There was already a #TrumpParade in DC. Not very well attended the first time, would be a waste of Pentagon time and resources the second time.
Photo: https://t.co/WYQprKDgNp pic.twitter.com/bFoNKhKKgd— Rep. Rick Larsen (@RepRickLarsen) February 7, 2018
Excellent overview from the Washington Post‘s Ishaan Tharoor — “Military parades are about ego and power. Of course Trump wants one.”:
… In the same week we heard the president call his political opponents “treasonous” for not clapping at the State of the Union address, we now contemplate his excitement for the sort of martial display these days more associated with single-party states and irredentist autocrats.
Trump, who fondly refers to “my generals” and espouses a decidedly militarist agenda, now thinks it’s his turn. “We’re all aware in this country of the president’s affection and respect for the military,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday. “We have been putting together some options. We will send them up to the White House for decision.”…
In a piece highlighting the difference between France’s yearly spectacular and Trump’s own ambitions, my colleague Rick Noack argued that Trump’s imagined parade is ultimately about his own brand of showboating nationalism, but that the French ceremonies nowadays commemorate something a bit more inclusive.
“France’s Bastille Day parade, which has persisted through two world wars and a Nazi occupation, has also been used to emphasize a very different message, which could be summarized as: We are only strong together,” Noack wrote. “What Trump may have missed while watching the Paris parade last July was that its organizers have frequently invited foreign troops — from Morocco and India to the United States, Britain and Germany — to march alongside French soldiers or to even lead the procession. Instead of the French flag, French soldiers sometimes wave the European Union flag, even though the political bloc does not have its own army.”…
So what’s the point? “A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life,” wrote the great British author George Orwell.
Orwell was writing in 1941, at a time when Britons faced the prospect of defeat and conquest by the Nazis. He decried the fascist “goose-step” as “one of the most horrible sights in the world,” and saw in it “an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren’t laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim.”
This led Orwell to conclude that, “beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army.”
For Trump, the army certainly is no laughing matter — and he has picked a series of political battles with any domestic critics he claims are disrespecting the military. But while most Americans dare not laugh at their army, the reaction to Trump’s parade shows that quite a few are laughing at him.
should someone explain what Bastille Day was
and that to commemorate one
you have to have one https://t.co/zdY4oxJXPq
— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) February 7, 2018
My take in @PostOpinions on Trump's parade idea: "At a time when every service member and defense dollar counts… this parade would put those scarce resources toward feeding the president’s ego instead of our national security." https://t.co/ZSGWFSDcx3
— Phillip Carter (@Carter_PE) February 7, 2018
The military parade will pass right by some homeless vets, I'll bet.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) February 7, 2018
My wife, on Trump’s idea of a military parade: “You know, they have a lot of parades in Disney World EVERY DAY, and it’s pretty close to Mar-a-Lago.”
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) February 8, 2018
lol. shep is amazing … "They could give him replicas. He wants to see what he has. They can give him little — I had some of those when I was a kid." pic.twitter.com/7FfV1R9Yk8
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 7, 2018
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
There are vets who survived wars overseas who are dying on American soil now because the VA can’t see them fast enough and when they finally do they provide inadequate care. There are thousands of homeless vets wandering our streets and thousands of soldiers with PTSD who remain undiagnosed and unaided (not to mention no help for their families struggling to cope). And we continue to send our young men and women into the Middle East meat grinder so these problems will only get worse. Trump, who is most likely ignorant of these issues or even more likely indifferent to them, wants to spend millions of dollars on a g*ddamn parade so he can smile with that bunghole of a mouth and clap his tiny sweaty hands in delight at the display of “his” power and might–so he can be entertained. The man is an abomination.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
rikyrah
Countdown Clock ⏰⏰:
Eight Days Until WAKANDA ????
rikyrah
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
That entire interview was wild.
Debbie(aussie)
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: This!
Saw your previous comment about your marriage ‘difficulties’ and just wanted to wish you all the best. Stay strong ?
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, he has so much affection and respect for the military he spent a decade avoiding it. I suggest one of the options they send to the White House is that every single one of the useless fucks presently working there, especially the useless fuck in chief, get sent to Afghanistan with body armor and an M-4 where they can parade around the streets of Kandahar to their precious little hearts’ content.
ThresherK
So the best thing is to run one company of soldiers and one tank and one of each thing around in a circle so he sees each multiple times?
Normally I’d say “that’s too stupid to fool.anyone”.
Normally.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Betty Cracker
As we’ve often discussed here, we must have a reckoning in this country if it’s to be saved. The first step is to throw the corrupt and cynical Republicans out of power and use their time in the political wilderness to shore up our hollow institutions and codify standards previously (and falsely) thought to be universally shared.
