03 June 21
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Michael Flynn's Ridiculous Defense of His Coup Comments, in Context
Aaron Blake, The Washington Post
Blake writes: "Stop me if you've heard this one before: Michael T. Flynn does something highly objectionable that undermines the U.S. government, in which he served. And then when pressed on it, he claims it's just a big misunderstanding, despite all evidence to the contrary."
It happened again this weekend, when Flynn momentarily promoted the idea of a Myanmar-style military coup in the United States.
But it follows plenty of other remarkably similar episodes in which he did essentially the same thing.
The most recent example involves the former Trump White House national security adviser’s comments to a QAnon-themed conference in Texas this weekend.
A questioner asked him why “what happened in [Myanmar] can’t happen here.” The question refers to the military of Myanmar, also known as Burma, launching a coup against the country’s pro-democracy civilian leaders.
After the audience cheered the idea of bringing that approach to the United States, Flynn responded that there was “no reason” such a thing couldn’t happen here.
“I mean, it should happen here,” he said, before repeating: “No reason.”
The comment led to all kinds of recriminations. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has denounced her party’s efforts to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, linked to a story about Flynn’s comments and said, “No American should advocate or support the violent overthrow of the United States.” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a retired Navy commander, said Flynn’s comments “border on sedition” and suggested that he be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Alas, Flynn is claiming that this is somehow a big misunderstanding.
“For all the fake news ‘journalists’: Let me be VERY CLEAR — There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort,” Flynn claimed on social media. He added: “I am no stranger to media manipulating my words and therefore let me repeat my response to a question asked at the conference: There is no reason it (a coup) should happen here (in America).”
The first problem with this is Flynn’s cadence. He’s essentially arguing that the quote, “No reason. I mean, it should happen here,” is actually “No reason … it should happen here.” That’s at least plausible if you’re just reading the text. As you’ll see from the video, though, he emphasized the “should” in a way that makes his intent rather clear.
The second reason is that Flynn has been down a very similar road before. In December, when President Donald Trump was contesting the results of the election, multiple reports indicated that Flynn had visited the Oval Office to discuss deploying the military to intervene. Trump responded by saying in a tweet, “Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!”
Except Flynn had pushed just such an idea even shortly before the Oval Office meeting. Flynn appeared on Newsmax and suggested deploying “military capabilities” to swing states to “rerun an election in each of those states.”
“People out there talk about martial law like it’s something that we’ve never done,” he said. “Martial law has been instituted 64 times.”
Is the guy who suggested imposing martial law to rerun an election really the guy who is aghast at the idea that he would support a coup to overturn the same election?
The episode also bears plenty of similarities to past Flynn controversies.
Chief among them were his actions shortly before he joined the White House — the thing for which he would later face a federal investigation and plead guilty to a crime. (He was eventually pardoned by Trump.) Flynn initially denied both federal investigators, The Washington Post and (apparently) the Trump White House that he discussed the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russia for its 2016 election interference with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the month before Trump took office — something that raised questions about whether he was undermining the Obama administration, potentially illegally.
Except those federal investigators had him on tape. Flynn’s team soon backed off its denial and said merely that he hadn’t recalled doing so. Trump said he fired Flynn for lying, although Flynn rather quickly found himself again in Trump’s good graces.
Perhaps the most illustrative example of where we find ourselves today with Flynn is with his more than dabbling in QAnon, an extremist ideology based on false claims.
In 2019, it was revealed that Flynn had signed a copy of his book with a QAnon slogan, “WWG1WGA” — shorthand for “Where we go one, we go all.” His son insisted that it had “ZERO to do with ‘Q.’”
“He was asked to write that,” Michael Flynn Jr. tweeted. “Enough of the conspiracy theories.”
But then Flynn last summer posted a video in which he took an oath featuring the same slogan. Again, this was somehow a big misunderstanding, apparently, and had nothing to do with QAnon.
“The slogan comes from an engraved bell on JFK’s sailboat — acknowledging the unity of mankind,” said Sidney Powell, Flynn’s attorney. “The oath is obvious — the federal oath in support of our Constitution. He wanted to encourage people to think about being a citizen. Don’t read anything else into it.”
But by December, Flynn’s online store was selling QAnon-themed T-shirts and hats. It was certainly the latest odd move by someone who supposedly had no intention of being associated with such things.
The through-line in all of this is Flynn doing things that undermine the U.S. government or seek to quite literally unseat those in power. At some point, you would think a man and a general who has gone through all of this would be more careful about the audience he courts, the things he says to it and the merchandise he sells.
Unless maybe it’s not the largest coincidence in modern American politics.
In March, people stand in front of an election campaign billboard for the Likud party showing a portrait of its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and opposition party leader Yair Lapid, in Ramat Gan, Israel. (photo: Oded Balilty/AP)
Israeli Opposition Lawmakers Say They're Ready for Parliamentary Vote to Replace Netanyahu
Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A diverse group of opposition lawmakers notified Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday that they have agreed on the terms of a power-sharing government that would replace Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister for the first time in 12 years."
