Donald Trump and "Whiskey" Pete Hegseth are destroying U.S. Military moral with promotion denials and selective advancement criteria

Calmes:  Hegseth is purging people of color. Trump’s war is killing them.

Echo opinion published in The Mercury News by Jackie Calmes.

Pete (Whiskey) Hegseth and Trump are stripping diversity from top military ranks even as women and minorities carry the casualty burden.

Need another metric to show that, for Donald Trump, “Make America Great Again” means regressing to a 1950s-style white patriarchy? Probably not. But here’s a good-bad one for you, marking the deplorable progress of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war on diversity in the leadership ranks of the nation’s military:

Hegseth’s virtually unprecedented and probably illegal blocking of promotions for high-ranking female officers in the armed services in 2026 has helped produce the lowest percentage of such nominations for women’s advancement in this century, including zero — zero — for female officers in the Navy, according to a recent data analysis by the New York Times. The brass has gotten the message.

Things aren’t any better for Black and other minority officers, men and women. This year Hegseth has vetoed at least 40 high-ranking promotions, half of them women and people of color. White men who’ve also been blocked often have been proponents of diversity. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons,” Hegseth lectured military leaders last year. “Based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.”

The combination of Hegseth’s stepped-up interference this year in the military’s promotions process — a thoroughly meritocratic one, despite his claims to the contrary — and his purge since early last year of senior officers is rankling both the military and Congress, Republicans and Democrats, particularly for his and Trump’s evident targeting of women and minorities. But as in most things, Hegseth and his boss are undaunted.

And their white-macho warnings against “woke” are being heard from the Pentagon’s promotion selection boards all the way to America’s streets — the pipelines to military enlistment offices. 

Who could miss Trump and "Whiskey" Hegseth’s message when, just after taking office, they fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black man to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to become the Navy chief?

All told since then, nearly 60% of those fired are female or Black officers, according to Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army infantry officer who is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. Reed accused Hegseth in a recent hearing of “hollowing out” the senior ranks “while making young officers wonder if they should continue to serve.”

Hegseth is also making would-be enlistees wonder if they should even sign up.

Retired Air Force officer Jessica Ruttenber, who flew in Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented in an online essay in May that a friend’s daughter decided against enlisting given the current climate. Ruttenber decided not to try to change the young woman’s mind, given that “we are watching hard-won progress move backward in real time.” “If I am honest,” she added, “I now find myself wondering: Would I want my own children to enter a system like this❓”

The answer is crucial for a nation with an all-volunteer military force and perennial recruitment worries.

Americans hardly need demographic analyses (there are plenty) to know that minority men and women have signed up to fight for their country in numbers disproportionate to their groups’ shares of the U.S. population. Or that the military ranks include more women than ever before, including in combat — a role (Whiskey) Hegseth as Fox (Fake❗) News pundit long opposed for them.

Suddenly, however, we have another measure of how much women and minorities (and immigrants) in the lower ranks contribute to protecting America, even as Trump and Hegseth are pushing out so many at the top who look like them: the casualty toll in Trump’s war against Iran.

Look at a gallery of the “faces of the fallen” in the Iran operation and other military deployments under Trump. (Never mind Hegseth’s complaint that the media focus on the dead because we’re trying to “make the president look bad.”) About half of the 18 service members who have died since February are women and minorities.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, a Filipino American from Sacramento, had served more than 30 years when he was one of six service members killed in an Iran drone attack in Kuwait in March. Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, a father from Fayetteville, N.C., had served nearly a decade when he died in July in Iraq.

The six service members killed in March in a plane refueling crash included Air Force Capt. Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Wash., a proud Puerto Rican. Her family’s statement surely would make Hegseth wince: “She made it her mission to be a role model for … the next generation of youth, women, and minorities with their hearts set on a career in aviation.” 

Also killed in the crash was Tech Sgt. Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles “Mylo” Simmons, praised his son’s expertise as a refueling boom operator: “It’s not usual to see African American men in that position. Made me very proud.”

Trump famously asked about fallen troops, “What was in it for them❓😡” He, and Hegseth, should put that question to Mylo and Cheryl Simmons. The Simmonses would tell them that their only child “was living his best life,” in her words to ABC News, in service to his country.

Not that the conversation would do any good with those two entitled white guys, both of them promoted far beyond either their merit or fitness for office.

Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Republicans obsessed trying to discredit public health hero Dr. Anthony Fauci but do nothing to challenge ignorant Donald Trump

Senate GOP witch hunt ignores the Constitution. Protect Dr. Fauc!

Dr. Anthony Fauci is a hero❗

Echo opinion published in The Mercury News
Re: “Senate panel OKs plan to charge Fauci”
Frankly, IMO, I believe Dr. (Senator) Rand Paul, Rep. Kentucky,  is jealous about Dr. Anthony Fauci. Although Dr. Rand Paul has a medical degree, he has very little understanding about public health or about the prevention of infectious diseases.  

