Trump outrage of the day

[Cool Friend]

What's weird about Roosevelt having so many is that Democrats controlled Congress through almost all of his twelve years. He should have been able to get anything he wanted from them.

If he were operating in today's hyper-partisan climate, sure, but back then there were plenty of conservative Democrats who didn't support the New Deal.

[former player]

What's weird about Roosevelt having so many is that Democrats controlled Congress through almost all of his twelve years. He should have been able to get anything he wanted from them.

If he were operating in today's hyper-partisan climate, sure, but back then there were plenty of conservative Democrats who didn't support the New Deal.

Plus, I'd be wondering how many of them resulted from having a world war to fight.

[JLee]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/

This is long but very much worth reading.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Maybe that's how we can deprogram reluctant Trump supporters: since the Republicans will hold the Senate, the chances of Sanders or Warren doing anything policy-wise are zero.

Meanwhile, you won't have all of the Trump baggage to deal with anymore. So what are you really worried about?

Even with a 51-49 Dem control of the Senate, I wouldn't expect half of what Warren/Sanders plans to happen. Look at the ACA -- the Dems had Senate and House control and single payer, universal, care wasn't possible.

Would Virginia's legislative example right now influence your perspective on this at all?

I'll clarify this because I was a bit too vague for even myself as I re-read it.

I believe that Virginia's progressive legislation that has come of the governor and both houses being controlled by Democrats is indicative of more of what we would see given an far left candidate like Sanders and control of both houses. I'll grant that the last time the Democrats controlled it all they weren't very effective, but it seems like the pendulum is only swinging further and further each way given power - by that I mean specifically that there's a bigger push to use what you have quickly and pass as much as you can because each side is getting more intense about things (see Warren's pledge to unilaterally do much of the debt forgiveness via executive order), and I think Virginia is a case in point of it actually happening. So, I don't see the line of, "oh, they won't get much done *even if* they control both senate and house and the presidency" as having much validity any more.

[talltexan]

How would you compare this to the Federal control Republicans had from 2017-2018?

[DaMa]

The executive order issue really bugs me.  I remember hearing conservative saying how evil Obama was because he was using executive orders to circumvent Congress.  Funny how they think it's perfectly reasonable that Trump does it. 

Here's my understanding:

Congress passes laws, but leaves it to the executive branch to implement the laws.  An executive order is about rules to apply to that implementation.  If Congress doesn't like an executive order, they can pass new legislation or amend previous legislation to correct whatever the executive order is doing.

1.  Say Congress passes a law that says all children must have a flu vaccination before entering school except for religious waivers.
2.  Executive order states parents must present baptism certificate to the school in order to qualify for religious waiver.
3.  Congress can pass new law that states all children must have a flu vaccination unless they submit a written and signed request for waiver on religious grounds.  No further documentation can be required.

Sure, it stinks that #2 can stand, because #3 is so partisan they won't pass legislation to counteract #2.  But, that's where the voters have to do something to change the party makeup of Congress.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

How would you compare this to the Federal control Republicans had from 2017-2018?

In my opinion, they were moderately effective for having the majority in all - except on judges, where they were much more effective.

[OtherJen]

The revenge begins.

Key Impeachment Witness Vindman 'Escorted' From White House, His Lawyer Says

[Kris]

The revenge begins.

Key Impeachment Witness Vindman 'Escorted' From White House, His Lawyer Says

Not only him, but his brother, too.

Pathetic.

[OtherJen]

Trump Fires Impeachment Witnesses Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman in Post-Acquittal Purge

[Davnasty]

Trump Fires Impeachment Witnesses Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman in Post-Acquittal Purge

https://www.businessinsider.com/yevgeny-vindman-ousted-white-house-same-time-as-alex-2020-2

Fired after 20 years of military service for being related to another decorated 20 year service member who testified honestly when called upon to do so.

[DaMa]

Can they file wrongful termination suits?