But the reckoning should also include rethinking who we are as a country, and that means reexamining the role of the military. Do we want to keep spending as much on our military as the next eight nations combined? Does it make sense to direct so many resources to hardware when we now know that the front line of an attack by a hostile foreign power will be Twitter or Facebook?
Trump shouldn’t get his stupid parade, of course. But the mindset it represents has to go too.
raven
This shit is a trap. Don’t fall into it.
raven
John Perry Barlow RIP
https://youtu.be/kKgMEHFqdYg
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
Trump is the avatar of white conservatism. The rot, petty vindictiveness, stupidity, racism, and worship of wealth for wealth’s sake was there – he simply pulled back the sheets the morning after for all to see.
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker:
Social media doesn’t put billions of dollars into the pockets of defense contractors
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Go Dawgs!
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Just ask Trump.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: In that case she’s a fine fatherfucker.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Whenever I see the word “reckoning” in this type of context, I auto-fill “blood” as the word just before it. During the worst periods of RWNJ insanity/evil, I sometimes think that’s what it will take. That thought depresses me to some extent, in that I’m even thinking about it.
Kay
Well, we can’t. We’re too busy having parades.
Incidentally- you can’t work as a police officer in this town with a protection order in place- good to know you can assist the President of the United States during your mandatory suspension from patrolling the school crosswalk.
Christ almighty, could the standards get any lower? Have all the Trump employees lift their pants leg- let’s see if anyone’s on an ankle monitor. Start with the President.
SFAW
@Kay:
With this maladministration, of course they could.
It’s akin to asking “have we reached Peak Wingnut”? You know we haven’t — we just can’t specifically predict what will come next that’s worse.
NotMax
Long, long, long time ago was friendly with a couple named Parré, proud new parents of their first child, a girl. They hadn’t settled on a name for the kid and were soliciting suggestions from everyone they knew.
My suggestion was Ailuva.
Patricia Kayden
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Hmmmm. Perhaps that’s why Trump hates Black people. A Black man dated the only woman he truly loves.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: I think it goes back a long time further than that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: What to you mean by trap?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: I’m still hopeful that we can resolve this crisis without bloodshed.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Onc in a while, you come across magazine articles or suchlike listing particularly goofy names. I’ve often wondered what the parents of Nancy Anne Cianci were thinking. I’m aware that Canaan Banana could scarcely have avoided his surname, but at least it didn’t stop him becoming President of Zimbabwe.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
No, that started back in the 1970s, when the courts had the nerve to order Trump to rent to them.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Bu5 it couldn’t have helped.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
MJS
I finally watched “Downfall” last night. Here’s hoping…
Kay
I guess they were busy following the blockbuster story of Hillary Clinton’s ’08 campaign hire so missed the guy in the White House with the CPO. Which everyone knew about.
We should Google some names of the other high-ranking Trump hires. See what comes up.
Steve in the ATL
@OzarkHillbilly: [german word that surely exists for simultaneously laughing and vomiting]
Baud
@Kay:
Get with the program, Kay.
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Jeez, have we not been cured of the idea that a CEO should lead us?
Kay
Are they ever going to release the information on the breach of voting systems? Voters know nothing about this.
Wouldn’t we be the ones to tell? It’s been two years. How many elections are they planning on holding where they tell us after the election that election systems were breached? “It’s just a coupla states!” Which states? What happened?
OzarkHillbilly
@Steve in the ATL: I’d apologize but if I have to suffer I’ll be damned if I alone suffer.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: even assuming that “manifold” is a typo by the transcriber, these people are idiots.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud: If this keeps up, Hillary will be primaried in 2020.
Montanareddog
@Kay:
And I guess Cilizza’s countdown clock only works on Dem time. I would so love that egregious little fuck to call out some Republicans, for once. That disgrace Kelly for starters, or Orrin “Mormon values” Hatch.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: “It’s classified, Kay…”
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: She’ll be impeached long before 2020.
Kay
@Baud:
I want to know if the abused ex wife shopped that story and how it is that only the Guardian and The Intercept picked it up.
The NYTimes is probably still interviewing Hillary Clinton ’08 staffers. They put the crack email team on it. We know more about the theoretical Clinton Administration than we do about the sitting President. “It woulda been TERRIBLE- here’s why”
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud: we should build a wall around Ruth Marcus and make WaPo pay for it.
germy
link
But I remember reading about this a few months ago. Why is this being treated like a “breaking news” story now?
Baud
@Kay:
Excellent question, Kay.
Kay
@Baud:
They dogged Clinton for days on her statement on the staffer. Let’s see if anyone asks The General to explain his nonsensical statement on the wife beater he hired.
germy
@Baud: Porter’s ex-wives said they informed the FBI in January 2017 of their allegations against him while they were being interviewed by agents as part of Porter’s security clearance review.
I’m guessing the FBI released this now as payback.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
It’s getting less likely by the minute. The supine conservative Supreme Court will fail again, ushering in a second American Civil War.
germy
@Kay:
Wives. Plural.
