know that Trump claimed that the rain scared his Secret Service detail from bringing him to the cemetery that day. Trump was lying of course. The rain posed no security problems. Trump just didn't want to go.

We now know from a handful of sources that Trump called the 1,800 American soldiers who died at the battle in Belleau Wood during World War I “suckers.” That is not a typo. He reportedly also asked who the “good guys” were in the war and “didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.”


Trump questioned senior staff about why he had to go to visit the cemetery in the first place, as it was “filled with losers.” Various sources with firsthand knowledge said Trump feared his hair would get messed up if he traveled in the rain.

Trump's contemptuous attitude towards our military is hardly surprising, as many will remember Trump’s attack on the late Sen. John McCain for being a POW in Vietnam.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...-I-dead-as-losers-and-U-S-soldiers-as-suckers

 

[Schlank]

The Trump White House has flatly denied the allegations Yet the type of anti-veteran insults those sources attribute to Trump are consistent with his comments about the late Sen. John McCain in 2015; Trump said of McCain, who was captured and imprisoned by the Viet Cong for five years during the Vietnam War, “I like people who weren’t captured.” And according to three of Goldberg’s sources, Trump had no interest in honoring McCain after he died in 2018 and said, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”


Goldberg also reports that when Trump visited France in 2018, he insulted the American World War I veterans buried at Aisne-Marne Cemetery and said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” The reporting in Goldberg’s article, according to Rubin, “seems entirely in character for Trump.” But she doesn’t expect a lot of Republicans to condemn Trump because of it.


Rubin argues that the senior officials quoted anonymously in Goldberg’s article should have had the courage to take a stand when Trump was insulting military veterans in their presence.

“The silence of these senior aides is really no different from the silence of virtually all elected Republicans,” Rubin writes. “They, along with intellectually corrupt right-wing pundits and media outlets, have denied, deflected, ignored or excused almost everything that has come out of Trump’s mouth. The so-called Republican hawks — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — have stuck with him through thick and thin. They did not condemn him when he first slandered POWs …. It seems there is no insult, lie or exaggeration about our troops too great to prompt these Republicans to declare Trump unfit to serve as commander in chief.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/wh...-about-the-gop/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

[Jesus_Ateo]

‘Horrible’: Woman whose fiancé died in Iraq shreds Trump’s attacks on servicemembers

A woman who lost her fiancé 14 years ago after he was killed in Iraq went on CNN Monday to shred President Donald Trump’s reported disparagement of military servicemembers.

Dana Canedy, whose fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, died in Iraq in 2016, told CNN’s Erica Hill that she was disgusted by the president’s reported descriptions of dead American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.”

Canedy then said that hearing about the president’s remarks has been particularly hard for her 14-year-old son Jordan, who was only 6 months old when his father was killed.


https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/ho...raq-shreds-trumps-s-on-servicemembers-on-cnn/

 

[KeithD]

We all know--including Trump's supporters--what Trump thinks of anyone who serves anything but his/her (actually, Trump's) own interests. Trump supporters are just pretending they don't, which tells us all we know about Trump supporters.

 

[Spandex_Girl]

‘He’s has no integrity, he has no honor’: Iraq veteran rips Trump as a ‘disgusting human being’


Iraq war veteran Paul Rieckhoff denounced President Donald Trump’s character after Trump maligned service members as “suckers” and “losers.”


“This is who Donald Trump is,” Rieckhoff said. “He’s a disgusting human being. He has no integrity, he has no honor, he has no respect. He has no respect for anyone or anything. He’s a political runaway train who will smash into anything that’s in his way, to include our military. He’s attacking his own military leadership.”

“A week ago they were trying to cut the budget to the Stars and Stripes magazine, pardon war criminals, attacks John McCain,” he added. “Our enemies love this, our enemies are celebrating. Russia loves this, [Vladimir] Putin loves this. Nobody loves this more than our enemies, and every day he perpetuates this madness. It’s bad for America and good for enemies.”


https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/hes-an-animal-iraq-veteran-rips-trump-as-a-disgusting-human-being/

 

[allison22]

Lieutenant Colonel Vindman says that Trump is “a useful idiot” — an unwitting dupe of Russian intelligence.


“President Trump should be considered to be a useful idiot and a fellow traveler, which makes him an unwitting agent of Putin.”

