Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

Drudge Retort

User Info

Doc_sarvis

Subscribe to Doc_sarvis's blog Subscribe

Menu

Special Features

Wednesday, October 01, 2025

Adam Serwer: Jury nullification is an old weapon against tyranny. ... When Trump tries to indict his political enemies on pretextual grounds, grand jurors have the option of refusing to indict. When prosecutors ask for a conviction, jurors can refuse to convict. The Trump administration can treat this government of the people as his own mob enforcers, but the people need not acquiesce. When Trump abuses his power to settle political scores, the people can choose to nullify.


One of MAGA's most outspoken proponents is turning on the White House over its handling of the Epstein files. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene"a longtime ally of the president and a standout feature of his sweeping national ideology"was reportedly infuriated by the Trump administration's hostility toward legislation supporting the unfettered release of the files. But it was a direct threat from the White House over her own support for their release that prompted her to phone a West Wing official. "I told them, You didn't get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,'" Greene recalled to The New York Times. "We aren't supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they're telling us what to do ... or saying, We'll primary you,' or that we won't get invited to the White House events." read more


Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Trump on Tuesday told a gathering of military leaders they should use American cities as "training grounds" and described a federal crackdown on crime in major cities as "a war from within." Trump addressed dozens of top generals and admirals in Quantico, Va., where he said defending the homeland was the military's "most important priority." He signaled that the leaders in the room could be tasked with aiding in federal interventions in Democratic-led cities like Chicago and New York City. "They're very unsafe places, and we're going to straighten them out one by one," Trump said. "And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within." read more


Sunday, September 28, 2025

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: Trump's claims about autism deserve as little oxygen as possible, but it's been a depressing, infuriating week for many autistic people and those of us who love them. read more


Saturday, September 27, 2025

Former Fox & Friends weekend cohost and current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is dragging several hundred senior U.S. generals and admirals from around the world to Quantico next week for a pep rally on the "warrior ethos." read more


Comments

Nichols points out:

This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called "---- bait for the Bubbas" and that George Orwell might have called "prolefeed." It's one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump's rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.

But American officers have never had to contend with a president like Trump. Plenty of presidents behaved badly and suffered mental and emotional setbacks: John F. Kennedy cavorted with secretaries in the White House pool, Lyndon Johnson unleashed foul-mouthed tirades on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Nixon fell into depression and paranoia, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden wrestled with the indignities of age. But the officer corps knew that presidents were basically normal men surrounded by other normal men and women, and that the American constitutional system would insulate the military from any mad orders that might emerge from the Oval Office.

Likewise, in Trump's first term, the president was surrounded by people who ensured that some of his nuttiest"and most dangerous"ideas were derailed before they could reach the military. Today, senior U.S. officers have to wonder who will shield them from the impulses of the person they just saw onstage. What are officers to make of Trump's accusation that other nations, only a year ago, supposedly called America "a dead country"? (After all, these men and women were leading troops last year.) How are they supposed to react when Trump slips the surly bonds of truth, insults their former commanders in chief, and talks about his close relationship with the Kremlin?

Drudge Retort
 

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy