Milley goes to extraordinary lengths to protect U.S.

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There's a connection between two of today's key stories—the revelations about Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley in the waning days of the Trump Administration, and the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom in California: the Big Lie. In California, one of Newsom's top Republican opponents, Larry Elder, took a page from the Trump playbook, claiming "election fraud" before the vote even took place. This isn't a strategy to win elections, but a tactic to undermine them, and to sow distrust in democracy itself. We know exactly where that can lead—the kind of political violence we witnessed on Jan. 6. Which brings us to Gen. Milley. He was one of the officials responsible for guarding national security for the two perilous weeks after Donald Trump's attempted coup failed, but while he was still the commander-in-chief. It was an unprecedented situation that presented impossible choices, about which we will surely learn more in the days ahead. But in the end, Trump's hand-picked top military advisor
concluded that the biggest national security threat to America was the former president himself. If future candidates follow the lead of Trump, Elder, and others, spreading outright lies about our elections, once-unthinkable scenarios will become more commonplace, and American democracy will continue to suffer. We cannot allow that to happen. —Miles Taylor

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** 'You never know what a president's trigger point is'
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No, you don't. Especially after said president just incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. That's the dangerous environment Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley found himself in in the aftermath of Jan. 6. "Peril," a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, alleges Donald Trump's top military adviser took extraordinary precautions to limit Trump's ability to launch a military strike or deploy nuclear weapons in his final two weeks in office. Worried that Trump had constructed "his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies" and could "go rogue," Milley called a secret meeting of senior military officials at the Pentagon on Jan. 8 to review the process for military action and instructed those in charge of the National Military Command Center not to take orders from anyone without his involvement. Further, he secretly called his counterpart in China to reassure him that the U.S. had no intention of launching a strike against China. Wow. —USA Today
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* — Not everyone is pleased with Milley. Retired Lt. Col. Alex Vindman is calling for his resignation, saying that if the story is true, Milley "usurped civilian authority, broke Chain of Command, and violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military. It's an extremely dangerous precedent. You can't simply walk away from that." In the Senate, Republicans Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley have demanded that President Biden fire Milley for participating in, in Rubio's words, "the essence of a military coup." There's some rich irony there. —The Hill ([link removed])
*
* — "I have great confidence in Gen. Milley." On the other hand, Milley has received the support of President Biden and others. "It is breathtaking to think of the lengths that Milley and others went to to avert the disasters Trump was creating at the end of his presidency," Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters, when asked if Milley had overstepped his authority. "It is a shame we reached that point in America's history that [it was] necessary, and I think he did the responsible thing to keep America out of war." —The Washington Post ([link removed])
*
* — He's probably not going anywhere. Milley's calls with the Chinese "were in keeping with [his] duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability," his spokesman Col. Dave Butler said in a statement. "The meeting regarding nuclear weapons protocols was to remind uniformed leaders in the Pentagon of the long-established and robust procedures." In any case, Milley is guaranteed another two years in his job, under legislation that went into effect two years ago. —Defense One ([link removed])

MORE: Trump should have been arrested for Capitol riot, Pelosi told Milley —CNBC ([link removed])


** Sargent: How far was Mike Pence willing to go?
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"Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, says the new details suggest its investigation will have to fully flesh out Pence's role. 'We need to look and see how far things went in 2020 in order to determine what correctives we need to make for 2024,' Raskin told me. The point about 2024 is key: This isn't merely about reconstructing past events, but also about safeguarding our system against a future stolen election." —Greg Sargent in ([link removed]) The Washington Post ([link removed])

Greg Sargent is a columnist at
The Washington Post and the author of "An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics."

MORE: Woodward book: Quayle advised Pence he had 'no flexibility' in overturning election —The Hill ([link removed])


** Newsom survives recall election
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom became just the second governor in U.S. history to defeat a recall yesterday, when he emphatically defeated an effort to remove him from office early. With an estimated two-thirds of ballots counted, "no" on the question of whether to recall Newsom was ahead by a 30-point margin. That lead was built on votes cast by mail and in advance of Tuesday's in-person balloting, with a strong showing by Democrats. While likely to shrink somewhat in the days ahead as votes cast at polling places are counted, Newsom's lead couldn't be overcome. "Democracy is not a football; you don't throw it around. It's more like an antique vase," Newsom said after his win. "You can drop it, smash it into a million different pieces—and that's what we're capable of doing if we don't stand up to meet the moment and push back." —Associated Press ([link removed])

MORE: As California votes, it rethinks its tradition of direct democracy —The New York Times ([link removed])


** Ornstein & Aftergut: The Manchin-Klobuchar voting bill could save democracy
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"If passed, the Freedom to Vote Act will advance election-safety provisions in five ways. First, it will require paper ballots in every state in order to ensure that vote counting is hacker-free and subject to reliable recount. Second, the bill will allow local election authorities to apply for grants to purchase updated and secure voting equipment. Third, the measure will require, for the first time, that candidates and their election committees report to federal authorities any foreign contacts seeking to contribute to or coordinate campaign efforts. Fourth, the compromise will curb the gerrymandering that Republicans have used to maintain power in disproportion to the popular vote. And last, but certainly not least, the bill will help moderate the dark-money political contributions that tilt laws in favor of the mega-wealthy." —Norm Ornstein & Dennis Aftergut in ([link removed]) The Atlantic
([link removed])

Norm Ornstein is a contributing writer for
The Atlantic, a contributing editor for National Journal, and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel at the Renne Public Law Group in San Francisco.

