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The District of Columbia National Guard (DCNG) has been activated at the direction of the Secretary of the Army in response to a request for assistance from the U.S. Park Police to help maintain order during protests in the vicinity of the White House. 

The DCNG, the Nation’s only Federal National Guard, reports to the President of the United States through the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army.  The DCNG is especially trained and equipped for this U.S. Park Police support mission under the command of MG Bill Walker.

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20 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-tries-to-retreat-from-trumps-call-to-dominate-protests?ref=home

 

 

 

 

 

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The Pentagon did not comment on the record for this story. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The discomfort from inside the Pentagon shows the extent to which Trump’s own Defense Department is trying to actively avoid direct involvement in the administration’s plans to force local authorities to accept active military personnel for increased protest control. It also raises questions about how Trump plans to carry out his promises of coercing states to accept military assistance when officials inside the Pentagon are rebuking the idea, claiming it circumvents the normal process for governors formally requesting assistance. (Normally, one senior Department of Defense official said, a governor files a formal request with the Pentagon asking for active-duty troops to assist. The Defense Secretary evaluates the request and either chooses to accept it, modify it, or reject it.) 

“That would not be something the [Defense] Secretary would be in a position to do,” one senior official said, referring to Trump’s desire for the Pentagon to pressure states to accept active military troops for help in controlling their streets.

“This would go against the norms of how we normally handle requests for assistance during civil unrest,” another senior official said. 

However, if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he could unilaterally make the decision to send troops to states. The act empowers the president, in cases of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States,” to direct the military “to suppress the rebellion.”

The idea of the president using the Insurrection Act was first proposed publicly by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), who seemed to introduce it on a whim on social media. Members of his team on Monday said he had not discussed it with the administration. Another defense official said the Defense Secretary’s team was unaware that the president would be announcing new measures to try to convince local and state officials to accept military deployments. 

“There was no communication within the department that this was something we were going to be working on,” the second defense official said. 

But less than eight hours later, Trump took to the podium in Lafayette Park, seemingly promising to invoke it if he felt it was necessary.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act. And no states had formally requested assistance from the Defense Department. 

But the threat of Trump enacting the Insurrection Act has some state officials on edge. Two officials with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast that at least three governors of states experiencing large-scale protests contacted the Trump administration requesting that it not push them to accept active military personnel, claiming it would only inflame tensions on the ground. In some instances, states have seen clashes between protesters and police slow. In Tennessee, for example, police put down their riot shields at the request of protesters as the group moved slowly toward them.

On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had pushed back on the president’s request that he take the step to deploy the national guard, saying there was no need for more forces on the ground when the New York City Police Department had enough officers to control the situation. And New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state was prepared to go to court to stop the administration from sending military forces to the state. 

“In rare occurrences in this country has civil unrest resulted in the deployment of active duty military personnel. It has caused huge challenges because those individuals aren’t trained and equipped to deal with quelling civil disorder. And it can cause operational confusion,” said John Cohen, the former deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. “The military also operates under very different rules of engagement than police. Their job is basically to identify an enemy, engage that enemy and potentially kill that enemy. That’s not necessarily that philosophy you want individuals operating under when they are in the situation we’re in today.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Tuesday said he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would bar the federal government from using the military against peaceful protests.

“The President is trying to turn the American military against American citizens who are peacefully protesting on domestic soil, which they have every right to do. I’m not going to stand for it,” Kaine said. “I never thought we would have to use the NDAA to make clear that the U.S. military shouldn’t be used as an agent of force against American citizens who are lawfully assembling. I thought that would seem obvious to everyone.”

Even without an amendment, the Pentagon on Tuesday insisted that it does not want active-duty troops out on American streets.

Trump has described Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as “in charge” of the administration’s response to the protests, but a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that Milley merely “remains an adviser to the president.” The official downplayed Esper’s jarring description of American cities as a “battlespace”—one that earned Esper a rebuke from a former Joint Special Operations Command chief—as reflecting no more than his tendency to use military terminology. 

Pentagon officials also suggested that Milley and Esper were “not aware that park police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square” of protesters, as one put it to reporters. 