Also, obviously, Senator Rad Paul does not understand the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which clearly states that “No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Since Paul had repeatedly said he believes Dr. Fauci should end up “behind bars,” is it any surprise that Fauci, on the advice of his attorney, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at the July 29,  Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing examining his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic❓

And now, Paul and his fellow Republicans on the committee have decided to hold the 85-year-old Fauci, who is a public health hero, in contempt of Congress for exercising his legal rights under the Fifth Amendment. You have to wonder what happened to due process in this administration. 

Are they merely grandstanding or just looking for someone to blame❓

From Judy Hammon in Orinda, California

Donald Trump's failed leadership is the best reflection in the Washington DC "reflecting pool" fiasco

Reflecting Pool fiasco sums up Trump’s entire failed presidency

Echo opinion letter published in the San Jose California Mercury News 

I’ve become enchanted with all the stories I see about the Reflecting Pool. It’s become so emblematic of our bungler-in-chief that I no longer need to pummel myself with his more reprehensible misadventures.

The once upon a time Reflecting Pool, now a fiasco, has it all: incompetence, ignorance, arrogance, cronyism, demagoguery, paranoia, malicious prosecution, scapegoating, unfounded accusations. In short, the Washington Swamp is no longer a figure of speech. It came to life in 2,000 feet of blooming green algae and peeling blue paint running from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

From James Wolpman in Walnut Creek, California

Donald Trump impeded justice - no exoneration: echo opinion

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sally-yates-if-trump-werent-president-he-would-likely-be-indicted-on-obstruction

Sally Yates: If Trump Weren’t President, ‘He Would Likely Be Indicted On Obstruction’

Eugene Robinson echo opinion published in The Mercury News, a California newspaper

WASHINGTON, DC— There is a mountain of evidence that Donald Trump obstructed justice. There is considerable evidence that the Trump campaign embraced and encouraged Russia’s attempt to meddle in the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert Mueller laid out the facts — and now Congress has a solemn duty to confront them.

Contrary to what Trump says, the long-awaited Mueller report is not an exoneration. The report makes that clear more than once, verbatim, including this passage in Part II: “Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Nor does the report indict Trump for obstruction. But that is because Mueller took as his starting point the Justice Department opinion that a sitting president should not be made to face criminal charges. “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller wrote. “[W]e are unable to reach that judgment.”

Trump and his apologists will try to paint the report as equivocal, but the evidence it cites strikes me as definitive. One representative passage from Part II, page 157:

“Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations. The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General ‘s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.”

Mueller does not explicitly say that Congress must now judge the president’s conduct. But he draws a detailed road map for such an exercise, including not just the voluminous evidence he gathered but also the legal reasoning for viewing some of Trump’s actions — including his firing of then-FBI Director James Comey and his attempt to get then-

White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller — as patently illegal.

Mueller's report was released by Attorney General William Barr, who, in the process, destroyed what was left of his own credibility. 

William Barr's Mueller pre-report "spin conference"

Pre-spinning (at the "spin conference"), he skewed the document before anyone had a chance to read it. In his spin, Barr parroted Trump’s favorite talking point and said Mueller found no “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The report, however, says no such thing. It notes that “collusion” is not a federal offense and seeks instead to determine whether there is evidence of conspiracy, which is a statutory crime. Mueller did find such evidence, but not enough to bring criminal charges.

Barr flat-out lied when he said that Mueller’s decision not to charge Trump had nothing to do with the Justice Department opinion that effectively gives immunity to a sitting president. The report states clearly that this opinion has everything to do with Mueller’s choice to lay out the evidence without reaching a conclusion.

Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided to declare the matter of obstruction closed because Trump was understandably “frustrated and angered” at the very existence of the investigation, and thus may not have had the requisite intent to commit a crime. But Barr was confusing two different concepts, motive and intent. Trump’s motive for trying to fire Mueller, for example, may well have been anger and frustration. But his legal intent may have been to obstruct justice.

Barr so embarrassed himself that Fox News anchor Chris Wallace seemed appalled. “The attorney general seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the attorney general, talking about his motives, his emotions,” Wallace said. “Really, as I say, making a case for the president.”

The report notes that Trump “lambasted” former Attorney General Jeff Sessions when Sessions recused himself from involvement in the Mueller probe, telling him “‘you were supposed to protect me’ or words to that effect.” Barr obviously is determined not to make the same mistake.

Now responsibility shifts to Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a decision to make.

The Mueller report establishes that the Russians massively interfered with our election and that the Trump campaign cheered and encouraged that hostile act. It lays out ample evidence that Trump obstructed justice. Only Congress can hold the president accountable.

Thus far, Pelosi has resisted any move toward impeachment. Politically convenient or not, that’s where Mueller’s road map leads.