MORE: Manchin lobbies McConnell on election reform bill —Politico ([link removed])
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** Creating a global 'arsenal of vaccines'
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President Biden will urge world leaders to collectively commit to vaccinating 70% of the world's population against COVID-19 within a year, a goal he will unveil during a summit he is hosting next week. The virtual gathering to discuss the pandemic will coincide with the annual meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, where the president is due to speak on Tuesday. Draft targets include donating 1 billion additional vaccine doses and accelerating the delivery of 2 billion already-committed doses, and ensuring that $3 billion is available this year and $7 billion in 2022 for vaccine administration. Biden has been criticized by some world leaders for advocating vaccine boosters for Americans while poorer countries have struggled to obtain vaccines. —CNN ([link removed])

MORE: COVID-19 cases climbing, wiping out months of progress —Associated Press ([link removed])


** Focus on foreign disinformation
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Disinformation and malign influence online are among nascent digital threats the U.S. military is actively countering, top military officials said at a panel at the Intelligence and National Security Summit this week. Participating representatives from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Space Force agreed that as information warfare has evolved, they've enhanced their threat and analysis capabilities, worked with outside technology experts, and shared best practices among the service branches. ([link removed])
* — "Watching Facebook and Reddit and Twitter and [Russian social media site] VK and [Chinese search engine and internet company] Baidu after and during the Afghanistan mission—everyone should take a look," said Army G-2 Senior Advisor for Science, Technology, and Innovation Alex Miller. "It's a great example of what happens when we have a serious traumatic issue that we're trying to respond to in real-time, and our adversaries are deliberately messaging. They're putting out malign influence messages. They're putting out misinformation. They're putting out true information, just spinning it." ([link removed])
*
* — One of the ways personnel confront campaigns to spread falsehoods online involves a four-step approach to decision-making established by military insiders: observe, orient, decide, and act. Army insiders, Miller noted, are also figuring out what to do in this realm under the auspices of "information advantage," a concept the Defense Department has embraced. ([link removed])

1. — Key to military and intelligence community efforts to curb the impact of disinformers and digital malign influencers is working with other nations, according to the Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant for Intelligence, Rear Adm. Andrew Sugimoto. Allies work to declassify and share data and then collectively dispute sources of harmful content—a sort of "strength in numbers" approach that can be applied to potential threats posed by other emerging technologies as well. —Nextgov ([link removed])

MORE: Top FBI official says there is 'no indication' Russia has taken action against hackers —The Hill ([link removed])


** Friedman: How tribalism threatens our democracy
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"More than a few democratically elected leaders around the world now find it much easier to build support with tribal appeals focused on identity than to do the hard work of coalition-building and compromise in pluralistic societies at a complex time. When that happens, everything gets turned into a tribal identity marker—mask-wearing in the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccinations, gender pronouns, climate change. Your position on each point doubles as a challenge to others: Are you in my tribe or not? So there is less focus on the common good, and ultimately no common ground to pivot off to do big hard things. We once put a man on the moon together. Today, we can barely agree on fixing broken bridges." —Thomas Friedman in ([link removed]) The New York Times ([link removed])

Thomas Friedman is an author and
New York Times columnist, focusing on foreign affairs, global trade, and environmental issues.

MORE: Most Americans feel democracy is under attack in the U.S. —CNN ([link removed])

On the perimeter fence at the Capitol, I feel that they have no choice but to throw up that fence. Maybe this will deter another insurrection. —Bruce H., Texas

I'm fine with putting the fence back up and protecting our capital against traitors to our democracy. —Marsha S., Washington

Based on what happened on Jan. 6, safety is the most important item to consider. —Kathie P., Florida

Clearly, a security fence around the Capitol complex is needed. It would be foolish to think that Jan. 6 could not be repeated, or worse. These protesters are obviously sympathetic to the insurrectionists, therefore they would see nothing wrong with what they did and might emulate them. The notion that a fence would be somehow "antagonizing" the protesters is not logical, practical, or in the best interests of the nation. I am not concerned about hurting their feelings. —Patrick N., Idaho

We need to protect our leaders from violent traitors. Anyone who becomes violent must be arrested. I for one cannot pretend that these violent insurgents are to be trusted. They represent American authoritarianism at its supreme worst. Fascists. —Ricki I., California

I think fencing around the U.S. Capitol looks like a third-world, tottering government. We are the oldest and strongest democracy on the planet—we should not need fences. If the people in the Capitol believe they need fences to protect themselves, then the people in the Capitol should stop and think about what THEY have done to need fences to protect them from the people who elected them and who they represent. —Jake B., Wisconsin

I agree that fencing around the Capitol is not the ambience that any of us prefer. However, it is realistic to expect trouble from these right-wingers, and it would be really stupid to give them a soft target, like last time. —Ken R., Washington
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** The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.
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