If I were still in, I wouldn't have listened to them because, as congressmen, they're not in my chain of command.
There's no way those six made that video before ensuring they were legally covered. They walked right up to the "sedition line" without crossing it. And yeah, there might not be legal criteria to send them on a "perp walk," but at minimum, they should be censured.
A significant percentage of the voting public is all "yeah, that!". Mostly because they are either blinded by partisanship or to stupid to understand what is happening.
While I agree in principle, I still want to see the investigation and prosecution happen. They've made an art of the process being the punishment. Now we share the experience with them.....
....and who knows what else we find in the process?
I concur with everything you said. And, until Trump opened his mouth about this stupid video, I had not heard of it. This is an instance where he should have just ignored it as the whining of idiots. If he had, only those on the far left would have even seen it.
Only one of the Seditious Six is nominally subject to the UCMJ, and that connection is weak. Parts of 18 USC could apply, but again, it’s weak.
Meanwhile, troops are well informed as to what “unlawful order” really means. But if any of them take the SSix up on their suggestion, they’ll FO right fast, without the congressvermin’s backing.
UCMJ Article 134 can be made to work. Put the perps on a ship, have an NJP. $200/mo for two months, 2 weeks restriction and extra duty, reduction in rate, suspended for 12 months. The punishment would be legal and immediate. Any appeal would take months. Probably the only justice attainable. Still, justice will have left an indelible mark.
Nope. UCMJ applies to military personnel, not people with discharges. Only Kelly could theoretically be recalled, being a retiree, but that's normally for crimes committed while still on duty. This was not on military duty.
No expert here. My read on it says retired military receiving retired pay are part of the Inactive Reserve and can be subject to the UCMJ. Some brains, moxie and a ballpoint pen could go a long way here. There's more to gain than lose by trying. Call these people out.
As a former commander at the squadron and group level, I agree that, while what these prancing clowns uttered is reprehensible, it doesn't merit an overreaction from the National Command Authority (Pres->SecWar->Combatant Commander->unit commanders (Air Division/Corps/Fleet and on down).
If only the Commander-in-Chief could be subtle for once, chuckling quietly and say something to the effect of: "This is yet another desperate attempt by the Democrat Party of Mamdani, Crockett, AOC and Pelosi to deflect attention from the disaster of the Biden years. At least in this case they didn't imply the troops were closet Nazis to begin with like, say, his Riefenstahl-like speech in Philly. So I guess in a way it's an improvement."
And, if recent voter behavior is any indication, the chances of them being removed is vanishingly slim, alas.
One does also always have the Alinsky option of ridiculing them mercilessly. Lefties hate being laughed at.
Angry Cops did a thing on this, and he even served with one of those officers (who he flipped off after saying he was sorry to see the guy turn into a dushe-bag).
He said pretty much what you did.
He also foresees a lot of young enlisted and young officers getting in trouble over this. I suspect he's right.
In his book, Mr. DeSantis states that he tried to use his JAG powers to define the ROEs in favor of common sense as much as he could at the time when he was there. I think he told the truth.
But also once again, Lawdog brings cogency to a s**tstorm.
While I totally understand your position, and at least on a purely intellectual level can appreciate it, this kind of thing (inciting idiots to do illegal and/or immoral things then pretending that they didn't contribute) is not new for leftists, and election after election has shown that the voters will NOT send these clowns (with apologies to Bozo, Emmett Kelley, and so forth) packing no matter what.
Hell, voters in VA apparently have no problems with voting for a candidate making terrorist threats against his opponents and their families, and just within the last few days we had a rather explicit demonstration of where leftist rhetoric leads: One National Guard member dead, another in critical condition at the hospital (last I saw).
At what point is enough enough?
I don't have an answer (though I do have some ideas I'm well aware are NOT kosher under US law), but how many more people have to die before leftists are forced (up to and including at gunpoint) to back the [BLEEP] off? Because nothing so far has done anything positive, as far as I can tell.
I definitely don't like it, but I absolutely agree. The constituents of these districts should vote them out of office, that should be the punishment. So I doubt anything will actually happen to them, and all they did was make a bunch of annoying noises, and cause the president to make annoying noises while the media clutch their pearls at the presidents reaction to what was clearly a free speech exercise. It's all very dumb, I wish we were better than this. But we aren't.