In their telling of what happened at Lafayette Park, both men arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon after a meeting of a response task force hosted by the FBI that included Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Trump made the decision to inspect the National Guardsmen deployed to the park, a senior Pentagon official said, and “once they began to walk off the White House grounds, [Milley and Esper] continued with him.”

“All of us would like to stay in a National Guard capacity,” a senior defense official said. But Pentagon officials cautioned that active-duty forces—a mix of military police and engineering units— are on “shortened alert status” outside the Washington, D.C. area, though not in any states. 

More than 1,200 Guardsmen, mostly from D.C., are currently deployed in the district. Pentagon officials anticipated another 1,500 arriving on Tuesday, with more to come. Additional states contributing Guardsmen to the D.C. protest response include New Jersey, Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Pentagon officials called the National Guard support to the police-led protest crackdown an “uncomfortable mission.”

 

"One of the sources, a senior administration official, insisted that the president wasn’t ordering tanks to roll down the streets, but was inquiring about “the kind of hardware” that could be used in military shows of force, and at one point Trump threw out the word “tanks.”

“I think that is just one of the military words he knows,” this official said."

 

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57 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

 

Go hide in your bunker, you draft-dodging, fake tough guy pussy.

You realize, oh who am I kidding of course you don't, that the decision to go to the bunker is not the President's to make.  It is the Secret Service's decision to make and the president does not have a choice in the matter.  (The Secret Service had to literally carry Dick Cheney to the bunker after 9/11.)

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4 minutes ago, EMAWesome said:

Fine, it's their decision.  However, if some kid shows up at a school in Minneapolis and shoots 20 kids I do not want to hear a peep out of them.

Yes, because police contracts have stopped those from happening. 

Every time I think I understand how dumb you are you go and outdo yourself. 

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4 minutes ago, Walser said:

You're an idiot.

Because I actually take the time to mentally compose myself and look at possible consequences before making a decision instead of knee jerk reacting emotionally without thinking about possible disastrous outcomes to these actions?  On this board I'm not an idiot, I'm a unicorn.

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Just now, EMAWesome said:

Because I actually take the time to mentally compose myself and look at possible consequences before making a decision instead of knee jerk reacting emotionally without thinking about possible disastrous outcomes to these actions?  On this board I'm not an idiot, I'm a unicorn.

No, you are an idiot because you only say dumb shit.

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Just now, EMAWesome said:

Because I actually take the time to mentally compose myself and look at possible consequences before making a decision instead of knee jerk reacting emotionally without thinking about possible disastrous outcomes to these actions?  On this board I'm not an idiot, I'm a unicorn.

This is you mentally composed?

Tell the My Little Ponies we said High.

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3 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Yes, because police contracts have stopped those from happening. 

Every time I think I understand how dumb you are you go and outdo yourself. 

The incidents that get stopped before they can happen don't make the national news.

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20 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Serious question, who are these guys?

 

15 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I think those guardians of the Lincoln Memorial might be an ad hoc mishmash of CBP, Nat'l Parks Police and National Guard...it's still a shitty, shitty look to those of us who value a free society. 

The phrase y'all are looking for is "enemies of the Republic."

Shows of force and military might work....right up until they don't.  Every accusation of the GOP and the psychopathic right is a confession, including this one: their belief that the people will rise up against an oppressive state.   That's actually happening.  Except it's not cos-players wearing tactical underpants doing it.  It's a free people, exercising their god-given rights.

And any of them in the military took an oath, and are bound by the UCMJ.  They are to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND domestic, and they are not to obey an unlawful order.  At all such gatherings of military personnel, movement leaders should use their bullhorn to remind every soldier of their oath, and of relevant provisions of the UCMJ.  And finally, remind them that they don't want to go down in history as the men who fought to kill the Republic.  Be the men who fought to save it.

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3 minutes ago, EMAWesome said:

The incidents that get stopped before they can happen don't make the national news.

Great point. The thousands of incidents that get stopped before they happen without a $1.1M municipal police contract also don't make the national news. 

You are the master of self-ownage.

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13 minutes ago, EMAWesome said:

You realize, oh who am I kidding of course you don't, that the decision to go to the bunker is not the President's to make.  It is the Secret Service's decision to make and the president does not have a choice in the matter.  (The Secret Service had to literally carry Dick Cheney to the bunker after 9/11.)

So that means Trump's not a draft-dodging, fake tough guy pussy?

