patrick.net

Trump should have said "I never issue unlawful orders."

I think they successfully baited him into overreacting, like he so often baits them.

The latest scandal erupted last week when Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five other Congressional Democrats published a polished but very stupid video encouraging U.S. troops to “refuse illegal orders,” without giving the troops any guidance on which specific illegal orders they meant.

Guidance wasn’t needed. Anyone with one more functioning neuron than Joe Biden knew what they meant: President Trump’s policies. After the video predictably blew up, Kelly and his pals backed down, claiming they only meant illegal in general terms, like Abu Ghraibing captured POWs or driving destroyers too fast in no-wake zones.

But nobody believed them, not even gullible corporate media. “The lawmakers did not refer to a particular order that they viewed as illegal,” the Times primly noted. “But Mr. Kelly and others in the video earlier raised concerns about the fate of U.S. troops involved in the 21 strikes on boats in the Caribbean.”

Oh. There was more: “Others, like Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who organized the video, have suggested that Mr. Trump might deploy active-duty U.S. military troops to American cities to crack down on or even shoot at protesters.”

President Trump, the nation’s Commander-in-Chief, whose orders so far have defeated every Democrat challenge in courts, was understandably upset. He posted a spicy comment to Truth Social in stark terms: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

Of the six Congressmen who appeared in the video, five had prior military service (the odd woman out, Slotkin, was a CIA analyst). But only Mark Kelly served long enough to qualify for military retirement benefits, which means he is also subject to recall. If recalled, he could face court-martial.

Yesterday, the Pentagon announced it has begun investigating Senator Kelly for “serious allegations of misconduct” related to his appearance in the video. So. Govern yourself accordingly!




Normally, the Pentagon would be more circumspect about going after a sitting U.S. Senator, since senators wield significant influence on DOD budgets, oversight, weapons programs, and so on. But in today’s hyper-partisan environment, that seems to matter less, since Kelly will probably oppose anything Trump’s DOD does anyway.

You understand, don’t you, what the aim was of the “Seditious Six” politicians who made last week’s now-notorious video suggesting that US military personnel should refuse the president’s orders if they deemed them to be “illegal?” This was the old Lefty game of provoking the authorities to react intemperately so they can be labeled “fascist.” It’s like the old schoolyard game of the kid who goes I’m touching you. . . I’m touching you. . . until the touched kid explodes. . . so the toucher can then say, look, he’s hitting me!

And they certainly succeeded in pissing-off the president enough for Mr. Trump to suggest they could be hanged for their little prank — though he was probably incorrect about the legal niceties therein.

That members of the out-party in Congress and the Senate must resort to this kind of skylarking japery tells you how desperate they are. The organizer, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, is a former CIA officer. Is she in communication regularly with any of her former colleagues at the Agency? And did she coordinate any part of her prank with them? I bet DNI Tulsi Gabbard could find out and let CIA Director John Ratcliffe know so he can fire their ass.

The intel bureaucracy remains a hotbed of resistance to the swamp-draining project underway since 01/20/25. The swamp creatures like their swamp fecund and fetid as it has been, with the rich revenue stream it is used to feeding on, and Mr. Trump has done much to change that. Alas, the CIA remains the most implacably opaque major operation in government. It insists that its activities require secrecy, and the awful downside is that the Agency has run without real oversight since its inception after the Second World War. Gawd knows how many John Brennan clones are still lodged over in the Langley, VA, HQ.

A tempest in a teapot. When a guy says "don't obey illegal orders" how do you prove he supposedly meant "don't obey legal ones"?

There is a very real chance (1%? 70%? Zero idea.) that the Dems will ATTEMPT a color revolution, complete with storming the whitehouse, attempted military coup, support from the NYT, etc etc etc that ... falls really really flat / is outplayed by Trump's team.

...and that, combined with a full court press with social media / direct appeals to troops, etc. would then legitimize Trump's counterstroke.

These idiots might very well play themselves into 500-1,000 DNC / MSNBC / NGO chiefs getting arrested and gitmo-ed.

There's a class of mathematical games where the game structure is to maneuver the OTHER person into taking the last piece on the board / subtracting the last integer from the running total, etc.

Most of these are perfect knowledge games (a term of art: all information is public, like chess, unlike poker).

The coup / counter coup brinksmanship we're seeing now dates back to Alinksy etc (though ofc further back to 19th century communists in inspiration).

The idea is, as you know, to put the other side on the horns of a dilemma: either shoot the grandmothers in the front ranks of the protestors OR let them storm the whitehouse.

HOWEVER, the left has in general played this as if it's a perfect knowledge game ...but it's not, really.

There is hidden state and they don't, I think, fully realize it.

1) they don't know how much support they actually have in the public. We KNOW that they're all in epistemic bubbles, and I think there is a very big chance that they are going to miscalibrate here.

2) they don't realize that norms are in flux - Nixon era "OMG, he was bad" pearl clutching doesn't work any more.

3) We have not seen the NSA show its cards yet. TrumpCo may have deep dossiers on everyone, may be listening in on all the planning sessions.

4) Trump is the king of optics. As the proverb says: never go up against a pro wrestler when kayfabe is on the line.

5) Judo: there's all sorts of clever moves Trump could do w a mob assaulting the whitehouse, e.g. evacuate on a chopper, let the mob take over, then surround the building w National Guard troops and snatch everyone and blackbag them to Gitmo...and then run endless clips of media talking about J6 insurrection.

I have no idea what will happen.

...but it's going to be interesting.

RWSGFY says

A tempest in a teapot. When a guy says "don't obey illegal orders" how do you prove he supposedly meant "don't obey legal ones"?

When it is followed up by a nationwide billboard campaign and direct e-mailing to service members, you gotta find out who is paying for it. None of the Congress-critters are smart enough to come up with their statements on their own. No, it was composed and paid for by people smart at manipulations. I'd bet it would be either CCP or CIA (who is waaaaay infiltrated).

Nice tangent but the question remains unanswered. How do you prove the phrase "don't obey illegal orders" in reality means "don't obey legal ones"?