[ixtap]

Can they file wrongful termination suits?

They have been removed from specific positions, rather than actually fired.

[LennStar]

Trump Fires Impeachment Witnesses Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman in Post-Acquittal Purge

https://www.businessinsider.com/yevgeny-vindman-ousted-white-house-same-time-as-alex-2020-2

Fired after 20 years of military service for being related to another decorated 20 year service member who testified honestly when called upon to do so.

A perfectly normal and to be expected move by an autocrat. Even if I may sound like a broken record: Trump is an idiot, but his gut understands power. Think about what this is signalling: If you do something against me, even if it is legally required of you, you will get the bad end of the stick.

[Leisured]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/

This is long but very much worth reading.

Thank you JLee for the link.

I noted the idea that autocrats do not need to censor opposing views, they can ‘censor by noise’.

I noted the ‘voter turnout suppression’ ads that work by making opposition voters believe nonsense about their preferred candidate, so they do not vote. This cannot happen in Australia, where I live, where we have to vote, otherwise pay a fine. The Australian Electoral commission administers voting in Australia, and among other things, defines electorate boundaries free of political interference, so we do not have bizarre shapes of electorates designed to favor a particular political party. I recommend the Electoral Commission idea to the US.

[scottish]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

[GuitarStv]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

[OtherJen]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

Probably the only way to get even fewer Americans to vote (compared to our already dismal rates) would be to try to force them to do it. We're a bit too obstinate and individualistic as a society.

A few municipalities have switched their government holiday from Columbus Day to Election Day. I would love to see that happen nationwide.

In my own state, we passed a ballot initiative in 2018 that significantly increased access to voting; most notably, it provided online voter registration, in-person voter registration up to and including Election Day, and any-cause absentee voting (previously, you had to be elderly or provably out of town on Election Day). I'm very interested to see how the changes affect voter turnout next month (presidential primary) and in August (local primary) and November of this year.

We also passed a ballot initiative in 2018 to remove the task of redistricting from the ruling party and put it in the hands of an independent board of citizens selected to ensure state-wide and equal party representation. That will first take effect after this year's election and census, and I am extremely interested in the results because my state has one of the worst cases of gerrymandering in the country.

[MasterStache]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

Seems that already happened. Ha!

[LennStar]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

You fucking moron of an abstructing Democrat!!! If you do this, Republicans will have no chance to win!!!!!!!11!

Putting the reality aside, isn't it strange that the US is the only country I know where voting day is not a sunday or special holiday? Where in the constitution can I find that it should be hard for people to vote?

[former player]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

You fucking moron of an abstructing Democrat!!! If you do this, Republicans will have no chance to win!!!!!!!11!

Putting the reality aside, isn't it strange that the US is the only country I know where voting day is not a sunday or special holiday? Where in the constitution can I find that it should be hard for people to vote?

In the UK it's always a Thursday and never a holiday, but polling stations are everywhere and open from 7am to 10pm, I've never seen a queue at one because there are so many (I've never lived beyond walking distance to one) and registration, absentee ballots and proxy voting are all pretty easy.  Plus, like Australia, we have an Electoral Commission for impartial decisions on electoral areas.

[Kyle Schuant]

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

First you have to define what you mean by "worst candidate", only then can we tell you if that happens in Australia.

If you mean some nutter with extremist (right or left) views, these get 2-10% of the vote typically. If they start in a major party, do a reasonable job of representing their particular electorate or state, and then defect to their own nutter party, they may sometimes get a single term from sheer momentum, but typically they're gone after that. It's not clear that people are voting for them out of spite at having to vote, when polled you'll find 2-10% of people support various extreme policies.

Because we have the secret ballot, nobody can actually make you vote. You can go in, get your name ticked off, take your ballot papers, and dump them blank into the ballot box - or write obscenities on the paper, or whatever you like. Typically this runs to not more than a few percent of the electorate, it's not clear how often it's deliberate, and how often it's someone with dementia in a nursing home, an older migrant who doesn't speak English, a newer migrant or younger person who doesn't really understand the system and doesn't read the instructions (putting "X" by their favoured candidate rather than doing the 1,2,3 etc of preferences), and so on.