Those are the words of Alexander Vindman, the retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who blew the whistle on President Donald Trump’s dealings with the president of Ukraine last year, in a new interview with The Atlantic.

Vindman was an aide with the National Security Council who was alarmed by Trump’s actions, and testified in Trump’s impeachment hearings. He retired from the Army in July, claiming his career had been derailed “through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” by the Trump administration.

He opened up to The Atlantic in an interview published Monday, saying “I did my duty as an American citizen and Army officer.”

Vindman said he was disheartened by the president’s actions, but felt he had a duty to report Trump’s demand for a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens. “I had to choose between the president and the Constitution. ... No Army officer wants to be put in that position, but there I was.”

When asked straight-up by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg if he thought Trump was a Russian intelligence asset, Vindman said Trump was more of “a useful idiot” — an unwitting dupe of Russian intelligence.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-is-putins-useful-idiot-alexander-vindman-says-2020-09-14

 

[Schlank]

Pentagon officials are worried that Trump will try to use the military against American citizens who will be protesting him if he tries to stay in power even after losing the election

Pentagon officials are worried that Trump will try to use the military against American citizens who will be protesting him if he tries to stay in power even after losing the election.


“Several Pentagon officials said that such a move could prompt resignations among many of Mr. Trump’s senior generals,” including General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Times reports.


The report notes that both Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper both opposed Trump this past summer when he wanted to use the military to put down protests against police brutality in Washington D.C., and would be unlikely to back him if he tried to do the same thing after losing an election.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/pe...ion-unrest-nyt/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

[bellisarius]

Good Lord, what a bunch of hooey. OK, so you have some former officer's/officials that disagree with Trump. What is missing in this little passion play is the voices of those that agree with Trump. Whose advice to follow?

This reminds me of a quip by Harry Truman about the planning meetings leading up to the implementation of the Marshall Plan.

"If you took all of the economists in the world and lined them up head to tail, they'd still all point in different directions."

The so called experts don't agree with each other and those whose advice isn't taken quite often have their ego's bruised. Too bad.

 

[FescueFan]

All Raw/Wonkette/Salon/Slate bullshit.....you guys need to put the communist propaganda/conspiracy theory rags down.

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

TRUMP'S FORMER COAST GAURD CHIEF ENDORSES JOE BIDEN:

"Our constitutional rights are being infringed upon from within. Trump has demonstrated her is not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office. Thanks to Trump's disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us."

-Retired Admiral Paul Zukunft

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...ard-chief-our-constitutional-rights-are-being

 

[Schlank]

Admiral Steve Abbot "Trump says the military will vote for him. But he lost their support long ago"

Trump treats the armed forces as just another entity he can manipulate for political purposes. That's alienated the troops and the top brass alike.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...ll-vote-him-he-lost-their-support-ncna1245542

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

You are deluded and unable to follow the testimony of witnesses if you believe Trump did nothing wrong .
Vindman did what any citizen should do if he thought something was wrong in the course of his duties ,and reported the facts up the line .
As an ex serviceman I found it repugnant that he was attacked for doing his duty .

Something disturbing was brought to my attention today.

Trump has barricaded himself inside the White House and called upon soldiers from the National Guard to keep people out.

Is Trump seriously thinking of using U.S. soldiers to keep him in power after he loses the election?

 

[AlexBailey]

Something disturbing was brought to my attention today.

Trump has barricaded himself inside the White House and called upon soldiers from the National Guard to keep people out.

Is Trump seriously thinking of using U.S. soldiers to keep him in power after he loses the election?

Build that wall?

 

[bhurry]

He was convicted of murder, then pardoned by Trump, his troops suffered a different fate

How could a man who ruined so many lives, an officer the Army convicted of second-degree murder and other charges, be forgiven so easily? How could their president allow him to just walk free?

Lorance had been in command of 1st Platoon for only three days in Afghanistan but in that short span of time had averaged a war crime a day. On his last day before he was dismissed, he ordered his troops to open fire on three Afghan men standing by a motorcycle on the side of the road who he said posed a threat. His actions led to a 19-year prison sentence.


The president’s opponents described the pardon as another instance of Trump subverting the rule of law to reward allies and reap political benefits. Military officials worried that the decision to overturn a case that had already been adjudicated in the military courts sent a signal that war crimes were not worthy of severe punishment.

For the men of 1st platoon, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, the costs of the war and the fallout from the case have been profound and sometimes deadly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...um=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

Pissed. no new wars