Admiral Bill McRaven is proving himself to be an ignorant buffoon. Yes, I’m calling a so-called military hero a clown. He is out today with a despicable op-ed attacking President Trump for removing ACTING DNI Joe Maguire. Here is a sampling of McRaven’s stupidity:
Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Over the course of the past three years, I have watched good men and women, friends of mine, come and go in the Trump administration — all trying to do something — all trying to do their best. Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Sue Gordon, Dan Coats and, now, Joe Maguire, who until this week was the acting director of national intelligence. . . .
Bill, you are wrong as you can be. Are you too damn lazy to do some simple reading and research?
Maguire’s role as DNI was a temporary appointment. It was not permanent and was not submitted to the Senate as part of a confirmation process. He was a mere place holder. Yet McRaven and others in the anti-Trump crowd display their profound ignorance and insist, wrongly, that Trump fired Maguire.
Here is the dishonest NY Times spin:
On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and an aggressively vocal Trump supporter. And though some current and former officials speculated that the briefing might have played a role in that move, two administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr. Maguire.
Donald Trump did not fire Maguire. He followed the law. The specious claim that Trump fired Maguire exposes McRaven and his ilk as either liars or ignoramuses. The statute governing temporary appointments (i.e., the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998) is quite clear:
Once a vacancy occurs, the position is eligible to be filled by an acting officer for 210 days from the date of the vacancy, as well as any time when a nomination is pending before the Senate.
Guess what? Maguire’s resignation coincides with the 210 day limit.
Facts do not matter to the anti-Trumpers. Remember all of the hysteria surround Attorney General Barr’s legitimate and proper submission of a RECOMMENDATION for reduced sentencing in the case of Roger Stone. The media and punditry reacted as if Barr was calling for the mass extermination of physically handicapped children. Hardly any took time to note that Barr’s “RECOMMENDATION” was just that–a recommendation. Nothing Barr said or wrote could compel or coerce Judge Berman to act according to Barr’s wishes. And guess what? Judge Berman decided that Barr was right. The key point being that, SHE DECIDED. Not Barr.
Donald Trump is now on the offensive against a corrupt, dishonest intelligence and law enforcement community as well as their enablers in the festering establishment–the whole crowd is panicked.
The faux outrage over Trump replacing Maguire is just one indicator of this fear. Another is the fact that we are once again being bombarded with the recycled propaganda that Russia meddled in our 2016 election and is poised to do the same in 2020. What next? Resurrect Jussie Smollet and hire a group of pretend rednecks to stage another faux attack on him during the night on the wintry streets of Chicago?
The most recent installment in Putin on the prowl comes courtesy of The NY Times, doing its damndest to masquerade as Pravda.
Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.
The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump was particularly irritated that Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the leader of the impeachment proceedings, was at the briefing.
During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and that he had strengthened European security.
Just another scurrilous lie. Pure propaganda being spun for the sole purpose of smearing Trump and tainting his election. The real truth is that Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is doing less “meddling” in our elections than did his predecessors. We meddled in their elections and domestic politics going back to the end of World War II. Meddling is a natural consequence of having professional intelligence services like the CIA, the FSB, the GRU, the DIA, etc. Another uncomfortable fact is that social media makes it more difficult for the traditional intelligence actors to interfere in politics. Michael Bloomberg’s spending in the 2020 Democrat primary dwarfs all efforts to control the social media message. Yet, there are limits to the effectiveness of such “meddling.”
If there really was intelligence that Russia had embarked on a new, more expansive round of meddling then that intelligence should have been briefed to the President as part of Presidential Daily Briefing. But that has not taken place. Trump’s National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien says pointedly that he has seen no intelligence to substantiate The NY Times report. NONE:
“I haven’t seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump reelected,” Robert O’Brien, who was appointed by Trump to the post in September, said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
“I have not seen that, and I get pretty good access,” he said, according to excerpts released on Saturday.
Another meme in the latest propaganda push by deranged Democrats and discredited media is to portray Maguire’s temporary replacement, Ambassador Richard Grenell, as some sort of ignorant, unqualified political hack.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia offers up an excellent example of this kind of malicious stupidity:
“The President has selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation’s intelligence community in an acting capacity. This is the second acting director the President has named to the role since the resignation of Dan Coats, apparently in an effort to sidestep the Senate’s constitutional authority to advise and consent on such critical national security positions, and flouting the clear intent of Congress when it established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004.
“The intelligence community deserves stability and an experienced individual to lead them in a time of massive national and global security challenges. And at a time when the integrity and independence of the Department of Justice has been called into grave question, now more than ever our country needs a Senate-confirmed intelligence director who will provide the best intelligence and analysis, regardless of whether or not it’s expedient for the President who has appointed him.
Warner conveniently forgets that Trump named Dan Coats as DNI and the Senate, along with Warner’s vote, approved him. Coats had trouble spelling CIA and DNI. He was completely unqualified for the position, yet the Senate rolled over for him with barely a whimper. How about the first DNI? Ambassador John Negroponte was not an intelligence professional. He was career Foreign Service.