READ MORE
The New York Times. (photo: Mario Tama/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Trump Justice Department Secretly Seized CNN Journalist's Phone Records
Trump DOJ Secretly Obtained Phone Records of 4 New York Times Reporters
Axios
Excerpt: "The Trump administration secretly seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters, the newspaper wrote Wednesday."
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Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. (photo: Getty)
Biden Calls Out Manchin, Sinema Lawmakers for Blocking Agenda
Alexandra Jaffe, Yahoo! News
Jaffe writes: "President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasn't enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights."
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In this photo illustration, a container of Johnson's baby powder made by Johnson and Johnson sits on a table on July 13, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty)
Supreme Court Upholds $2 Billion Judgement Against Johnson & Johnson
Associated Press
Excerpt: "The Supreme Court is leaving in place a billion verdict in favor of women who claim they developed ovarian cancer from using Johnson & Johnson talc products."
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Democrat Melanie Stansbury won overwhelmingly in a New Mexico special election. (photo: Getty)
Is a Democratic Landslide in New Mexico's Congressional Special Election a Sign?
Elliot Hannon, Slate
Hannon writes: "Democrat Melanie Stansbury won overwhelmingly in a special election for a suburban House seat in New Mexico on Tuesday, tallying 60 percent of the vote en route to a 25-point win over Republican state Sen. Mark Moores."
emocrat Melanie Stansbury won overwhelmingly in a special election for a suburban House seat in New Mexico on Tuesday, tallying 60 percent of the vote en route to a 25-point win over Republican state Sen. Mark Moores. That a Democrat won the race to fill the seat vacated by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is hardly surprising; the district swung to the left in 2008 and has turned out increasingly uncompetitive races over the past decade, including in 2020 where President Joe Biden carried the district by 23 points and Haaland won by 17 points. The timing of the race, however, gave the contest special importance as a potential barometer of support for the Biden agenda in a suburban district in a competitive presidential state far from Washington. National onlookers saw the margin of victory, rather than victory itself, as a key indicator of how the Democratic president’s policies were playing in the field.
The 25-point walloping appears to show that Democratic support for Biden is holding, as the party tries to hold onto its slim advantage in the House while simultaneously fighting against the American electorate’s habit of returning the opposition party to power in the House in the cycle after a newly elected president takes office. Stansbury’s opponent ran almost entirely on the rise in crime in the Albuquerque-based district in an effort to make the race a referendum on crime, a line of attack that is surely going to be front and center of the Republican election effort in 2022 amid elevated national crime rates on the tail of the pandemic.
Tuesday’s margin will calm Democratic nerves on the popularity of its agenda and the party’s vulnerability to crime-related campaign tactics, but the win does come with a number of caveats that make universal lessons a bit harder to parse. Democrats took far more interest and invested far more resources in the race as national Republicans largely stayed on the sidelines. Stansbury raised three times more money, allowing her to blanket the local airwaves, while receiving a wave of visits from high-profile Democrats to maintain enthusiasm.
Moraine Fire in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. (photo: NPS)
10% of the World's Mature Giant Sequoias Destroyed in Single California Wildfire
Associated Press
Excerpt: "At least a tenth of the world's mature giant sequoia trees were destroyed by a single California wildfire that tore through the southern Sierra Nevada last year, according to a draft report prepared by scientists with the National Park Service."
The Visalia Times-Delta newspaper obtained a copy of the report that describes catastrophic destruction from the Castle Fire, which charred 273 square miles (707 square km) of timber in Sequoia National Park.
Researchers used satellite imagery and modeling from previous fires to determine that between 7,500 and 10,000 of the towering species perished in the fire. That equates to 10% to 14% of the world’s mature giant sequoia population, the newspaper said.
“I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They’ve survived dozens of wildfires already,” said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
The consequences of losing large numbers of giant sequoias could be felt for decades, forest managers said. Redwood and sequoia forests are among the world’s most efficient at removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The groves also provide critical habitat for native wildlife and help protect the watershed that supplies farms and communities on the San Joaquin Valley floor.
Brigham, the study’s lead author, cautioned that the numbers are preliminary and the research paper has yet to be peer reviewed. Beginning next week, teams of scientists will hike to the groves that experienced the most fire damage for the first time since the ashes settled.
“I have a vain hope that once we get out on the ground the situation won’t be as bad, but that’s hope — that’s not science,” she said.
The newspaper said the extent of the damage to one of the world’s most treasured trees is noteworthy because the sequoias themselves are incredibly well adapted to fire. The old-growth trees — some of which are more than 2,000 years old and 250 feet (76 meters) tall — require fire to burst their pine cones and reproduce.
“One-hundred years of fire suppression, combined with climate change-driven hotter droughts, have changed how fires burn in the southern Sierra and that change has been very bad for sequoia,” Brigham said.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon have conducted controlled burns since the 1960s, about a thousand acres a year on average. Brigham estimates that the park will need to burn around 30 times that number to get the forest back to a healthy state.
The Castle Fire erupted on Aug. 19 in the Golden Trout Wilderness amid a flurry of lightning strikes. The Shotgun Fire, a much smaller blaze burning nearby, was discovered shortly afterward, and the two were renamed the Sequoia Complex.
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