A pattern of spousal abuse. No wonder he fit right in to the admin.
Baud
@Kay: GMA dug into the General this morning. Not Hillary levels, but fairly strong.
Kay
@germy:
Great! Good to see everyone is focusing like a laser on public service.
Maybe the FBI could see their way clear to investigating the infiltration of 21 state election systems? Sometime this decade?
Baud
@germy: It was probably on his resume.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Nope. They are the Masters of the Universe.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Is is just me, or would anybody else like to see somebody go after Jason Chaffetz with a baseball bat?
Kay
@germy:
It’s hard for me because CPO’s are a huge issue for normal people. Normal people undergo FBI background checks and this would be a big deal. They do FBI background checks for adoptions and guardians and foster parents in Ohio. I’ve had 50 year olds turned down for a bar fight in CA when they were 21 and in the Navy.
There are two sets of rules, apparently. The more powerful you are the lower the standards.
germy
@Kay: I’ve been trying to find out which states were infiltrated but I haven’t seen a list.
OzarkHillbilly
“You don’t need a big parade to prove your strength, or as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, ‘being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.’ Well, President Trump is no lady,”
-Ali Velshi
Kay
@Baud:
The Trump people planted a story this week where they want “killers” in the Administration to replace the regular assholes they hired- apparently they meant that literally.
They brag about this- “get me the killer“. The NYTimes political team swoons. Finally! Manly-men of the Right are in charge!
Kay
@germy:
I saw a partial list a year ago. The only state I remember was Illinois.
Since then we’ve been focused mostly on how bad the Clinton Administration would have been. That and parades.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
Trump has the typical Republican attitude towards the military, both elected and rank-and-file. They love knowing that someone, somewhere is being killed with bullets and bombs, and they have a piece of that power. The actual troops? Forget it. They love the violence and the bragging.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Why stop at Chaffetz?
@Kay:
Same as it ever was Kay.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I mean it’s a stone setup. This asshole can order people to their deaths at the blink of an eye, he can damn sure order a fucking parade.
germy
If one of the ex-wives hadn’t gone to the press, would this story have come out?
(the intercept)
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s not just you, though it’s possible a Louisville slugger to the face would improve that hideous pig snout masquerading as a nose.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, I have a list.
They could do a pay per view – conservative pundits and pols shrieking in fear about how they didn’t mean anything by their words and deeds, and crying out “why – it was just politics”, then settling down to sad gurgles….
ThresherK
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Oh, we need more than one bat. They aren’t as hard as Chaffetz’ noggin.
Actually, there’s a number of R’s who need the whole Looney Tunes treatment: Bugs Bunny walks offscreen, various noises and stars follow, and Bugs returns with a broken bat.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I think we should set up a GoFundMe page for the parade. All the people who want the parade can pledge their tax cut money for the year to it. The parade would be about 2 clown cars long.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Of course he can, there’s paying for it and well finding troops and equipment… But, what’s the trap? Getting liberals perceived as anti-military like the early/mid 70’s?
Sort of like this story from here in blue CA?
Gin & Tonic
@germy: I know people’s personal lives are complicated and none of my business, but when you’re 40 and already have two ex-wives, I think that might signal something about you.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Me, too.
But the part of me that says “we need to make an example of the worst attempted-destroyers of America” sometimes comes out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Damn, that would make a ton of money.
MomSense
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yes, but then I have a long list. Ryan, Cruz, Gohmert, Nunes, Uday and Qusay, Sessions, and many more.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
And with modern technology, you can loop it – no longer would you have to sit through rewind to watch again!
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic:
In Hollywood that is way behind the curve.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@MomSense:
With Ryan, you make him watch as everybody else goes through it. Let him really anticipate what’s coming….
I really need to collaborate with Tarantino on this movie idea, now that he’s tainted.
MomSense
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I like you so much.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
A friend of mine was married (third marriage) to a woman who was on her fourth. She cheated with and married their marriage counselor. When she divorced that husband, she called my friend and said “I’m wondering if it’s me”.
MomSense
@germy:
The problem is that some of the systems are so archaic that I’m not even sure how anyone would know if they had been successfully infiltrated.
It wouldn’t matter as much if they hit Maine because we have same day registration. We are better equipped to sort this out on Election Day.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The marriage counselor should apply for a job in the Trump administration.
Kay
Someone could file in a state court under state sunshine laws in one of the 21 states and get information on the incursion into voting systems.
You would need standing but I bet any candidate could assert that. The feds would try to stop any release but at least you’d get a hearing and a judge to decide what can and can’t be released, instead of leaving it up to Donald Trump and his low quality hires.