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19 minutes ago, EMAWesome said:

Fine, it's their decision.  However, if some kid shows up at a school in Minneapolis and shoots 20 kids I do not want to hear a peep out of them.

Where was the hero cop the last 100 school shootings? Even better, please list all the school shootings that were stopped by campus police?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/after-george-floyds-death-trump-administration-told-militarys-service-chiefs-to-remain-quiet-about-unrest/2020/06/02/4ee4cba8-a4db-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html

 

Quote

A week after the killing of George Floyd, the Air Force’s top enlisted member took to Twitter to say that he too is a black man, “who happens to be Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force,” and could die the same way.

“I am George Floyd . . . I am Philando Castile, I am Michael Brown, I am Alton Sterling, I am Tamir Rice,” wrote Kaleth O. Wright, naming other black Americans killed by police. “Just like most of the Black Airmen and so many others in our ranks . . . I am outraged at watching another Black man die on television before our very eyes.”

 

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The response on Monday evening went viral, with veterans and service members alike commenting on its rawness and candor. But it also was cast into stark relief as most senior military officials remained silent on Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis after being handcuffed and nationwide protests that have followed.

At least twice in the last week, senior Trump administration officials in the Defense Department directed service chiefs to kept quiet on the issue, even though some expressed an interest in responding to a painful moment in the nation, said three defense officials with familiarity with the discussion.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper wanted to address the issue first. More than a week later, he has not done so publicly.

 

Quote

“I think there is a question about how and when, and at what level, the department should weigh into what has become a highly charged emotional and political issue,” a senior defense official said.

The directive came as President Trump increasingly reaches for the military as a tool of choice to quell unrest, and Esper seeks to shield the Pentagon from politics and keep the Pentagon from appearing at odds with its commander in chief, who has called people involved in rioting “thugs.”

 

Spoiler

The Pentagon is also wrestling with questions about its own insensitivity, including a desire to keep numerous Army bases across southern states named after Confederate generals.

On Tuesday night, the Trump administration again dispatched National Guard troops across Washington to complement police. The military forces participated in the operation after law enforcement authorities deployed pepper spray and other nonlethal weapons against protesters outside the White House, and National Guard helicopters hovered in numerous locations at rooftop level, in an apparent attempt to disperse crowds with sustained, gusty rotor wash.

Wright’s Twitter thread was posted shortly before authorities began dispersing crowds in Washington on Monday and Trump announced he was expanding the military’s role in the response. Wright told the service’s top officer, Gen. David L. Goldfein, what he wanted to do first, and Goldfein supported it, one defense official said.

The general also released a memo to commanders internally on Monday calling Floyd's death a “national tragedy” and stating that “every American should be outraged” by the police conduct demonstrated in the case.

Goldfein wrote that while “we all wish it were not possible for racism to occur in America,” commanders need to confront it, according to the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

“As the Air Force’s leadership, we reflect on and acknowledge that what happens on America’s streets is also resident in our Air Force,” Goldfein wrote. “Sometimes it’s explicit, sometimes it’s subtle, but we are not immune to the spectrum of racial prejudice, systemic discrimination, and unconscious bias.”

The Navy’s top enlisted sailor, Russell Smith, also addressed the unrest, writing in a message online that “the tragic headlines and subsequent turbulent events” affects “every citizen of our great Nation.”

“As Sailors, we cannot tolerate discrimination of any kind,” Smith wrote. “We must actively speak out and work to fight it, as it works against the very tenets of ‘team’ that make us successful in combat.”

A handful of other generals also have addressed the unrest, including Lt. Gen. James Slife, the commander of Air Force Special Operations Command.

“I’m bothered by the events in Minneapolis and what it means about our society,” Slife wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. “And our Air Force is a reflection of our society, so, by extension, this is an Air Force issue. We’d be naive to think issues of institutional racism and unconscious bias don’t affect us. We can’t ignore it. We have to face it. And to face it, we have to talk about it.”

But the chiefs mostly have not. Asked why on Monday night, military officials either declined to comment or referred questions to the defense secretary’s office.

In a video released Tuesday night, Goldfein and Wright discuss the unrest, with Wright saying he worries if he will be safe if he is pulled over by police and Goldfein sharing that he realized he “probably doesn’t completely understand.”

