Maybe. It would certainly be refreshing if the GOP would cut bait over Labor Day Weekend.NiceDC wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 9:13 amI disagree with this. I think he has always gotten through business by paling around and bluster. I think he understand how much he's behind the eight ball, and is trying to shore up support with the strong talk.
I also have been watching his 5:30 "pressers" and he does not look like someone enjoying himself up there, especially since he already signaled that there will be no new rallies before the election. He literally has nothing to fight for, except "not to lose." The fact he has also been going to Bedminster more, I really don't know if he campaigns past labor day.
But there's another path this could take.
“. . . All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”: An Open Letter to Gen. Milley
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/0 ... ey/167625/
We do not live in ordinary times. The president of the United States is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution. In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your Constitutional oath. We write to assist you in thinking clearly about that choice. If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.
Due to a dangerous confluence of circumstances, the once-unthinkable scenario of authoritarian rule in the United States is now a very real possibility. First, as Mr. Trump faces near certain electoral defeat, he is vigorously undermining public confidence in our elections. Second, Mr. Trump’s defeat would result in his facing not merely political ignominy, but also criminal charges. Third, Mr. Trump is assembling a private army capable of thwarting not only the will of the electorate but also the capacities of ordinary law enforcement. When these forces collide on January 20, 2021, the U.S. military will be the only institution capable of upholding our Constitutional order.
[...]
These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat, his assault on the integrity of our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20. Rather than accept the peaceful transfer of power that has been the hallmark of American democracy since its inception. Mr. Trump may refuse to leave office. He would likely offer as a fig leaf of legitimacy the shopworn lies about election fraud. Mr. Trump’s acolytes in right-wing media will certainly rush to repeat and amplify these lies, manufacturing sufficient evidence to provide a pretext of plausibility. America’s greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War will come about by a president who simply refuses to leave office.
America’s political and legal institutions have so atrophied that they are ill-prepared for this moment. Senate Republicans, already reduced to supplicant status, will remain silent and inert, as much to obscure their complicity as to retain their majority. The Democrat-led House of Representatives will certify the Electoral College results, which Mr. Trump will dismiss as fake news. The courts, flooded with cases from both Democrats and Mr. Trump’s legal team, will take months working through the docket, producing reasoned rulings that Trump will alternately appeal and ignore.
[...]
At this moment of Constitutional crisis, only two options remain. Under the first, U.S. military forces escort the former president from the White House grounds. Trump’s little green men, so intimidating to lightly armed federal law enforcement agents, step aside and fade away, realizing they would not constitute a good morning’s work for a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Under the second, the U.S. military remains inert while the Constitution dies. The succession of government is determined by extralegal violence between Trump’s private army and street protesters; Black Lives Matter Plaza becomes Tahrir Square.
[...]
For 240 years, the United States has been spared the horror of violent political succession. Imperfect though it may be, our Union has been moving toward greater perfection, from one peaceful transfer of power to the next. The rule of law created by our Constitution has made this miracle possible. However, our Constitutional order is not self-sustaining. Throughout our history, Americans have laid down their lives so that this form of government may endure. Continuing the unfinished work for which these heroes fell now falls to you.
Lest you forget:
“I, Mark A. Milley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The fate of our Republic may well depend upon your adherence to this oath.
Respectfully yours,
John Nagl and Paul Yingling
John Nagl, a retired Army officer and veteran of both Iraq wars, is Head of School at The Haverford School outside Philadelphia.
Paul Yingling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served three tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia, and a fifth in Operation Desert Storm.