We have polling days on a Saturday, mobile polling booths (there was even one in our Antarctic base last time), generous provisions for pre-polling-day voting (we voted early to avoid the crowds), and so on. In every election there are a few percent of eligible people who are not registered to vote, generally those who turned 18 since the last election, who've been overseas for several years and only just returned, and so on. And there are another few percent of "informal" votes - blank, marked wrongly, etc. But we generally achieve around 90% participation.


Combine that with the AEC drawing up electoral boundaries and thus nixing gerrymandering, and most people have their say.


Of course we still have various kinds of corruption in political affairs. But we don't disenfranchise large chunks of our citizenry, so this helps minimise the corruption.

[One]

In Oregon we’ve been voting by mail since the late 80s, never have any problems with voting here.

[talltexan]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

I like some of these ideas but not others.

Preventing the attacking of political opponents in advertising seems...extreme?

I happened to be in Antigua and Barbuda a few years ago, and they revealed that alcohol could not be sold on election day.

[GuitarStv]

That would be an interesting change in the US (and Canada).    Imagine if all citizens were legally required to vote and the government actively helped people to vote instead of trying to prevent them.

It sounds like a good step towards an improved democracy.

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I think we should get people to vote by making it incredibly easy to vote.  Make it a national holiday.  Make sure that polling stations are open all day long.  Make online voting a thing.  Require Legally prevent the attacking of political opponents in advertisements.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to eliminate gerrymandering.  Doing these things would increase voter turn out and improve democracy.

I like some of these ideas but not others.

Preventing the attacking of political opponents in advertising seems...extreme?

I happened to be in Antigua and Barbuda a few years ago, and they revealed that alcohol could not be sold on election day.

I disagree.  If you want to be elected, you should get yourself elected based on your ideas . . . how well you can sell yourself and your plan.  It shouldn't be based on how afraid you can make other people of your political opponents.  Attack ads encourage half-truths and outright falsehoods, and only increase the worst part of politics - distracting from real issues.

[ixtap]

Around here, the attack ads work really well: my opponent thinks your taxes should be going to the homeless. Great, so do I!

[talltexan]

Suppose Candidate Joe Butti-achar airs an add against Trump claiming that his has been the most corrupt Presidential administration since Warren Harding. Is that an attack ad?

[GuitarStv]

Suppose Candidate Joe Butti-achar airs an add against Trump claiming that his has been the most corrupt Presidential administration since Warren Harding. Is that an attack ad?

Yep.

You should not be running ads about how the other guy is an asshole to be feared.  You should be forced to win on your own merits.

Taking actions solely to increase fear and division is bad for a democracy.

[Dancin'Dog]

Any news about if Bloomberg making Trump nervous yet? 


A real billionaire seems like something Trump would fear. 

[talltexan]

Isn't the volume of Trump tweets about a person a pretty good sign of whether the person is bothering him?

[LennStar]

Isn't the volume of Trump tweets about a person a pretty good sign of whether the person is bothering him?

Yes, it works the same way as with his dementis.

[ysette9]

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

First you have to define what you mean by "worst candidate", only then can we tell you if that happens in Australia.

If you mean some nutter with extremist (right or left) views, these get 2-10% of the vote typically. If they start in a major party, do a reasonable job of representing their particular electorate or state, and then defect to their own nutter party, they may sometimes get a single term from sheer momentum, but typically they're gone after that. It's not clear that people are voting for them out of spite at having to vote, when polled you'll find 2-10% of people support various extreme policies.

