All posts tagged: chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

‘If Trump Is Reelected, There Will Be No Mark Milley to Stop Him’

‘If Trump Is Reelected, There Will Be No Mark Milley to Stop Him’

Published by skeptic

The Patriot In the November 2023 issue, Jeffrey Goldberg considered what a general ought to do when the commander in chief undermines the Constitution. Explore the January/February 2024 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More I am a lifelong Republican voter. The Lafayette Square incident described in Jeffrey Goldberg’s article convinced me that any Democrat would be preferable to a second Trump term. The events of January 6 merely confirmed what Lafayette first suggested—that there are no boundaries Donald Trump will not cross. General Mark Milley’s willingness to block Trump’s worst impulses puts a very different light on Senator Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing obstruction of military promotions. Perhaps Tuberville’s pro-life pretext is just that, a smoke screen providing a cover to gut the upper echelons of military leadership, such that Trump may have a free hand to load the Pentagon with loyalists if he wins the 2024 election. The first putsch failed. If Trump is reelected, the next one will not; there will be no Milley to …

Trump Will Follow Through on His Threats

Trump Will Follow Through on His Threats

Published by skeptic

Mandel Ngan / Getty We’ve become inured to his rhetoric, but his message has grown darker. December 7, 2023, 6 AM ET Editor’s Note: This article is part of “If Trump Wins,” a project considering what Donald Trump might do if reelected in 2024. “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Donald Trump said this past November, in a campaign speech that was ostensibly honoring Veterans Day. “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.” David A. Graham: Trump says he’ll be a dictator on “day one” What immediately leaps out here is the word vermin, with its echoes of Hitler and Mussolini. But Trump’s inflammatory language can overshadow and distract from the substance of …

The House Chaos Continues – The Atlantic

The House Chaos Continues – The Atlantic

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September 23, 2023, 4:18 PM ET Editor’s Note: Washington Week with The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. House Republicans have been fighting among themselves over the federal budget as a possible government shutdown looms. In the midst of this, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill this week to appeal to Congress for crucial weapons and support, which has also been met with some GOP resistance. And, with days until the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, retires, the Senate overcame GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville’s months-long delay on military promotions and confirmed General Charles Q. Brown Jr. to fill the U.S. military’s top job. Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic and moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg, this week to discuss these topics and more: Steve Inskeep, the host of Morning Edition on NPR and the author of Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America; Manu Raju, …

A President’s Derangement, a General’s Duty

A President’s Derangement, a General’s Duty

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In The Atlantic’s next cover story, editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg profiled General Mark Milley, who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the last 16 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. What Milley saw as the nation’s highest-ranking officer is a graphic warning of the existential danger America will be in should Trump return to office. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: A Patriot and His Duty The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military position in the United States, designated by law as the principal military adviser to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council. It is a post of vital national importance, but most Americans probably have no idea who serves in it at any given time. And yet, for almost two …

The Patriot: How Mark Milley Held the Line

The Patriot: How Mark Milley Held the Line

Published by skeptic

The missiles that comprise the land component of America’s nuclear triad are scattered across thousands of square miles of prairie and farmland, mainly in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. About 150 of the roughly 400 Minuteman III inter­continental ballistic missiles currently on alert are dispersed in a wide circle around Minot Air Force Base, in the upper reaches of North Dakota. From Minot, it would take an ICBM about 25 minutes to reach Moscow. Explore the Special Preview: November 2023 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More These nuclear weapons are under the control of the 91st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command, and it was to the 91st—the “Rough Riders”—that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, paid a visit in March 2021. I accompanied him on the trip. A little more than two months had passed since the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and America’s nuclear arsenal was on Milley’s mind. In normal times, the chairman …