Ambassador Grenell has experience comparable to Negroponte’s. Grenell has dealt with all elements of the intelligence community during his tenure working within the realm of the U.S. foreign service. The good news is that Grenell is now on the job as DNI and is starting to clean house. This should have been done four years ago. The DNI, like many other parts of the bureaucracy, is infested with anti-Trump haters doing their best to sabotage his Presidency.
Robert O’Brien has cleaned out the NSC. There are a lot of empty desks there now. And persons through out the National Security bureacracy, including DOD and CIA, are being emptied. This is a prelude. When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments expect the screaming to intensify.
“When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments…..”
Larry, it looks like you have a lot of confidence in Durham. What gives you this confidence? The actions of the DOJ to date should make people skeptical that they’ll prosecute their own leadership.
If Barr and Durham were going to play ball with the Deep Staters and the anti-Trumpers they would not be attacked as is happening. The hysterical over wrought accusations leveled at Barr last week are merely a symptom of the fear seizing these seditionists.
Americans still retain their keen sense of fair play. Nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by those loyal to the elected President.
It is the President’s duty to the office itself to demand those appointed also be competent and act with integrity. The President pays the price if they do not.
Larry Johnson,
When it comes to telling us where he’s coming from Barr has certainly set out his stall.
I have been very interested in AG Barr recently. I quoted this fine lecture –
https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/williambarrfederalistsociety.htm
– on an English blog in order to underline some parallels between the parliamentary crisis in England last year and the very similar constitutional crisis in the US. But there’s a lot more to the lecture than that –
“Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the Executive Branch and his Administration. Now, “resistance” is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes — It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous — and indeed incendiary — notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in this country for over 200 years, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.”
That, together with some penetrating remarks about the difference between Progressive and Conservative – and making it amply clear how destructive Progressivism was – was perhaps more than William Barr merely setting out his stall. It was a declaration of intent and if it’s held to then we may expect some dramatic results.
So I’m not surprised the Democrats are attacking him. The wonder is that they’re not tearing him limb from limb.
Chris Murphy – the dolt from CT – on TV whining about Grenell being unqualified and a Trump loyalist.
This is the same stooge who just met with the Iranian Foreign Minister (and a head of hair looking for a brain John Kerrey) in Munich.
Admiral McRaven and his gumba Pentagon bureaucrats should be doing a little belly button gazing to determine how after 2 decades they’ve managed with considerable sturm und drang to win nothing but have succeeded magnificently in piloting the country into Cold War II with a real adversary. Well done, Admiral!
Now don’t go troubling yourself, Admiral, over finding a reason why people outside your beltway circle don’t give a rat’s ass about you and your pals getting disrespected. It’s been a long time coming, a very long time, but ya’ll have earned in spades the right to be ignored. Get used to it. Fool us for a year, for two years, three… but for eighteen years??? Sorry Admiral. Stop whining.
Flavius:
You mean all those VERY important people – dressed like doormen -who haven’t won a war since WWII?
BTW, Gulf Storm doesn’t count – you’d probably get more fight back from the NY State Troopers.
These politicians in uniform know all about “diversity”, pissing away LOTS of money, transgenders, sucking up and especially landing Beltway bandit contracts.
Fighting, not so much.
Note, I’m referring to the General Officer ranks, not actual troops.
I assess with 100% certainty that this fake scandal was contrived to coincide with the end of this Maguire’s “service”. Indeed, all of this time he has been acting as an agent of the Borg, only chucking this stinkbomb as his last, spiteful act. Contemptible.
Caity Johnstone has written a parody piece in which the intelligence community labels every candidate other than Buttigieg to be a Secret Russian Agent.
Unless someone in the DNC or numerous affiliates can come up with an actual Russian, this kind of hoax will begin to be be seen as dated.
However, with the Weinstein conviction, the MeToo movement will get new life and a wave of similar high profile pursuits will begin. Undoubtedly this will include one DJT, featuring accusers going back to the 1960’s in a orchestrated 24/7 chorus of unproven horror that they hope will succeed where Mueller and Schiff et al have failed.
Who knows, perhaps one accuser (two for corroboration) will even allege some vague Russian presence.
PRC90,
So a democratic megadoner is convicted of multiple accounts of sexual assault and surprise! Others in the moral cesspool that is Hollywood won’t be brought to “justice”, social or otherwise but we’ll see Stormy Daniels 2.0. Except her lawyer’s already in jail. The left better come up with something better than that.
Fred,
How about Epstein and his pals? That would be a good start. However nothing will happen on that since too many powerful people would likely be ensnared like Billy Clinton and a British prince.
Fred, the left will try everything – and as the election campaign winds up and with it the level of panic, so will the attempts of the various DNC factions to discredit Trump and to plead their worth to their various sponsors.
Get ready for the greatest show on Earth !