Orange Duce

[PizzaSnake]

Has anyone ever figured out why Trump wears so much makeup?

I do like Tim Walz' quote: "I’m the only candidate on either ticket that doesn’t regularly wear make-up."

"He is a person of color. Although not a color that appears in the natural world."

Obama about Boehner, but it fits here...

[NattyBohChamps04]

"He is a person of color. Although not a color that appears in the natural world."

Obama about Boehner, but it fits here...

If he gets any darker, he's gonna deport himself.

[Farfromgeneva]

Has anyone ever figured out why Trump wears so much makeup?

I do like Tim Walz' quote: "I’m the only candidate on either ticket that doesn’t regularly wear make-up."

"He is a person of color. Although not a color that appears in the natural world."

Obama about Boehner, but it fits here...

A. He's friends with Lindsey Graham
B. He's friends with Rudy G whom we know just f**ks whatever is presented to him
C. He's trying to show michael jackson how its not cool to steal someone elses skin color. But he'd hand every child over to Michael no doubt.

[OCanada]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

[OCanada]

Trump last night was mimicking performing orsl sex during his talk.

His friendship with Epstein: https://www.alternet.org/trump-epstein-photos/

[MDlaxfan76]

Trump last night was mimicking performing orsl sex during his talk.

His friendship with Epstein: https://www.alternet.org/trump-epstein-photos/

it was indeed strange...he was on a rant of how stupid his technical people backstage are, angry that his mikes weren't working fully...and he mimicked oral sex repeatedly...audience got a big laugh about it...they also roared approvingly when he said something about going backstage to be violent with them.

Could we imagine Ronald Reagan or HW ever doing something like that mimicking?

[MDlaxfan76]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

[cradleandshoot]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

[MDlaxfan76]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

[NattyBohChamps04]

Trump last night was mimicking performing orsl sex during his talk.

His friendship with Epstein: https://www.alternet.org/trump-epstein-photos/

it was indeed strange...he was on a rant of how stupid his technical people backstage are, angry that his mikes weren't working fully...and he mimicked oral sex repeatedly...audience got a big laugh about it...they also roared approvingly when he said something about going backstage to be violent with them.

Could we imagine Ronald Reagan or HW ever doing something like that mimicking?

So we had new Epstein tapes drop, and Trump fellates a mic? Was he thinking about Arnold Palmer at the time?

[cradleandshoot]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

[Kismet]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

Perhaps...but you neglected to mention Generals Eisenhower and Bradley - ranked above Georgie P who were smart enough to assign appropriate things to do and accomplish and kept him away from high level strategy and diplomacy. In some ways, they played a larger role in the ultimate victory.

Yet you never mention either of them or their rather significant contributions to the successful war effort.

After becoming President, Eisenhower famously broke down in tears during an interview with CBS at the 20th Anniversary of Normandy Invasion in 1964

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/eisenhowe ... ars-later/

That said, your Grant example is another good one. Sherman (a lot like Patton) needed to be an instrument of strategy which he was in spades and Grant knew it and empowered him to accomplish it. Same applies to Eisenhower and Bradley with regard to Patton.

[MDlaxfan76]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

Flynn wasn’t’rough around the edges’, he was opinionated (bigoted) and didn’t substantiate his opinions. We now know that he’s either a full on nut job plus jerk or grifter plus jerk or all 3. Last night, the former officer said all 3.

And the scuttle but is that he’s going to be reinstated as a 4 star and made Chair of Joint Chiefs. A full on white Christian Nationalist nut job.

Edit I used another word not jerk.

[cradleandshoot]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

Flynn wasn’t’rough around the edges’, he was opinionated (bigoted) and didn’t substantiate his opinions. We now know that he’s either a full on nut job plus jerk or grifter plus jerk or all 3. Last night, the former officer said all 3.

And the scuttle but is that he’s going to be reinstated as a 4 star and made Chair of Joint Chiefs. A full on white Christian Nationalist nut job.

Edit I used another word not jerk.

You used a bad word??? If you were a Catholic you would have to go to confession. I wonder what George Patton would have thought of Gen. Flynn? They have more in common than a liberal Republican like you would ever be able to comprehend.

[cradleandshoot]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

Perhaps...but you neglected to mention Generals Eisenhower and Bradley - ranked above Georgie P who were smart enough to assign appropriate things to do and accomplish and kept him away from high level strategy and diplomacy. In some ways, they played a larger role in the ultimate victory.

