Myeshia Johnson Stands Up to Donald Trump

With his non-stop trail of lies that are constantly being documented as false, one would think that Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, would realize at some point that refusing to stop lying only digs his hole deeper.  Now, with the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson joining Congresswoman Federica Wilson, Sgt. Johnson's mother, Trump nonetheless continues to lie.  His sickness and narcissism will simply never allow him to do the decent and moral thing is to apologize.  Equally troubling, of course, is General Kelly's willingness to lie and prostitute himself for the benefit of a morally bankrupt individual.  Hopefully, Kelly's place in history will be forever sullied.  Ditto for every other individual who has thrown away morality, honesty, and decency to serve Der  Trumpenführer.   Having nearly lost a family member in Afghanistan, I DO take all of this personally since, unlike Trump, I know that real people and real lives are involved.  Trump disgusts me. A piece in the New Yorker looks at Myeshia Johnson's refusal to bow down to Trump's lies.  Here are excerpts:

There were two moments during her interview on “Good Morning America” when the expression of the face of Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson, was transformed by a sudden smile. One came when George Stephanopoulos asked if it was true that she and La David—who was twenty-five when he died, three weeks ago, in Niger—had met when they were just six years old. “Yes, sir,” Johnson said. The other was when he mentioned that she was expecting her third child, a daughter, in January. Her oldest child is six now. Those are circumstances that could overwhelm anyone. But Johnson, throughout the six-and-a-half-minute interview, was steady, calm, and focussed on two goals: asking for answers about how her husband had died, and standing up to President Donald Trump, who, she said, when he called her, “couldn’t remember my husband’s name.” “I heard him stumbling on, trying to remember my husband’s name, and that’s what hurt the most, because, if my husband is out there fighting for our country, why can’t you remember his name?”

It’s a good question, and there might have been a charitable answer—Trump’s own emotion about the difficult task at hand, perhaps. But then the President responded by—in effect—calling Johnson, a Gold Star widow, a liar.

There were no accompanying words of compassion for Johnson, who said that the call “made me cry even worse.” Beyond the lack of empathy, this is a steep escalation of Trump’s claims that Representative Frederica Wilson, who was in a car with Johnson during the call, and said that the President had not been respectful, had “totally fabricated” her account of it. Trump has taken to calling Wilson “wacky”; his chief of staff, the retired general John Kelly, called her an “empty barrel” in a press conference last week, and put out a story about watching in disbelief as she grandstanded during an F.B.I. ceremony a number of years ago—a story that was, as a video of the event proves, demonstrably false. Did they think that Myeshia Johnson would not speak up for Wilson? If so, they were wrong.

When Stephanopoulos said, “The President said that the congresswoman was lying about the phone call,” Johnson did not hesitate. “Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not ‘fabricated,’ ” she said, speaking evenly. “What she said was one hundred per cent correct.” It was all on speakerphone, she said. “Why would we fabricate something like that?” The Trumpian answer is that, if it makes the President look bad, it must be a lie.

Myeshia Johnson also addressed a point that seems to have particularly outraged Kelly: that Wilson was listening in on the call, which he portrayed as a violation of something “sacred.” It was an odd complaint, given that Kelly himself had listened in, too, but Johnson put it to rest with a reminder that she was an actor in all this, rather than just a symbol. “I asked Master Sergeant Neil to put his phone on speaker, so my aunt and uncle could hear as well,” she said, referring to the service member assigned to them, who was on the line with the White House, and to her husband’s aunt and uncle, who raised him after his mother died when he was a small child. (They have been identified as his parents in some press accounts; his aunt, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, had earlier backed up Wilson’s account.) Wilson, Myeshia Johnson added, was there, too, because she had worked with La David’s uncle in an elementary school and had guided La David in a mentoring program called 5000 Role Models. “She’s been in our family since we were little kids,” Johnson said.

In the video of the speech that Wilson gave which so offended Kelly, she asked members of law enforcement in the audience to stand up and be honored. It is hard to know what bothered Kelly about her appearance that day. Wilson herself, in an interview with the Times, said that she had no explanation—“I’m just flabbergasted,” she said—but she added, in regard to the general context of the affair, that the Administration is stocked with “white supremacists.” (The Times noted that she was not speaking about Kelly personally.) In any event, Trump might need to learn that there are women who will neither praise him nor stay quiet or shrink when he attacks. Some of them are Gold Star widows. Generals are not the only ones who get to speak, for military families or for the country.  

