'You Bet Your Ass I've Got Regrets.'

[babylonsister]

‘You Bet Your Ass I've Got Regrets.’ As Election Day Nears, More of Trump’s Former Officials Are Speaking Out Against Him
By Kimberly Dozier
September 24, 2020 5:31 PM EDT


Never in recent history have so many senior former U.S. officials publicly attacked the commander in chief they served, or the decisions he’s made, as the ranks lining up to say President Donald Trump put himself and his re-election ahead of the country, thereby threatening its security.

snip//

For months, the President’s former colleagues have been coming out one by one, in a rare display of disloyalty to a sitting president, to warn that Trump does not have America’s best interests at heart. Now, as Nov. 3 looms, the pace is picking up, as those officials hope that some of the punches land with American voters. Trump’s approval ratings have remained virtually unchanged from February to today, despite a devastating global pandemic, economic crisis, and national reckoning of racial injustice. These critics who saw Trump up close, and often carried out his policies against their better judgement, are hoping at least some of his supporters will change their minds based on their first-hand accounts of how self-absorbed and inattentive to the country’s needs they say he has been.

In June, John Bolton, Trump’s third National Security Adviser, called the incumbent president a “danger for the Republic” ahead of the publication of his book that accuses Trump of shaping U.S. security policy to win votes. The same month, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis denounced Trump as the first ever President who “tries to divide us,” after Trump threatened to use active duty military troops to crack down on Black Lives Matter protests. Trump’s former chief of staff and Homeland Security Secretary, retired Marine general John Kelly, has said he was harming the country. And former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump got “frustrated” whenever Tillerson pointed out that he was asking for something illegal.

Others censures have been less direct. Trump’s two most senior military officials, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, both rebuked him in effect by admitting their own error in joining Trump in his march across Lafayette Square at the height of the George Floyd protests, to hold a Bible aloft in front of a church damaged by the protests as the U.S. Secret Service deployed pepper spray to clear the way. Some have even criticized Trump by their silence, as Mattis, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford and Kelly did by declining to comment on an account published in the Atlantic that Trump called U.S. war dead “suckers” and “losers” for laying their lives down in service to the country.

With some Americans already casting their ballots and Election Day drawing near, the critiques have picked up pace. Last week, Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats called for Congress to create a bipartisan commission to oversee the election results, referring obliquely to the President’s continuing threats that he might not accept the voting results after months of invective against voting by mail.

And this week, a group of nearly 500 former national security leaders, including three senior officers who served under Trump, signed a letter backing Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden as “a good man with a strong sense of right and wrong” and indirectly referencing the Atlantic report, saying Biden believes “those who sacrifice or give their lives in service of our nation deserve our respect and eternal gratitude.” Signatories included Trump’s former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force General Paul J. Selva, retired Navy SEAL Vice Admiral P. Gardner Howe, III, who served as CIA’s director of military affairs, and retired Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft.

more...

https://time.com/5892948/trump-former-officials-speak-out/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article&utm-term=politics_2020-election&fbclid=IwAR3pCppdunbPgvPCGarmkjHezVEOtrtMXb0RnJKInb1rtNjwChuj00ThMaw

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[North Shore Chicago]

2. Why in the hell

aren't his numbers in the negative?!

His supporters are as disgusting and sadistic as he is. Hillary was being kind when she called them 'deplorable.'

[rzemanfl]

3. FDR won the 1936 Election

Last edited Sat Sep 26, 2020, 10:50 AM - Edit history (1)

with 61% of the popular vote. There have always been about 39% of people who are assholes in this country.

[marble falls]

4. I know what you meant, but it reads like FDR's 61% were the assholes ...

oddly enough the 39% who voted against FDR is the same size as the committed basket of deplorables who are Trump do or die.

Getting FDR'S 61% is doable.

[rzemanfl]

5. That's what I found interesting. I edited my post for clarity. Thank you. n/t

[marble falls]

10. Your stuff is always well worth reading.

[rzemanfl]

12. Thank you, yours as well. n/t

[PatrickforO]

8. God, let's hope so!

If Biden got 61%, that will paint the whole country pretty solidly blue because of the coat-tail effect. I know I have voted straight blue since the Newtster was Speaker of the House and he had the do-nothing Republicans do nothing in lockstep, and certainly since the DC steakhouse meeting Republican leadership held on the night of Obama's inauguration to agree to oppose EVERYTHING he did in lockstep.

[marble falls]

11. We don't need to lockstep like those mooks - we just need to walk along together.

[Jetheels]

6. It's always "former". n/t

[zentrum]

7. Yup. Always late. They...

…knew what he was when they signed up. What was the surprise? Their red line was already in the gutter.

They wait 'til the horse has left the barn. Great job.

[usaf-vet]

9. Trying to save their place in the history books. It's been said before but I make the point one.....

...... more time. You go into a bank and rob it you start to leave with a bag full of money and change your mind as you walk to the door. You drop the money and leave. You would still be guilty of a crime and will likely spend time in prison.