I can remember sitting in a VERY big auditorium at the beginning of basic training and discussing unlawful orders. The general guidance we received then from our drill instructors was that you, as a PVT, PV2, or PFC, doing your thing are not qualified to determine whether or not virtually any order is unlawful. They also helpfully informed us that, should we refuse to follow ANY order due to our own determination that it was unlawful, we had best be ready to back it up in front of the court martial that would surely be convened (maybe a field-grade Art. 15 if we were lucky and our company commander were feeling particularly generous).
Bottom line - except in exceedingly rare circumstances ("See that preschool full of Afghan toddlers? Go shoot every one of them."), you as a soldier or junior NCO are not qualified to look at an order and have any real and valid opinion on its legality.
I was in the Army for 6 years. During that time, while I questioned the sanity of my orders on far more than one occasion, I never had cause to question their legality.
And the laws of war and the UCMJ do not protect us against the consequences of failing to follow a stupid order.
Edited to add: As much as I'd love to nail the six of 'em under the UCMJ under the articles you gave, I agree that it would be a stretch for the lot of them (Sen. Kelly less so than the rest). At this point, we can only hope that the chains of command in each service have spent the last week reiterating my first paragraph above.
I don't have to like their video, but I agree with you Ian, that we should just ignore them. I doubt their left wing voters will censure them, and I was astounded at some former service members who were supportive of this S show. You are right any active duty members who follow the suggestion deserve what they get.
I agree.
If I were still in, I wouldn't have listened to them because, as congressmen, they're not in my chain of command.
There's no way those six made that video before ensuring they were legally covered. They walked right up to the "sedition line" without crossing it. And yeah, there might not be legal criteria to send them on a "perp walk," but at minimum, they should be censured.
Note that the have INVITED investigation by making their spectical OFF OF THE FLOORS of Congress.
If they had done the same thing, as televised by CSPAN there would have been no question of their automatic immunity.
I, quite begrudgingly, agree. Sigh.
Now if only the voting public was actually paying attention.
A significant percentage of the voting public is all "yeah, that!". Mostly because they are either blinded by partisanship or to stupid to understand what is happening.
While I agree in principle, I still want to see the investigation and prosecution happen. They've made an art of the process being the punishment. Now we share the experience with them.....
....and who knows what else we find in the process?
I concur with everything you said. And, until Trump opened his mouth about this stupid video, I had not heard of it. This is an instance where he should have just ignored it as the whining of idiots. If he had, only those on the far left would have even seen it.
Oh yes please don't go after them, they might:
Try to bankrupt Trump and put him in jail;
Make up a Russia collusion narrative out of thin air;
Destroy the lives of anyone who agrees with Trump and actually put them in prison (Bannon, Navarro);
Debank conservatives and censor them;
Steal elections;
And more!
Yes, I'm quite sure if we just leave them alone this time, the crazy leftists will be super-nice to us in the future.
Good call!
Eh, if they did violate the law with it, then cram their sanctimonious "No one is above the law!" down their throats & let them choke on it.
Only one of the Seditious Six is nominally subject to the UCMJ, and that connection is weak. Parts of 18 USC could apply, but again, it’s weak.
Meanwhile, troops are well informed as to what “unlawful order” really means. But if any of them take the SSix up on their suggestion, they’ll FO right fast, without the congressvermin’s backing.
UCMJ Article 134 can be made to work. Put the perps on a ship, have an NJP. $200/mo for two months, 2 weeks restriction and extra duty, reduction in rate, suspended for 12 months. The punishment would be legal and immediate. Any appeal would take months. Probably the only justice attainable. Still, justice will have left an indelible mark.
Nope. UCMJ applies to military personnel, not people with discharges. Only Kelly could theoretically be recalled, being a retiree, but that's normally for crimes committed while still on duty. This was not on military duty.
No expert here. My read on it says retired military receiving retired pay are part of the Inactive Reserve and can be subject to the UCMJ. Some brains, moxie and a ballpoint pen could go a long way here. There's more to gain than lose by trying. Call these people out.