Yet you never mention either of them or their rather significant contributions to the successful war effort.

After becoming President, Eisenhower famously broke down in tears during an interview with CBS at the 20th Anniversary of Normandy Invasion in 1964

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/eisenhowe ... ars-later/

That said, your Grant example is another good one. Sherman (a lot like Patton) needed to be an instrument of strategy which he was in spades and Grant knew it and empowered him to accomplish it. Same applies to Eisenhower and Bradley with regard to Patton.

You mean the General Omar Bradley that ignored General Pattons concerns that the Germans were capable of a counter attack in the Ardennes? Omar Bradley was a skilled and trained combat commander. What he didn't have was George Pattons instincts. Omar Bradleys lackadaisical attitude about what the Germans were capable of achieving resulted in the Ardennes offensive. Why is this important to me? My dad was one of those poor bastards in Pattons 3rd Army that made that pivot to relieve the 101st airborne at Bastogne. He died with German 88 shrapnel from the Bulge still in his back. George Patton understood the allied vulnerability in the Ardennes. Bradley, Eisenhower and good old Monty didn't. Of course Patton was rude and crude and slapped a soldier one time. Patton was the kind of General a guy like MD lax fan would want court martialed.

FTR I do appreciate your understanding of history. You brought Gen. Sherman into the discussion where I neglected to mention him. I have often quoted Gen. Sherman on this forum. I think the profound wisdom of him advising all Americans that war is hell has been sorely overlooked today. War is hell because that is what it takes to win any war. Maybe the most important educational tool to teach all of us how horrific war is comes to us on the nightly news. The world is aghast about what is happening in Gaza. There isn't anything happening in Gaza that hasn't happened before in any war. We have just never been introduced to it up close and personal until now.
WAR IS HELL... Atlanta looked really pretty burning in the twilight. That is a quote from a union soldier that witnessed Atlanta burning... If you lived in Atlanta they felt a lot differently.

[Kismet]

As I mentioned George Patton like W.T. Sherman was a magnificent instrument of strategy and a tactical wizard to boot.

But he could not conceptualize a grand strategy like Grant, Marshall, Bradley, Eisenhower, King and Nimitz could.

In the Ardennes after the initial tactical screw-up , he was rightfully called in the clean up the mess which he did brilliantly.

[MDlaxfan76]

Admiral William McRaven Ret. Commander US Special Ops Command

The White House is the home of American leadership, where Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush resided. While each of these leaders had his shortcomings and foibles, none of them consistently violated every principle of good leadership like Donald Trump does. Mr. Trump has no self-control. He lashes out at immigrants, religious groups and military heroes. He lies with reckless abandon. In August, in what was outlandish even by Mr. Trump’s standards, he reposted on Truth Social a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton above a crude sexual joke. Just last week he was regaling a crowd about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. These are things a disturbed 15-year-old boy would do, not the commander in chief, not the man who holds the nuclear codes, not the leader of the free world.

I had dinner and long conversation with one of the 700 former defense and security officials from R Administrations (he was in White House in W Bush Admin) who signed the letter denouncing Trump and supporting Harris. He says there's another 120 very senior generals and officials have since joined.

Many are speaking to veterans groups around the country and particularly in battleground states. Wish they were getting more attention.

He served with John Kelly in Afghanistan and has deep respect for him.

Was he one of those Bush people who supported Georgies war to get even with Saddam for wanting to whack his father? I'm guessing that didn't come up in your conversation? Did John Kelly ever publicly express his opinion about Gen. Flynns report on the failed counter insurgency in Afghanistan? Since Gen. Kelly was venting why not let it all hang out? Most of the Generals that served in Afghanistan were well aware our counter insurgency campaign was a miserable failure. I bet that didn't come up in your conversation either? I doubt you would have had the temerity to ask such a question. It appears that this conversation was scripted on your part.

No, he was not, rather he was one of the advisors who was warning that they didn't actually have sufficient intelligence on WMD in Iraq and they should stay focused on Afghanistan.

He also had some very strong views on Flynn; said he was actually a disaster in Afghanistan, it wasn't that he had opinions, it was that they were so poorly supported. And that he was a jerk..an a-hole. And of course, we have since had an opportunity to see how catastrophically much of an a-hole he actually is.