Because we have the secret ballot, nobody can actually make you vote. You can go in, get your name ticked off, take your ballot papers, and dump them blank into the ballot box - or write obscenities on the paper, or whatever you like. Typically this runs to not more than a few percent of the electorate, it's not clear how often it's deliberate, and how often it's someone with dementia in a nursing home, an older migrant who doesn't speak English, a newer migrant or younger person who doesn't really understand the system and doesn't read the instructions (putting "X" by their favoured candidate rather than doing the 1,2,3 etc of preferences), and so on.


We have polling days on a Saturday, mobile polling booths (there was even one in our Antarctic base last time), generous provisions for pre-polling-day voting (we voted early to avoid the crowds), and so on. In every election there are a few percent of eligible people who are not registered to vote, generally those who turned 18 since the last election, who've been overseas for several years and only just returned, and so on. And there are another few percent of "informal" votes - blank, marked wrongly, etc. But we generally achieve around 90% participation.


Combine that with the AEC drawing up electoral boundaries and thus nixing gerrymandering, and most people have their say.


Of course we still have various kinds of corruption in political affairs. But we don't disenfranchise large chunks of our citizenry, so this helps minimise the corruption.

I can’t remember where I heard it (maybe Freakonomics ?) but i heard some expert opine that by having mandatory voting the voter turnout was assured, therefore politicians can focus on the moderate center instead of trying to be inflammatory enough to fire up the base to show up to the polls.

[nereo]

Is it freedom if it’s mandatory?

I think there’s a few things should be done to restore balance among the electorate
1) make voter registration the default
2) extend ‘voting day’ to ‘voting days’ - at least three days, including at least one weekend day
3) allow everyone to vote by mail, if desired, a-la-Oregon
4) a person may declare any place they spent at least 30 nights in the last year as their one and only place of voter registration
5) voter registration can occur up to the actual election

Just my opinions...
~n~

[PKFFW]

Is it freedom if it’s mandatory?

No it is not.  Nor is voting a "right" in Australia as is often claimed.  We have the obligation to vote, not the right to vote.

In addition to this the way our preferential voting system is set up leads to an interesting situation in which a citizen could be forced to vote for an individual which their conscience would otherwise dictate they note vote for under any circumstances, or their vote could potentially end up being voided and thrown out.

Far from resulting in politicians focusing on the moderate middle it has resulted in politicians becoming too lazy and disinterested to bother formulating any sort of coherent and inspiring plan for the future.

[Kyle Schuant]

Far from resulting in politicians focusing on the moderate middle it has resulted in politicians becoming too lazy and disinterested to bother formulating any sort of coherent and inspiring plan for the future.

Well, the moderate middle tends not to have any coherent or inspiring plans for the future, so I would argue they represent us very well indeed :)

[Leisured]

I'm on the fence about this one.  Getting more people to vote is great . . . but not if they're forced to vote.  If someone's forced to vote, why wouldn't they get upset and angrily vote for the worst candidate because they hate the system?

I am sure only a tiny proportion of voters would behave like this. If you are required to vote, you are included in the political process. Furthermore, in a democracy, citizens have a duty to vote.

KylesShuant's post, #971, makes good points. Australia has a proportional voting system, so voters have to specify the candidates in order of preference, with a number in a box next to the name. This leads to what we call the 'donkey vote', where a know nothing voter runs down the list of candidates, putting '1,2,3,4.... next to each candidate in order of appearance.

I have never heard of any voter in Australia resenting having to vote.

After the US election of 2016, Hilary Clinton said she sometimes had someone accost her on a street, and apologise for not bothering to vote. 'I did not think you needed me', was a common statement. I also hear that only a third of young people in Britain bothered to vote for Brexit, even though most young people wanted to Remain, and they had their lives ahead of them, so it was important to vote.

[talltexan]

Unless the people who tell Sec. Clinton "I did not think you needed me" live in Pennsylvania or Michigan, it's true that she didn't need them.

[sherr]

Unless the people who tell Sec. Clinton "I did not think you needed me" live in Pennsylvania or Michigan, it's true that she didn't need them.