“I’ve been really outraged for not just the last week,” Wright said. “It drew up a lot of rage and a lot of anger from the past because I’ve just watched this over and over and over again.”

The posture stood in contrast to 2017, when each of the chiefs condemned violence and racism that was on display by white supremacists at a rally in Charlottesville while the Pentagon was run by former defense secretary James Mattis.

The Pentagon has struggled to reflect America’s diversity at its highest levels. While 43 percent of the military’s 1.3 million active-duty members are people of color, only two of the about 40 four-star officers are black.

Eric Flowers, a recently retired Army colonel, said that when the Pentagon doesn’t express outrage over something like the manner in which Floyd died, there “kind of is an unspoken message” to potential service members of color that they are not recognized.

“We miss an opportunity by not providing some type of solidarity through comments,” said Flowers, who is black. “We miss an opportunity when we do not reassert that this is not the America that we are asking people to fight for and support.”

Dana Pittard, a retired two-star Army general, said he doesn’t believe that the service chiefs will follow any unlawful orders in the response to the unrest. But he said he is not surprised to hear about political concerns among Defense Department appointees.

“I hate to use the term ultra-loyalist, but they’re appointees,” said Pittard, who is black. “They’re not going to stray very far from the president.”

Pittard said he wishes that Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had not participated in a photo opportunity Monday in which Trump visited St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is near the White House, after police dispersed the crowd with rubber bullets and other weapons. Milley, dressed in his camouflage uniform, and Esper were among the officials who walked with the president to the house of worship, which has been partially burned during protests.

“It was just a bad optic for the military to be there at all,” Pittard said.

Esper and Milley went with Trump to the church believing that they were going to see some of their troops, said a senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. They did so afterward.

Kyle Bibby, a former Marine captain, said he has been disappointed by the silence of senior military officials after Floyd’s death, especially in light of reports of white nationalism in the military.

“Condemning racism and police brutality is not really a partisan issue, right?” said Bibby, who is black and now works on social-justice issues for Common Defense, a progressive veterans group.

“The generals and admirals, they can’t put their heads in the sand,” he said. “They’re leaders, and they’re responsible for one of the most important institutions in this country.”

 

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Defense Science Board Member/former Under Secretary of Defense's resignation letter.  We need more of this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/02/secretary-esper-you-violated-your-oath-aiding-trumps-photo-op-thats-why-im-resigning/?arc404=true

Spoiler

 

Dear Secretary Esper,

I resign from the Defense Science Board, effective immediately.

When I joined the Board in early 2014, after leaving government service as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, I again swore an oath of office, one familiar to you, that includes the commitment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . . and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

You recited that same oath on July 23, 2019, when you were sworn in as Secretary of Defense. On Monday, June 1, 2020, I believe that you violated that oath. Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op. You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo.

President Trump’s actions Monday night violated his oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as well as the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble.” You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.

 

Anyone who takes the oath of office must decide where he or she will draw the line: What are the things that they will refuse to do? Secretary Esper, you have served honorably for many years, in active and reserve military duty, as Secretary of the Army, and now as Secretary of Defense. You must have thought long and hard about where that line should be drawn. I must now ask: If last night’s blatant violations do not cross the line for you, what will?

Unfortunately, it appears there may be few if any lines that President Trump is not willing to cross, so you will probably be faced with this terrible question again in the coming days. You may be asked to take, or to direct the men and women serving in the U.S. military to take, actions that further undermine the Constitution and harm Americans.

As a concerned citizen, and as a former senior defense official who cares deeply about the military, I urge you to consider closely both your future actions and your future words. For example, some could interpret literally your suggestion to the nation’s governors Monday that they need to “dominate the battlespace.” I cannot believe that you see the United States as a “battlespace,” or that you believe our citizens must be “dominated.” Such language sends an extremely dangerous signal.

You have made life-and-death decisions in combat overseas; soon you may be asked to make life-and-death decisions about using the military on American streets and against Americans. Where will you draw the line, and when will you draw it?

I hope this letter of resignation will encourage you to again contemplate the obligations you undertook in your oath of office, as well as your obligations to the men and women in our military and other Americans whose lives may be at stake. In the event that at least some other senior officials may be inclined to ask these questions after reading this letter, I am making it public.