Yes, the conversation was quite interesting and we covered quite a lot. We had a good 30 minutes just the two of us before dinner, and then we sat next to each other at a table of six. The discussion with the six covered a lot as well, including various experiences in the Vietnam era.

As you might imagine, he's very concerned that if we don't support Ukraine's fight, we'll be forced into direct war with Russia as Putin won't stop. But the much more important problem is the lesson China would take.

We also covered ME. We'd already discussed that the greatest conflict in the ME is not vs Jews, but Sunni vs Shia...he's of the opinion that there can't be a peace with Israel until there's an independent Palestinian state. But that the Palestinians are looked down upon by other Arabs as low caste; no one wants them...tragic error was at the very beginning when Truman nixed the creation of a free Palestine at the inception of Israel. Could have happened. Netanyahu right wing government is a disaster, with the aggressive expansion in West Bank being the proximate cause of the terrorist attack.

Interesting.

Well it seems like you had a well rounded conversation. FTR a great deal of generals in high level leadership commands are not known for being very personable. I remember some guy named George S Patton who pizzed off the entire allied chain of command in WW2. Without his leadership skills and ascerbic nature the allies might not have won the war in Europe. Gen. George McClellan was much beloved by his soldiers. When he is judged by his ineptitude on the battlefield especially at Antietam it is no wonder Lincoln fired him. Oddly enough it took a vulgar, cigar chomping drunken ruffian line Grant to allow the Union Army to win the civil war. Grant wasn't much for etiquette and civility but he sure knew fight a war. Nobody likes or appreciates people who are rough around the edges. That is of course until you need a leader who is rough around the edges.

Flynn wasn’t’rough around the edges’, he was opinionated (bigoted) and didn’t substantiate his opinions. We now know that he’s either a full on nut job plus jerk or grifter plus jerk or all 3. Last night, the former officer said all 3.

And the scuttle but is that he’s going to be reinstated as a 4 star and made Chair of Joint Chiefs. A full on white Christian Nationalist nut job.

Edit I used another word not jerk.

You used a bad word??? If you were a Catholic you would have to go to confession. I wonder what George Patton would have thought of Gen. Flynn? They have more in common than a liberal Republican like you would ever be able to comprehend.

Yes, and apparently it was a word a lot of other generals called him, starts with an A and ends with hole. Not respected, apparently, and disliked to boot. And, again, he's totally revealed himself to be the bigoted an and ends with hole they considered him then. Flynn was no Patton nor anyone else you might want to distract the discussion to instead of him. He was his own kind of a--hole.

[Seacoaster(1)]

More about Old Salt's friends and fellow travelers:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... in/680494/

"In June, Ivan Raiklin, a retired Green Beret and pro–Donald Trump activist, sat down for a chat with Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher who instigated an armed standoff with federal authorities in 2014 over his refusal to pay grazing fees.

In the video—posted on the America Happens Network, which has aired documentaries such as Bundy vs. Deep State and the series Conspiracy Truths—Raiklin explained that tens of thousands of service members had refused to comply with a Defense Department mandate that all personnel receive a vaccine for COVID-19, because they did not want to be “experimented on with an unsafe and ineffective, what I call ‘DNA-mutilation injection.’” He told Bundy that the “illegal” mandate, since rescinded, was to blame for the “total destruction of our constitutional order.”

“There must be consequences,” Raiklin said, for the “unlawful, immoral, unethical, illegal” vaccination program, which he also asserted, with no evidence, “ended up killing lots of people.” In fact, tens of thousands of service members did refuse the vaccine, and about 8,000 were discharged for failing to comply with the policy. But Raiklin speculated that as many as 1 million more still in uniform might “want to participate in retribution” against Pentagon leadership. (Depending on where in the world they serve, military personnel are required to receive about a dozen other vaccinations, including for polio, influenza, and typhoid.)

Retribution is Raiklin’s watchword these days. He calls himself Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” settling scores from the first term and ready to do the same in a potential second. His battles aren’t only with military leaders. After Trump lost the presidency in 2020, Raiklin suggested that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from the states that Joe Biden had won, on the grounds that they might be fraudulent. Those ideas were later taken up by John Eastman, a lawyer who has been indicted in Arizona for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results there. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Raiklin may be one of the intellectual founders of Trump’s election denialism.