Rambling at CPAC 2019- Incoherent #2545

Echo opinion written by Eugene Robinson: 

Trump’s rambling CPAC speech should alarm all of us

In his incoherent speech on March 2, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump raved like a lunatic, telling numerous crazy lies.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump gave a rambling and incoherent two-hour speech in which he raved like a lunatic and told crazy, self-serving lies from start to finish. If that no longer qualifies as alarming, we’re in serious trouble.

I realize the speed-of-light news cycle has moved on. I realize anything that happened last week has all but faded into the mists of time. But President Trump’s unhinged performance Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference is surely worth more than a passing shrug. If you had an uncle or a grandpa who sounded so divorced from reality, you’d be urgently concerned.

“You know I’m totally off script right now,” he said. “And this is how I got elected, by being off script. True. And if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks. Because we have to get it back.”

There was nothing, anything like a script.

He tried to talk about the Democratic Party’s proposed Green New Deal: “When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric. Let’s hurry up. ‘Darling — Darling, is the wind blowing today? I’d like to watch television, darling.’ No, but it’s true.”

Not even remotely true, but he was just getting started.

He raged about the special counsel’s investigation: “Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself. I’m going to recuse.’ And I said, why the hell didn’t he tell me that before I put him in? How do you recuse yourself?”

Um, by following the rules. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself because he was potentially a witness in the investigation, or even a subject. He had no choice.

Trump imagined what the organizer of the CPAC conference, Matt Schlapp, might be thinking right then: “‘This is a lot more than we paid for.’ You know, normally you read a few pages and you say, ‘Bye, folks.’ But you know what I like about this? Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together.”

Love is indeed a wonderful thing.

Two full years into his term, the president talked obsessively about the crowds at his inauguration: “And they showed — they showed from the White House all the way down. … There were people. Nobody has ever seen it. The Capitol down to the Washington Monument — people. But I saw pictures that there were no people. Those pictures were taken hours before.”

Trump’s crowd was big. President Obama’s was bigger. Someday, perhaps, he will get over it.

“They had to walk with high heels, in many cases. They had to walk all the way down to the Washington Monument and then back. And I looked, and I made a speech, and I said, before I got on — I said to the people that were sitting next to me, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.'”

Not over it yet.

Trump talked about an encounter with an old friend, New York developer Richard LeFrak: “Richard came up [to Melania]; he said, ‘I’ve known your husband for 65 years.’ I said, ‘Don’t say that.’ I say, ‘Say 25, 30. Don’t say 65 years.’ But I said, ‘Richard — Richard, call me Donald, like you always do. Call me Don.’ ‘OK. OK, Don. OK.’ He gets his breath. Uh-huh. Two minutes later — ‘Mr. President … ‘That’s called respect for the office, right? Maybe that’s a good thing, right? Many — many of my friends. And that wasn’t in the script either.” (MaineWriter: #2545!)

One hopes not.

He talked about the hardship of the government shutdown: “I spent my New Year’s all by myself. … It was me and about 500 men and women outside with machine guns. I never saw so many beautiful-looking machine guns. I’d look at that equipment and I’d say, ‘Man … ‘They sit in the trees. They sit on the lawn.”

He talked about his quick trip to Iraq: “General one, general two, general three. I mean, these generals — there’s no person in Hollywood that could play the role. These guys are like perfect people. I said, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Sir, my name is Raisin.’ What the hell kind of a name? I said, ‘Raisin, like the fruit?’ He goes, ‘Yes, sir, Raisin.’ ‘What’s your last name?’ ‘Caine.’ Raisin Caine. I said, ‘You got to be kidding me.'”

That is what sticks with Trump from his visit to a war zone.

MaineWriter PostScript- #2545 Republicans must become accountable for blindly supporting a mentally compromised Donald Trump.

Mental heath clarion call from San Diego - stop mass shootings!

This letter to the editor is an echo opinion published in the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper:

Another mass shooting: Ignoring the mental health crisis leads to tragedy https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/08/the-latest-multiple-injuries-at-shooting-in-california-bar/  *

“Another mass shooting has readers looking for answers” (Nov. 8): This California tragedy is another sad example of what can happen when parents, who know their son and can see he needs medication or treatment, call the police for help to get their child taken to a hospital for evaluation and hold and are subsequently told by the police crisis team that he doesn’t meet the criteria of “a threat to himself or others” or is “gravely disabled.”

(In my Maine Writer's opinion, the evaluation criteria also considers the insurance status available to pay for the care of a person or child who is being evaluated.  It's just my opinion, but if there is a payment source for retaining the person under evaluation, that aids in getting them access to treatment.)

When will our country change the laws and definitions of when persons with a mental illness can be involuntarily medicated and treated until they are returned to rational thought? This untreated state, coupled with our weak gun ownership laws, is the crux of why these shootings are occurring. 

Linda Mimms, from Poway California

*Thousand Oaks acting Mayor Rob McCoy said that the city is hurting but will heal.