Trump heads to West Point amid tension with top military brass

[TomCADem]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON – When President Donald Trump delivers the commencement address Saturday at West Point, he'll face an audience of freshly minted second lieutenants, senior military officials and a nation whipsawed by racial tension, domestic unrest and turmoil within his administration.

On Thursday, Trump's handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, admitted he'd erred by allowing the military to be drawn into Trump's politicized response to mostly peaceful protests following the death of George Floyd. Mark Esper, Trump's defense secretary, has signaled his willingness to change the names of Army forts that honor Confederate generals, a stance Trump has rejected.

Meanwhile, West Point itself has been riven by the same racial tensions roiling the nation. Minority cadets, in a confidential survey obtained by USA TODAY, say they face blatant and subtle discrimination at the nation's elite training ground for Army officers. The posting of racist videos in April by one their classmates prompted the survey.

Trump has long sought to cultivate a close relationship with the military that appeals to his base of support. Apolitical by nature and inclination, military officers have sought to maintain a cordial, professional relationship with Trump. That tension forced a rupture that led to Milley's extraordinary statement that he regretted accompanying Trump last week on a walk through Laffayette Square after peaceful protesters were forcibly cleared from the area.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/12/trump-west-point-speech-comes-amid-military-racial-tension/5283283002/

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So, even though cadets were sent home due to COVID-19 concerns and there were plans to conduct graduation remotely, the school is calling back cadets for the purpose of giving Trump a political backdrop, thus exposing cadets and their families to COVID-19. Indeed, some cadets have tested positive, but the political show must go on at taxpayer expense no less.

[Simeon Salus]

1. The cadet honor code should come into play

"A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

By that standard there should be a cadet corps call to attention and "about face" during the speech.

Does loyalty to the current CiC supersede the code?

[generalbetrayus]

2. I hope the cadets are allowed or even ordered to wear face masks

and maintain six-foot social distancing while seated. If Orange Julius Caesar blows a gasket, so be it.

[TheFourthMind]

3. Grand Wizard heads to West Point to play the Circle Game and spew extremist propaganda. n/t

[TomCADem]

5. ADMINISTRATION ADMITS BORDER DEPLOYMENT WAS A $200 MILLION ELECTION STUNT

I think nowadays it seems that the militaries main function is to act as prop for the Trump regime. Perhaps Trump will announce that the top West Point graduates will be deployed as a GI Joe special ops squad to hunt down antifa starting with that 75 year old who shoved to the ground.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-troops-border-caravan-stunt

Several weeks before the midterm elections, worried that Democrats would sweep the House and start digging into his finances, Donald Trump started telling a series of bald-faced lies in an attempt to get people to vote Republican. One of them was that his trade war with China was just about to wrap up. Another was that Americans could kiss their “beautiful” 401(k)s goodbye if Dems flipped just one chamber of the Congress. The most elaborate by far, though, was about a migrant caravan made up of asylum-seekers approaching the U.S.-Mexico border. First, the president claimed, with no evidence, that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed” in with the group. Then he spread the quite obviously false rumor that liberal hedge-fund manager George Soros has been paying these people. Later, he declared that the caravan comprised mostly of women and children fleeing violence and poverty is “actually mostly men” who were “pushing the few kids right up to the front” when the cameras are out, and that a group of people planning to surrender at the border and ask for amnesty through the proper legal channels is no different than a hostile invasion from a foreign country. (“You look at that, it almost looks like an invasion. . . . I think it could be considered an invasion of our country. We can’t have it.”)

But evidently, Trump still felt he had to do more to show voters that their lives were in grave danger, and to really drive home the point that he and his fellow Republicans were the only thing standing between them and Democrats enacting a new policy wherein for every migrant allowed to stay in the country, three U.S. citizens have to go live in Honduras. So he pulled out the big guns: he deployed some 6,000 active-duty troops to the southern border, which from the get-go was a patently obvious political stunt given that (a) the military couldn’t even make arrests while they were there, and (b) the caravan was hundreds of miles away (and traveling on foot). Obviously, the whole thing failed to stop Democrats from flipping the House. But one would think that even this administration would understand it should see the stunt through a little while longer, so that it wasn’t, like, completely crystal clear that the president of the United States had turned members of the military into pawns in one of his cheap tricks. But: surprise!

The Pentagon is set to begin a drawdown of its 5,800 troops from the Southwest border as early as this week, the Army commander overseeing the mission told POLITICO today—even as the approaching caravan of refugees prompted U.S. customs officers to close a port of entry near Tijuana, Mexico.

All the active-duty troops that President Donald Trump ordered sent to the border before the midterm elections should be home by Christmas, said Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is running the mission from San Antonio, Texas.

[SergeStorms]

9. Trump is an extraordinary liar...

isn't he? He has a least one lie for every occasion, sometimes dozens.

[louzke9]

10. MUCH MORE RELEVANT....

Today, than first reported in 2018! It is part of the larger picture showing how Trump systematically uses and abuses the military for himself! They are a PROP. for the Trump campaign. As the article points out, $200,000,000 tax payer dollars used for a Trump "political STUNT"!

[onetexan]

4. Is it a tradition @WP that the POTUS is the annual graduation speaker?

I was thinking why the heck did they invite this SOB, knowing all he will do is use it as a bully pulpit to spread lives and political propaganda, not to mention self-aggrandisement.

[TomCADem]

6. CNN - Trump says he'll deliver West Point graduation speech to socially distanced crowd

This is the first time Trump has given a West Point graduation speech, but they need to do some campaign style events, so he ordered them all back so he could have another photo op.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/politics/donald-trump-west-point-commencement-speech/index.html

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that he will deliver a commencement speech to the graduating class at the US Military Academy this year.

"I'm doing it at West Point, which I look forward to. I did it last year at Air Force. I did it in Annapolis. I did it at the Coast Guard Academy and I'm doing it at West Point. And I assume ... they'll have (social) distancing. They'll have some big distance, so it'll look very different than it ever looked," Trump said Friday evening during a White House press briefing.

The President added that though he doesn't like "the look" of a socially distanced crowd, "eventually, next year, they'll have a commencement like it's been ... nice and tight."

West Point issued a statement Wednesday that said the Class of 2020 will return to campus to attend the ceremony, slated for Saturday, June 13, but the procession "will look different from recent graduation ceremonies due to current force health protection requirements" related to the coronavirus.

The school says they are still conducting an analysis to determine the size and scope of the ceremony. Trump's speech to the 2020 class will mark his first at a West Point graduation.

[louzke9]

11. TRUMP ASSUMES???

They will social distance! They WERE....at HOME. Who is he kidding? West Point wasn't going hold the ceremony except through a broadcast. Trump wants to convince us that he is only there to give a speech. This whole thing was SET UP, so Trump could do a campaign op! West Point released the students and they are now being dragged back to be used as PROPS, for Trump's ego. More about West Point Graduation Ceremonies.

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2020/06/09/2020-west-point-graduation-coronavirus-trump/5320893002/

[keithbvadu2]

7. "long sought to cultivate a close relationship with the military"

"long sought to cultivate a close relationship with the military"

by ridiculing all POWs because they had been captured.

[bluedigger]

8. I'm glad he's going to speak to them.

I think it's important for them to see what an idiot we have elected in person.

[Mustellus]

12. He's going to rename West Point .....

.. Fort Benedict Arnold, after General Arnold's famous plan to hand over that fort to the British.