More recently, Raiklin, who left the Army Reserve in 2022 at the rank of lieutenant colonel, according to an Army spokesperson, has promoted the potentially illegal idea that state legislatures could withhold their electors in the event that Trump loses. He has shown up in swing states, including North Carolina, where he pushed for lawmakers to award the electors to Trump ahead of time, on the theory that Hurricane Helene had disrupted the casting of ballots in the state.

Raiklin’s ideas for ensuring a Trump victory dovetail with the plans he has hinted at for exacting retributive justice on government officials. In his conversation with Bundy, Raiklin said that he would like to “coordinate” with those members of the armed forces supposedly still aggrieved over mandatory vaccinations, “to channel those skills, training, passion, in a positive way, to kind of autocorrect the lawlessness and to create consequences for those who created that lawlessness.”

Raiklin did not explicitly call for violence, even though he praised Bundy as “quite the legend” for his aggressive opposition to federal authority. Rather, he said he wanted “appropriate lawful justice”—but archly suggested that this should come from outside the court system. Raiklin chooses his words carefully, even when they are freighted with menace. Bundy asked how the ex-soldier would treat the federal prosecutors in his own case, and Raiklin replied calmly, “I would conduct the most peaceful and patriotic legal and moral and ethical actions that they’ve ever experienced in their life.”

A New York native with a degree from the Touro Law Center, in Central Islip, Raiklin describes himself as a constitutional lawyer. He served as an intelligence officer in the National Guard in several states as well as in the regular Army, deploying to Jordan and Afghanistan. Among his numerous commendations and awards is the Bronze Star Medal, given for meritorious service or acts of valor in a combat zone.

He has suggested that military personnel could be “deputized by sheriffs,” as he told Bundy in their conversation. This idea is rooted in the fringe theory that local sheriffs possess law-enforcement authority superseding that of any elected official or officer, at any level of government. Proponents of the so-called constitutional sheriffs’ movement urged sheriffs to investigate disproven claims of election fraud in 2020 and to get involved this year in election administration.

Bundy seemed a bit daunted by the scale of resistance that Raiklin described to him. The federal bureaucracy is “so broad,” he said, that it’s practically immovable. Raiklin reassured him: “That’s where people like me come into play, that know the system very well and in detail, to create priorities. You start with the top, and you work your way through the system.”

To guide that work, Raiklin has created a “deep-state target list,” with the names of more than 300 current and former government officials, members of Congress, journalists, and others who he thinks deserve some of that “lawful justice.” The names of some of their family members are also included.

The list, which is helpfully color-coded, reads like a greatest hits of all the supposedly corrupt plotters who Trump and his supporters allege have targeted them. Among others, it includes FBI officials who worked on the investigation into potential links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia; lawmakers and congressional staff who managed both Trump impeachments; members of the Capitol Police who defended Congress from pro-Trump rioters on January 6, 2021; witnesses who later testified to Congress about the attack; and the senior public-health officials who led the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. As if to demonstrate that even the closest of Trump’s allies can still be in league with the forces of government treachery, the former president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who helped speed development of the COVID vaccine as a member of Operation Warp Speed, also made Raiklin’s list.

Several former intelligence officials Raiklin has singled out told me they are well acquainted with his threats. They presume that if Trump is reelected, the Justice Department, the IRS, and other federal agencies will conduct capricious audits and frivolous investigations, all designed, if not to put them in prison, then to spend large sums of money on legal fees. A few told me they worried that Raiklin would publish their addresses or details about their families. They were less concerned about him showing up at their home than about some unhinged deep-state hunter he might inspire. In interviews with right-wing podcasters, Raiklin has said he would conduct “livestreamed swatting raids” against his targets. Swatting is the illegal practice of falsely reporting an emergency in order to summon armed law enforcement to someone’s home.

Raiklin’s future in a Trump administration is uncertain. But he is close to major figures in Trump’s orbit, particularly Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who was indicted for lying to the FBI. Trump pardoned him in November 2020.

Raikiln is also a board member of America’s Future, a nonprofit organization that has pursued conservative causes for decades, of which Flynn is the chair. Other board members have amplified the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory—promoted by the QAnon movement, of which Flynn is an ally—that some Democratic politicians kidnap, torture, and eat children.

Like Raiklin, Flynn has long railed against suspected deep-state actors, whom he has accused of torpedoing his career in intelligence. Flynn was regarded as a brilliant tactical intelligence officer when he served in Afghanistan and Iraq. But after he became the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, senior intelligence officials worried that his erratic management style and conspiratorial attitudes made him unfit for the job. Top intelligence officials pushed Flynn out in 2014, after an unhappy and sometimes-tumultuous two-year tenure. James Clapper, who was the director of national intelligence at the time, is on Raiklin’s list.

