Ignore The Hawks On American TV News

This is MSNBC being hawkish in its analysis of Trump’s refusal to concede in the 2020 presidential election. The story goes that Trump’s obstruction of a peaceful handover makes the US susceptible to foreign attack, whether military or electronic.

Here it is again. This is Bullshit. MSNBC is going out of its way to praise Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan as an Air Force veteran and therefore, an expert on national security. I’m here to say no, she isn’t. Look at how Willie Geist praises this Congresswoman simply for being a veteran from a military family. This conversation could have been on Fox News 20 years ago.

And here is more nonsense. There was a massive shift in the way US news covered wars, beginning with the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Instead of objective reporting, US news media began to refer to US armed forces as “we” or “our,” and it also started to inject itself into military strategies. Here’s MSNBC cautioning a president not to tell “the enemy” where “our” troops are going.

Trump refusing to go quietly is a scandal. It’s one of the worst things he has ever done. But it does not jeopardize national security. That's neocon talk. That’s bullshit. Trump trying to throw out legal ballots is not going make the Chinese navy appear in Hawaii or give foreign hackers a clear path to intrude into our systems, or give foreign spies more wiggle room on our soil.

I shouldn’t have to mention this, but apparently buried in the 9/11 commission report is some bullshit theory that the legal battle over Florida recounts made our nation vulnerable to the major terrorist attacks. The legal battle over Florida in November and December 2000 delayed the presidential transition 37 days. The commission report goes on to argue that the delay was a major contributing factor in how unprepared the Bush 43 administration was to an attack involving four hijacked planes 9 months later. Do I really have to say that the failure to protect the nation was entirely on the Bush administration and the DOJ?

Ignore David Ignatius. Ignore Chris Coons. Ignore Chris Murphy. Ignore Susan Rice. Ignore Eric Swalwell. This is fear mongering. We didn't tolerate it when it come from the Bush-Caney administration. We can't tolerate it from Democrats, either.

Democrats are the new Republicans! Who would have thought that 20 years after 9/11 that it would be the Democrats who would talk the most about "national security"?

It is extraordinary and alarming how the Democrats have made themselves the party of the military and national security. The words coming out of Democrats mouths today is not that different from the words of Bush, Chaney, Rice and Rumsfeld 20 years ago. Be cautioned, Democrats. We're moving to the right when we should be moving left. Of course it was right to speak up when Trump didn't care about our troops, but I see a party that is becoming far too hawkish, too militarized. Don’t let Trump’s disrespect of military drive you to throw your arms around it. I’m afraid that has happened.

The Most Secretive Presidency Since Nixon

Books will be written about this. I firmly expect Glenn Greenwald to be among those to write one of the best books. But I will say just this.

The Obama administration's record on civil liberties is the worst since the sixties and seventies, when the Johnson and Nixon crowds let loose the Feds on anti-war activists.

Obama is, allegedly, a constitutional law professor. Despite that, he appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General, a man who has refused to enforce the anti-fraud laws against the Wall Street bankers who nearly destroyed our economy. At the same time, Holder, presumably under orders from the executive branch, has employed the full weight of the Justice Department against whistleblowers who seek to reveal the crimes of the high and mighty.

Obama has a lot of supporters who have either no idea how secretive his administration is, or choose to ignore that fact. In addition, millions of Americans also choose to ignore that Obama has expanded the "War On Terror," by launching a secret drone war, and has made it a permanent fixture in our nation's foreign policy. That's not a theory; top administration officials have confirmed it.

Obama deserves the AP phone records scandal, and probably many others.

Obama's No-Nonsense National Security Team

If there was any doubt that Barry was going to hand-over national security to friends of self-interested folks, we give you this rather stunning announcement:

Even more stunning: the major announcement on Monday was not Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but General Jim Jones as his National Security Advisor. Having a retired 4-star marine general replace what has recently been a job for scholars (see Condoleezza Rice, Sauel Berger, W. Anthony Lake) marks a bold move by Barack Obama that nearly no one saw coming. At the very least, Jones' dominant, methodical personality will ensure that Hillary Clinton's diplomatic work is synchronized with the NSA and the Secretary of Defense. I don't think there was any serious worry that Clinton would be a freelancer, but the selection of Jones draws clear lines that Clinton cannot stray outside.

Obama has built himself what appears to be a very strong, smart, no-nonsense defense management team. While we cannot be certain, I cannot imagine the general shoe shopping on Madison Avenue or Secretary Clinton attending a Broadway show in August or any month. They know they have to run an air-tight operation, since it seems it would take much less than a drowning city to bring an Obama administration down.