Trump is morally disgusting.  Anyone who continues to support him is, in my opinion, equally lacking in morality and decency.   They might like this assessment, but I believe that this charge is true.  And don't even get me started on the moral bankruptcy of the evangelical Christians who continue to stand by Trump and his hideous agenda.  Oh, and did I mention Trump's racism

After Niger Attack, McCain Calls for War Powers Debate

Questions continue to be raised about U.S. military actions in Niger after the ambush that killed four American soldiers.  Most Americans, including members of the U.S. Senate who should have known such military actions, knew nothing of America's involvement in Niger much less what the Americans who lost their life were doing their.  With an individual in the White House that I personally  deem to be unfit for office and mentally ill, it is critical that Congress reclaim its power to declare war - Section 8, Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants this power to Congress, not the president -  and launch any significant military action. We most certainly do not want the narcissistic liar-in-chief making unilateral war powers decisions that could reap horrific consequences to America and the world.  As Voice of America is reporting, the attack that killed four U.S. service members, it appears that there was a massive intelligence failure in Niger:

A local official and an analyst say residents of the Niger village where four Green Beret soldiers were killed this month may have delayed the soldiers while an ambush was set up and helped to lead the victims into a deadly trap.

"The attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among local populations," said Almou Hassane, mayor of Tongo-Tongo where the attack took place, in what is believed to be his first interview with a Western news organization.

The village chief in Tongo-Tongo, Mounkaila Alassane, has been arrested since the attack, Hassane said, lending credibility to the suspicion of local involvement. He is in government custody according several officials.

While the soldiers were still in the village, a fake terror attack was staged nearby, according to Aksar and local sources. The soldiers rushed to the scene, where about 50 or more assailants with vehicles and motorcycles opened fire with Kalashnikovs and heavy weapons.

Four Nigerien soldiers and three Americans were killed on the spot. The body of the fourth American soldier was found 48 hours later, about a mile away from the initial site, CNN reported.

Rhissa Ag Boula, a high-ranking government official and a former Tuareg rebel chief in Niger, told VOA that the fourth soldier, La David Johnson, had remained at the front line while the others retreated under heavy fire.

The attack has raised questions in Niger, especially since the U.S. Army operates drone bases in the country and has significant intelligence resources there.

"That's what really shocked us: how, at their level, with all the resources they have, they could not have strong intelligence to avoid what happened there," said Hassane.

No group has officially taken responsibility for the attack. According to sources in the region, however, it is the work of Abu Adnan al-Saharaoui, who calls himself the Islamic Emir of the Great Sahara, affiliated with the Islamic State group.

Senator John McCain, has rightly called for a renewed debate in Congress to set parameters for the ability of the White House to authorize military actions overseas.  While the Niger incident is the immediate catalyst, fears of what Der Trumpenführer might seek to do in North Korea and Iran are no doubt at the back of McCain's mind and the minds of millions of other Americans. Politico looks at McCain's call for a new debate on limiting the president's powers to authorize military operations.  Here are article highlights:

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday seized on the deadly ambush in Niger to call for a new congressional authorization for U.S. military operations overseas.

McCain told reporters Monday that he and the Armed Services panel’s top Democrat, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, are working on a proposal to update the broad war powers Congress gave the commander in chief after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month have stoked fresh interest in a new war powers vote, which the Trump administration has indicated it would not oppose — although it says it has all the legal authority it needs to conduct anti-terrorism operations under the existing 2001 authorization.

“We’re going to have to have” an updated authorization for the use of military force, said McCain, who has previously called for a new war powers resolution.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had already been scheduled to hold an Oct. 30 hearing on the president’s war powers, which Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called “excellent” timing Thursday. But he remains unsure about any practical movement on an updated war powers measure. Indeed, lawmakers as well as senior Pentagon officials are still getting up to speed on critical facts regarding the Oct. 4 attack that killed four members of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Armed Services panel members are set for a Thursday briefing on the ambush in Niger, where the Pentagon’s Africa Command has stepped up its efforts against militants affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group. Senior senators in both parties, including Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said on Sunday that they were unaware of the size of the U.S. military presence in Niger, though the White House formally notified the Hill about troops in Niger in June.

Lawmakers are now pressing to know more about the events of Oct. 4, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford pledged on Monday to provide those details.  “We owe the families as much information as we can find out about what happened,” the four-star Marine general said.

“With regard to Congress and the criticism we’re not providing enough information, … if the Congress doesn’t believe that they’re not getting sufficient information, then I need to double my efforts to provide them with information,” Dunford added.

Defense Secretary James Mattis last week said the type of attack that occurred in Niger was “considered unlikely,” but he nonetheless promised to “rapidly” release the findings of an investigation into the incident.

This year’s previous pitches to update the 2001 war authorization have been attached to other legislation, and have failed to come to fruition. A proposal to repeal the authorization by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was added to annual House defense spending legislation in June, but removed from the bill by House GOP leadership before it went to the floor.

And an attempt in September by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to add a repeal of the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act was rebuffed by the Senate.  Lee, the only lawmaker to vote against the 2001 war authorization, called moves by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to derail her proposal “undemocratic.”

“People are asking, ‘Why are we in Niger?’ Rightfully so,” Lee said in an interview with Politico. “Well, a debate would provide information and answer a lot of questions and put Congress back in the mix in terms of us doing our job, because certainly we’re not.” 

Congress needs to take back its power and limit the ability of an unfit malignant narcissist to authorize military action based on mere whims and petulant bursts of angry over his fragile ego.