A few years later, Trump named Flynn to be his national security adviser, a position he held for just 24 days. Flynn resigned in February 2017, following revelations that he’d had contact with Russia’s ambassador to the United States and given misleading statements to senior administration officials.

A Trump-campaign official told me that Raiklin has “no role or affiliation with the campaign.” Raiklin seems to like to suggest a relationship by promoting his physical proximity to Trump. In a post on X, he shared a photo of himself standing feet from Trump while he spoke from the lectern at an unidentified rally. Also standing nearby was Kash Patel, a fierce Trump loyalist said to be on a shortlist for a senior national-security position in a second Trump administration, possibly director of the CIA.

Raiklin is not shy about his aspirations. I sent him an email, requesting an interview about his deep-state list. Rather than reply, he posted a screenshot of my message on X and said he would “much rather discuss” the subject, as well as the direct appointment of electors through state legislatures, “with Americans operating in good faith.” He suggested a number of conservative podcasters he thought fit the bill.

Raiklin invited me to post my questions on X, “in the interest of public transparency and exposure and [to] show the world you are operating in good faith.” So I did.

“What is the purpose of this list?” I asked. “Why did you select these people? Do you intend to do anything to the people on this list?”

Raiklin replied with links to videos of interviews he had already done with conservative media figures, including the former television star Roseanne Barr. On her show, Raiklin explained that although the deep state went by many other names—“permanent Washington,” “the Uniparty,” “the duopoly”—“I just simply call them war-criminal scum.”

“I happen to be the guy that said, You know what? I’ve had enough,” he said. “Let me expose them by name, date, place, transgression, category. And let’s start educating the country on who they are, so that they’re not able to walk anywhere, whether it’s in the digital space or physical space, without them feeling the, let’s just say, wrath of their neighbors, friends, relatives, family.”

Barr then sang to Raiklin lyrics from “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” to his obvious delight.

It’s hard to know whether Raiklin is a true believer—and potentially dangerous—or just a profiteering troll. His unwillingness to respond to direct questions from a journalist suggests the latter.

After I pressed Raiklin to answer me, rather than post interviews he’d done with friendly hosts inclined to agree with him, he invited me to direct further questions through Minnect, an app that lets you solicit advice from self-professed experts. According to his Minnect profile, Raiklin’s current rate for answering a question via text is $50. For $100, he’ll provide a recorded video response. A video call, “for the most personalized advice,” will run you $20 a minute, with a 15-minute minimum.

“Are you asking me to book you for a fee?” I wrote in his X thread. I wanted to be sure I correctly understood Raiklin’s proposal. He replied, “And 50% of the revenue created from the article you write. Send the contract to [his email] for my team to review.”

I declined.

A few days later, he was back to campaign work, exhorting state officials to intervene in the presidential election.

“Republican State Legislatures just need to hand their States’ electors to Trump, just like the Democrat elites handed the primary ‘win’ to Kamala Harris,” he wrote Wednesday on X, adding, “276 electors on Nov 5 ... CheckMate! Then we can Castrate the Deep State and Crush the Commies immediately on January 20, 2025.”

[Typical Lax Dad]

More about Old Salt's friends and fellow travelers:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... in/680494/

"In June, Ivan Raiklin, a retired Green Beret and pro–Donald Trump activist, sat down for a chat with Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher who instigated an armed standoff with federal authorities in 2014 over his refusal to pay grazing fees.

In the video—posted on the America Happens Network, which has aired documentaries such as Bundy vs. Deep State and the series Conspiracy Truths—Raiklin explained that tens of thousands of service members had refused to comply with a Defense Department mandate that all personnel receive a vaccine for COVID-19, because they did not want to be “experimented on with an unsafe and ineffective, what I call ‘DNA-mutilation injection.’” He told Bundy that the “illegal” mandate, since rescinded, was to blame for the “total destruction of our constitutional order.”