I wish you the best, in very difficult times. The sanctity of the U.S. Constitution, and the lives of Americans, may depend on your choices.

 

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8 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

Defense Science Board Member/former Under Secretary of Defense's resignation letter.  We need more of this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/02/secretary-esper-you-violated-your-oath-aiding-trumps-photo-op-thats-why-im-resigning/?arc404=true

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Dear Secretary Esper,

I resign from the Defense Science Board, effective immediately.

When I joined the Board in early 2014, after leaving government service as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, I again swore an oath of office, one familiar to you, that includes the commitment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . . and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

You recited that same oath on July 23, 2019, when you were sworn in as Secretary of Defense. On Monday, June 1, 2020, I believe that you violated that oath. Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op. You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo.

President Trump’s actions Monday night violated his oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as well as the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble.” You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.

 

Anyone who takes the oath of office must decide where he or she will draw the line: What are the things that they will refuse to do? Secretary Esper, you have served honorably for many years, in active and reserve military duty, as Secretary of the Army, and now as Secretary of Defense. You must have thought long and hard about where that line should be drawn. I must now ask: If last night’s blatant violations do not cross the line for you, what will?

Unfortunately, it appears there may be few if any lines that President Trump is not willing to cross, so you will probably be faced with this terrible question again in the coming days. You may be asked to take, or to direct the men and women serving in the U.S. military to take, actions that further undermine the Constitution and harm Americans.

As a concerned citizen, and as a former senior defense official who cares deeply about the military, I urge you to consider closely both your future actions and your future words. For example, some could interpret literally your suggestion to the nation’s governors Monday that they need to “dominate the battlespace.” I cannot believe that you see the United States as a “battlespace,” or that you believe our citizens must be “dominated.” Such language sends an extremely dangerous signal.

You have made life-and-death decisions in combat overseas; soon you may be asked to make life-and-death decisions about using the military on American streets and against Americans. Where will you draw the line, and when will you draw it?

I hope this letter of resignation will encourage you to again contemplate the obligations you undertook in your oath of office, as well as your obligations to the men and women in our military and other Americans whose lives may be at stake. In the event that at least some other senior officials may be inclined to ask these questions after reading this letter, I am making it public.

I wish you the best, in very difficult times. The sanctity of the U.S. Constitution, and the lives of Americans, may depend on your choices.

 

Good.  Let's keep it going.  Be men of honor.   Be true patriots to your country.  Refuse the unlawful orders of a deranged autocrat.  Do not obey his unlawful orders.  Defy them.  Resist if you can.  Resign if you must.  But do not acquiesce and go down in history as an American Quisling.

A handful of men and women can save a Republic.  Be one of them.

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A reminder to every member of the military:

 

Quote

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.[1]

Remember the first three words of that Constitution you've sworn an oath to defend: "We the people."  Don't fucking forget it.

And from the UCMJ:

Quote

Lawfulness. A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it.

When Barr, or Trump, or Esper, order you to violate the Constitution.....don't.  Refuse the order.  Record the order, and all interactions related to the order.  Obtain legal counsel promptly.  But keep your oath.

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I have a lot of family in Chicago and there a mini race war going on on the South Side of Chicago, Blacks Vs Mexicans. Mexican hoods are protecting their businesses from looting but basically shooting or trying to kill ANY Black person, looting or innocent bystanders. The media is downplaying it though. Below covers a little bit of it but I’m hearing that’s it’s very violent and the gangs are beefing too.


https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/06/02/black-chicagoans-being-harassed-in-latino-neighborhoods-officials-say-we-are-in-this-struggle-together/

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35 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Where is the principled, patriotic military leadership in all of this? They should be refusing these fucking orders.

sorry, i haven't seen a clock ticking down or like a fast helicopter on a well timed interception of a grizzly bear nuke bomb mission. i need more hollywood here before i can really understand if anything is wrong

well, whatever, in all seriousness yes where the fuck is the military. 

I told you motherfuckers a few months back you would be wishing for a military coup of some type. 

Edited by staboner
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24 minutes ago, LongestHorn said:

All I can say is congratulations to @Anastasis @maninblack, and all the burn it down bois. You’ve really got to be thrilled with how this is going:

 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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