This is the wrong way to look at it. She needed their votes in every state she did not win. If our voter participation rates were closer to 100% than they were 50%, then who knows? Things could be wildly different.

[DavidAnnArbor]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/

This is long but very much worth reading.

Thank you JLee for the link.

I noted the idea that autocrats do not need to censor opposing views, they can ‘censor by noise’.

I noted the ‘voter turnout suppression’ ads that work by making opposition voters believe nonsense about their preferred candidate, so they do not vote. This cannot happen in Australia, where I live, where we have to vote, otherwise pay a fine. The Australian Electoral commission administers voting in Australia, and among other things, defines electorate boundaries free of political interference, so we do not have bizarre shapes of electorates designed to favor a particular political party. I recommend the Electoral Commission idea to the US.

There was a Fresh Air NPR show today interviewing the reporter of this article.

[talltexan]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

[JLee]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

Based on past experience I'd say we're about a month out from him saying he did it and it was perfectly legal!

[MasterStache]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

Based on past experience I'd say we're about a month out from him saying he did it and it was perfectly legal!

I bet Stone wishes he would go before the Senate. They would exonerate him in no time.

[Glenstache]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

Based on past experience I'd say we're about a month out from him saying he did it and it was perfectly legal!

Mostly just curious if the pardon will come before or after November.

[Kris]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

Based on past experience I'd say we're about a month out from him saying he did it and it was perfectly legal!

Mostly just curious if the pardon will come before or after November.

Before, I’m guessing. Trump’s base will love it!

[Glenstache]

And the pattern continues as rewarding loyalty and punishing anything else (see push for discipline of vindman).

[Travis]

And the pattern continues as rewarding loyalty and punishing anything else (see push for discipline of vindman).

My veteran friends who would normally blow up at any liberal media outlet or politician who has anything negative to say about any service member are ranting that LTC Vindman is a traitor, a fat boy nobody, and not really a "decorated veteran" as the media is describing him.  This is the first time since the war started that I've seen a fellow soldier denigrate a Purple Heart.

[nereo]

News slowly dribbling out about the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump tweeting in the middle of the night. DOJ revising the requested sentence wayyy downward. Resignations by the prosecutors on the case.

And Trump--at the end--insisting that he didn't ask them to reduce the sentence, but he has the power to do so if he wished.

Based on past experience I'd say we're about a month out from him saying he did it and it was perfectly legal!

I’m sick and tired of this refrain of: “and it would be perfectly legal!”.
The WH has both sides bickering over whether this or that action is technically legal, and as long as that’s occurring very little attention is paid to whether or not it’s something that should be done.

I keep envisioning a teenager before their parents arguing “hey, technically what I did didn’t break any actual laws, so it’s ok!”   Um, no.

[LaineyAZ]

And the pattern continues as rewarding loyalty and punishing anything else (see push for discipline of vindman).

My veteran friends who would normally blow up at any liberal media outlet or politician who has anything negative to say about any service member are ranting that LTC Vindman is a traitor, a fat boy nobody, and not really a "decorated veteran" as the media is describing him.  This is the first time since the war started that I've seen a fellow soldier denigrate a Purple Heart.

I remember a similar attack on John Kerry and his Purple Heart medals.   Looks like the "swiftboating" has already started against Lt. Col. Vindman.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_military_service_controversy

[Norioch]

So William Barr is just openly violating court orders now. Nothing about this is okay.

[OtherJen]

And the pattern continues as rewarding loyalty and punishing anything else (see push for discipline of vindman).

My veteran friends who would normally blow up at any liberal media outlet or politician who has anything negative to say about any service member are ranting that LTC Vindman is a traitor, a fat boy nobody, and not really a "decorated veteran" as the media is describing him.  This is the first time since the war started that I've seen a fellow soldier denigrate a Purple Heart.

It really does start to sound like cult rhetoric.