“There must be consequences,” Raiklin said, for the “unlawful, immoral, unethical, illegal” vaccination program, which he also asserted, with no evidence, “ended up killing lots of people.” In fact, tens of thousands of service members did refuse the vaccine, and about 8,000 were discharged for failing to comply with the policy. But Raiklin speculated that as many as 1 million more still in uniform might “want to participate in retribution” against Pentagon leadership. (Depending on where in the world they serve, military personnel are required to receive about a dozen other vaccinations, including for polio, influenza, and typhoid.)

Retribution is Raiklin’s watchword these days. He calls himself Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” settling scores from the first term and ready to do the same in a potential second. His battles aren’t only with military leaders. After Trump lost the presidency in 2020, Raiklin suggested that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from the states that Joe Biden had won, on the grounds that they might be fraudulent. Those ideas were later taken up by John Eastman, a lawyer who has been indicted in Arizona for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results there. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Raiklin may be one of the intellectual founders of Trump’s election denialism.

More recently, Raiklin, who left the Army Reserve in 2022 at the rank of lieutenant colonel, according to an Army spokesperson, has promoted the potentially illegal idea that state legislatures could withhold their electors in the event that Trump loses. He has shown up in swing states, including North Carolina, where he pushed for lawmakers to award the electors to Trump ahead of time, on the theory that Hurricane Helene had disrupted the casting of ballots in the state.

Raiklin’s ideas for ensuring a Trump victory dovetail with the plans he has hinted at for exacting retributive justice on government officials. In his conversation with Bundy, Raiklin said that he would like to “coordinate” with those members of the armed forces supposedly still aggrieved over mandatory vaccinations, “to channel those skills, training, passion, in a positive way, to kind of autocorrect the lawlessness and to create consequences for those who created that lawlessness.”

Raiklin did not explicitly call for violence, even though he praised Bundy as “quite the legend” for his aggressive opposition to federal authority. Rather, he said he wanted “appropriate lawful justice”—but archly suggested that this should come from outside the court system. Raiklin chooses his words carefully, even when they are freighted with menace. Bundy asked how the ex-soldier would treat the federal prosecutors in his own case, and Raiklin replied calmly, “I would conduct the most peaceful and patriotic legal and moral and ethical actions that they’ve ever experienced in their life.”

A New York native with a degree from the Touro Law Center, in Central Islip, Raiklin describes himself as a constitutional lawyer. He served as an intelligence officer in the National Guard in several states as well as in the regular Army, deploying to Jordan and Afghanistan. Among his numerous commendations and awards is the Bronze Star Medal, given for meritorious service or acts of valor in a combat zone.

He has suggested that military personnel could be “deputized by sheriffs,” as he told Bundy in their conversation. This idea is rooted in the fringe theory that local sheriffs possess law-enforcement authority superseding that of any elected official or officer, at any level of government. Proponents of the so-called constitutional sheriffs’ movement urged sheriffs to investigate disproven claims of election fraud in 2020 and to get involved this year in election administration.

Bundy seemed a bit daunted by the scale of resistance that Raiklin described to him. The federal bureaucracy is “so broad,” he said, that it’s practically immovable. Raiklin reassured him: “That’s where people like me come into play, that know the system very well and in detail, to create priorities. You start with the top, and you work your way through the system.”

To guide that work, Raiklin has created a “deep-state target list,” with the names of more than 300 current and former government officials, members of Congress, journalists, and others who he thinks deserve some of that “lawful justice.” The names of some of their family members are also included.

The list, which is helpfully color-coded, reads like a greatest hits of all the supposedly corrupt plotters who Trump and his supporters allege have targeted them. Among others, it includes FBI officials who worked on the investigation into potential links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia; lawmakers and congressional staff who managed both Trump impeachments; members of the Capitol Police who defended Congress from pro-Trump rioters on January 6, 2021; witnesses who later testified to Congress about the attack; and the senior public-health officials who led the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. As if to demonstrate that even the closest of Trump’s allies can still be in league with the forces of government treachery, the former president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who helped speed development of the COVID vaccine as a member of Operation Warp Speed, also made Raiklin’s list.

Several former intelligence officials Raiklin has singled out told me they are well acquainted with his threats. They presume that if Trump is reelected, the Justice Department, the IRS, and other federal agencies will conduct capricious audits and frivolous investigations, all designed, if not to put them in prison, then to spend large sums of money on legal fees. A few told me they worried that Raiklin would publish their addresses or details about their families. They were less concerned about him showing up at their home than about some unhinged deep-state hunter he might inspire. In interviews with right-wing podcasters, Raiklin has said he would conduct “livestreamed swatting raids” against his targets. Swatting is the illegal practice of falsely reporting an emergency in order to summon armed law enforcement to someone’s home.