I wish the ACLU would do it. No one is giving us jack shit on what happened here and I don’t think we;re ever going to find out without some outside actor forcing the issue. We really have a right to know if a foreign government infiltrated our state election system, and to what extent, and what’s being done about it. Election officials keep copious records. There”s a record somewhere – who flagged it, what it was, what was done about it.
Patricia Kayden
It’s fascinating to see Joe Scarborough and Mika feign surprise that Kelly is an awful person who was never going to play the role of “only adult in the room” for Trump’s White House. They completely ignore Kelly’s racially tinged attack on Representative Fredricka Wilson and his ridiculous comments about the Civil War. They also ignore his short stint as Secretary of DHS where he escalated deportations under ICE and harassment of foreign visitors under CBP.
It’s only now that Kelly supported a domestic abuser that some folks are finally questioning his character although he’s shown himself to be a Trump shill over and over again.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker:
So much this.
JR
Maybe Trump can come up with a clever name for his parade? “Useful splendor” works. Goes hand in hand with the tax cuts AND bastille day!
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
They’re poor judges of character. Consistently. Over and over and over.
They admire bad people because they have fucked up priorities and values.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kay: There was some new news yesterday that the Russians had gotten into voter registrations in several states.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t even have to read that and “like the early/mid 70’s”? No, like now.
Cheryl Rofer
Patricia Kayden
@Frankensteinbeck: Well, Republicans are pushing a budget which gives billions of dollars to the military so they love spending on the military, that’s for sure.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Wow, that is Fox News dissing this too.
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
That right there is already a fashion red flag.
Weaselone
@Kay: Also racism. I’m not saying Joe and Mika are part of the sheet wearing set, just that they’ve been marinating in the same toxic brew as the rest of us and have neither the humility nor the self awareness to question why they didn’t factor an old white man’s repeated shitting on minorities into their assessment of his character.
Another Scott
@Kay: I don’t think the “news” yesterday was anything new. We heard about that last year and in 2016, I’m reasonably sure. The Brennan Center keeps track of stuff like this:
One of the really big problems with “social media” is recycling of stuff that we already know. It’s cheap, and it can get clicks if enough of the right people repeat it. :-/
I’m not saying this isn’t important. I am saying that the US needs to be working with the states to harden their election systems from outside hacking and improve transparency and accuracy and timeliness of the reporting – and that we need to be aware of what’s being done (and not done), and to not think that we’re learning new things when we’re actually not.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
PPCLI
@Steve in the ATL: Drumpfen
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump wants the parade in November? Sounds like the next step in Disneyfing 911.
Just One More Canuck
@Baud: What a strange thing for Jones to have said
Boatboy_srq
@Steve in the ATL: Cyber is The Star Scientific of the MilInd community. It’s there, but if you pay too much attention to it the big older vendors squash you flat.
But her emails!!!
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He wants it in November essentially as a multimedia political advertisement paid for by the US tax payer.
Just One More Canuck
@ThresherK: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/93/e4/62/93e46266af16f4ed601b7d23148f1cf3.jpg
Tenar Arha
@germy: It’s a guess but probably two reasons
1. the cable news & traditional outlets are kinda incompetent and good at memory holing last month, let alone about 6-10 months ago (they really are no context machines)
2. But also the “media” got a face and a person to interview so they finally feel like they can tell the story
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: @Amir Khalid: i used to index The Grauniad way back in the day, and i kept a “funny names list” gleaned from the articles. Canaan Banana was right up there at the top. Good times!
Skepticat
Have we checked when tRump’s birthday is? That’s the likely parade date.
J R in WV
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ll hold him if you’ve got a good swing. Or you can put your foot out behind his knees when I push, then we can both swing while he’s down. What a piece of work! Dirt-bag. Him and Kelly both. And this Porter guy.
I know a guy, strong environmentalist, works against big mining companies in court. Seems mild mannered. But I also know he physically abused at least one wife who dropped him like a rock. He has back trouble, perhaps from losing sleep over being physically violent to someone it allegedly loved.
I don’t expect many of these vulgar White House dirt-bags will have that problem, no morals at all to bother them late at night. Nothing is their fault.
SgrAstar
@Baud: I think the Daily Mail broke that story. ?
Ksmiami
@SFAW: I’m thinking we use technological prowess against them it proved a critical advantage in civil war part 1- then a complete eradication of fox and the conservative propaganda machine. This goes with a new deal 2 to bring rural America up to date or simply starve the non productive areas of resources. They have a lot of guns, but we have intelligence
Ksmiami
@SFAW: @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: let’s at least prep a robot army first
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Debbie(aussie): Thank you!
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh how well I know it. I’ve lost count of the eedjits that recklessly and thoughtlessly drive around Arizona with ‘Murika stickers and tattered US and Gadsden flags streaming behind their gas guzzling over-sized trucks. Can’t throw a stick without hitting one of them. But let there be any actual demand for patriotism from them and they scurry back into dark crevasses.