As a former commander at the squadron and group level, I agree that, while what these prancing clowns uttered is reprehensible, it doesn't merit an overreaction from the National Command Authority (Pres->SecWar->Combatant Commander->unit commanders (Air Division/Corps/Fleet and on down).
If only the Commander-in-Chief could be subtle for once, chuckling quietly and say something to the effect of: "This is yet another desperate attempt by the Democrat Party of Mamdani, Crockett, AOC and Pelosi to deflect attention from the disaster of the Biden years. At least in this case they didn't imply the troops were closet Nazis to begin with like, say, his Riefenstahl-like speech in Philly. So I guess in a way it's an improvement."
And, if recent voter behavior is any indication, the chances of them being removed is vanishingly slim, alas.
One does also always have the Alinsky option of ridiculing them mercilessly. Lefties hate being laughed at.
Angry Cops did a thing on this, and he even served with one of those officers (who he flipped off after saying he was sorry to see the guy turn into a dushe-bag).
He said pretty much what you did.
He also foresees a lot of young enlisted and young officers getting in trouble over this. I suspect he's right.
In his book, Mr. DeSantis states that he tried to use his JAG powers to define the ROEs in favor of common sense as much as he could at the time when he was there. I think he told the truth.
But also once again, Lawdog brings cogency to a s**tstorm.
While I totally understand your position, and at least on a purely intellectual level can appreciate it, this kind of thing (inciting idiots to do illegal and/or immoral things then pretending that they didn't contribute) is not new for leftists, and election after election has shown that the voters will NOT send these clowns (with apologies to Bozo, Emmett Kelley, and so forth) packing no matter what.
Hell, voters in VA apparently have no problems with voting for a candidate making terrorist threats against his opponents and their families, and just within the last few days we had a rather explicit demonstration of where leftist rhetoric leads: One National Guard member dead, another in critical condition at the hospital (last I saw).
At what point is enough enough?
I don't have an answer (though I do have some ideas I'm well aware are NOT kosher under US law), but how many more people have to die before leftists are forced (up to and including at gunpoint) to back the [BLEEP] off? Because nothing so far has done anything positive, as far as I can tell.
I definitely don't like it, but I absolutely agree. The constituents of these districts should vote them out of office, that should be the punishment. So I doubt anything will actually happen to them, and all they did was make a bunch of annoying noises, and cause the president to make annoying noises while the media clutch their pearls at the presidents reaction to what was clearly a free speech exercise. It's all very dumb, I wish we were better than this. But we aren't.
I can remember sitting in a VERY big auditorium at the beginning of basic training and discussing unlawful orders. The general guidance we received then from our drill instructors was that you, as a PVT, PV2, or PFC, doing your thing are not qualified to determine whether or not virtually any order is unlawful. They also helpfully informed us that, should we refuse to follow ANY order due to our own determination that it was unlawful, we had best be ready to back it up in front of the court martial that would surely be convened (maybe a field-grade Art. 15 if we were lucky and our company commander were feeling particularly generous).
Bottom line - except in exceedingly rare circumstances ("See that preschool full of Afghan toddlers? Go shoot every one of them."), you as a soldier or junior NCO are not qualified to look at an order and have any real and valid opinion on its legality.
I was in the Army for 6 years. During that time, while I questioned the sanity of my orders on far more than one occasion, I never had cause to question their legality.
And the laws of war and the UCMJ do not protect us against the consequences of failing to follow a stupid order.
Edited to add: As much as I'd love to nail the six of 'em under the UCMJ under the articles you gave, I agree that it would be a stretch for the lot of them (Sen. Kelly less so than the rest). At this point, we can only hope that the chains of command in each service have spent the last week reiterating my first paragraph above.
I don't have to like their video, but I agree with you Ian, that we should just ignore them. I doubt their left wing voters will censure them, and I was astounded at some former service members who were supportive of this S show. You are right any active duty members who follow the suggestion deserve what they get.
I agree in principle, but dammit, a public caning is in order.
Muy Bueno essay!
(that's spanish for very bueno)
I'm illiterate in at least 4 languages.