Raiklin’s future in a Trump administration is uncertain. But he is close to major figures in Trump’s orbit, particularly Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who was indicted for lying to the FBI. Trump pardoned him in November 2020.

Raikiln is also a board member of America’s Future, a nonprofit organization that has pursued conservative causes for decades, of which Flynn is the chair. Other board members have amplified the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory—promoted by the QAnon movement, of which Flynn is an ally—that some Democratic politicians kidnap, torture, and eat children.

Like Raiklin, Flynn has long railed against suspected deep-state actors, whom he has accused of torpedoing his career in intelligence. Flynn was regarded as a brilliant tactical intelligence officer when he served in Afghanistan and Iraq. But after he became the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, senior intelligence officials worried that his erratic management style and conspiratorial attitudes made him unfit for the job. Top intelligence officials pushed Flynn out in 2014, after an unhappy and sometimes-tumultuous two-year tenure. James Clapper, who was the director of national intelligence at the time, is on Raiklin’s list.

A few years later, Trump named Flynn to be his national security adviser, a position he held for just 24 days. Flynn resigned in February 2017, following revelations that he’d had contact with Russia’s ambassador to the United States and given misleading statements to senior administration officials.

A Trump-campaign official told me that Raiklin has “no role or affiliation with the campaign.” Raiklin seems to like to suggest a relationship by promoting his physical proximity to Trump. In a post on X, he shared a photo of himself standing feet from Trump while he spoke from the lectern at an unidentified rally. Also standing nearby was Kash Patel, a fierce Trump loyalist said to be on a shortlist for a senior national-security position in a second Trump administration, possibly director of the CIA.

Raiklin is not shy about his aspirations. I sent him an email, requesting an interview about his deep-state list. Rather than reply, he posted a screenshot of my message on X and said he would “much rather discuss” the subject, as well as the direct appointment of electors through state legislatures, “with Americans operating in good faith.” He suggested a number of conservative podcasters he thought fit the bill.

Raiklin invited me to post my questions on X, “in the interest of public transparency and exposure and [to] show the world you are operating in good faith.” So I did.

“What is the purpose of this list?” I asked. “Why did you select these people? Do you intend to do anything to the people on this list?”

Raiklin replied with links to videos of interviews he had already done with conservative media figures, including the former television star Roseanne Barr. On her show, Raiklin explained that although the deep state went by many other names—“permanent Washington,” “the Uniparty,” “the duopoly”—“I just simply call them war-criminal scum.”

“I happen to be the guy that said, You know what? I’ve had enough,” he said. “Let me expose them by name, date, place, transgression, category. And let’s start educating the country on who they are, so that they’re not able to walk anywhere, whether it’s in the digital space or physical space, without them feeling the, let’s just say, wrath of their neighbors, friends, relatives, family.”

Barr then sang to Raiklin lyrics from “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” to his obvious delight.

It’s hard to know whether Raiklin is a true believer—and potentially dangerous—or just a profiteering troll. His unwillingness to respond to direct questions from a journalist suggests the latter.

After I pressed Raiklin to answer me, rather than post interviews he’d done with friendly hosts inclined to agree with him, he invited me to direct further questions through Minnect, an app that lets you solicit advice from self-professed experts. According to his Minnect profile, Raiklin’s current rate for answering a question via text is $50. For $100, he’ll provide a recorded video response. A video call, “for the most personalized advice,” will run you $20 a minute, with a 15-minute minimum.

“Are you asking me to book you for a fee?” I wrote in his X thread. I wanted to be sure I correctly understood Raiklin’s proposal. He replied, “And 50% of the revenue created from the article you write. Send the contract to [his email] for my team to review.”

I declined.

A few days later, he was back to campaign work, exhorting state officials to intervene in the presidential election.

“Republican State Legislatures just need to hand their States’ electors to Trump, just like the Democrat elites handed the primary ‘win’ to Kamala Harris,” he wrote Wednesday on X, adding, “276 electors on Nov 5 ... CheckMate! Then we can Castrate the Deep State and Crush the Commies immediately on January 20, 2025.”

That’s a great Patriot.

[Brooklyn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_7tJSAdtqw


Draft Dodger Halloween Song


Malice in Blunderland!


Hilarious!