8 SECDEFs, 5 Joint Chief Chairs join together, decry ‘strained’ civilian-military relations in open letter

Eight former secretaries of defense and five former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff jointly signed an open letter released Tuesday declaring U.S. civilian-military relations under “extreme strain” and called for an urgent return to healthy civil-military principles.

The letter, first published by the national security publication War on the Rocks, began, “We are in an exceptionally challenging civil-military environment. Many of the factors that shape civil-military relations have undergone extreme strain in recent years.”

The letter was signed by former Defense Secretaries Ash Carter, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, and William Perry. Retired Gens. Martin Dempsey, Joseph Dunford Jr., Richard Myers, Peter Pace, and Adm. Michael Mullen – who are former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – also signed the letter.

The letter said that military leaders face “an extremely adverse environment characterized by the divisiveness of affective polarization,” and pointed to the events of Jan. 6, 2021 when “the peaceful transfer of political power was disrupted and in doubt.”

The letter explored president elections further, saying the military must support a president’s duty to protect the constitution while preparing for “whomever the voters pick” for the incoming president.

The leaders warned that the civilian-military environment is poised to “get worse before they get better,” and urge current leaders to be “vigilant and mindful” to carry on “healthy American civil-military relations.”

The letter went on to describe the “core principles” of civilian-military relations, noting that civilian control of the military was essential to the “bedrock foundation of American democracy.”

Among those core principles, the leaders remarked on mutual trust. “Trust upward that civilian leaders will rigorously explore alternatives that are best for the country regardless of the implications for partisan politics and trust downward that the military will...

Visage à trois #459

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #642

 

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #637

Biden’s ‘MAGA Republican’ Screed Gives Gatekeepers The Green Light To Purge Political Foes

From the official White House podium comes the message that it is now necessary to cut off ‘MAGA Republicans’ from every avenue of influence.

There are a lot of ways to analyze an address like the one Joe Biden gave last week from the steps of Independence Hall. One can view it from the perspective of its insane optics (the weird lighting and blood-red background call to mind Dante’s “Inferno”) to its inherently contradictory language (calling for unity while also calling half the country a “threat … to the very soul” of America).

But there is another, more practical matter: How does Biden expect this to end? Does he really think that using the office of the president to re-christen an entire group of Americans as extremists whose existence “threatens the very foundations of our republic” will somehow compel them to see the light, as it were? To step out of their red-colored haze, and vote Democrat? To suddenly reconsider the Senate run of failed presidential candidate Evan McMullin or to pour one out for future MSNBC contributor Liz Cheney?

Or by summoning the same language used to justify suppressing the speech rights of Americans in World War I, is he laying the predicate for something much darker?

One of the features of our current political realignment is the retrenchment of the so-called “elite” class into an intractable monolith: The people who sit atop our political, cultural, corporate media, and educational institutions all share the same exact values. They almost uniformly vote Democrat, they engage in ritualistic and performative displays of wokeness, they believe words are violence, and that there is no bigger threat to Our Democracy™ than Donald Trump voters.

When viewed through this lens, Biden’s speech takes on a much more pointed aim: a not-so-subtle directive to the oligarchy and the Democratic courtier class that “MAGA Republicans” are not just the embarrassing, demented, idiot rubes they are forced to share a country with. They are now officially the out-group — a rogue, extremist danger to themselves and others — and should be treated as such.

In tagging the 78 million people who voted for Trump as akin to domestic terrorists, Biden’s speech serves two codominant roles: to label half the...

Morning Mistress

The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1136

 

Before You Click On The "Read More" Link, 

Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.

If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.  

Please Leave Silently Into The Night......

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1836

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside? 

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific, 

from the beautiful to the repugnant, 

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed, 

you could be inspired, you could be appalled. 

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. 

You have been warned.

Hot Pick Of The Late Night

 

Girls With Guns

Visage à trois #458

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #641

 

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #640

A Microsoft Fellowship Caps the Number of White and Asian Applicants. Lawyers Say That’s Illegal.

It’s not just Google. Microsoft is capping the number of white and Asian students that universities can nominate for a prestigious research fellowship that includes a generous $42,000 stipend, part of a pattern of discriminatory policies sweeping corporate America.

The Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship allows participating universities to nominate up to four students annually. "At least two" of those four nominees, per Microsoft’s provisions, should "self-identify as a woman, African American, Black, Hispanic, Latinx, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQI+, active or veteran service member, and/or person with a disability."

It is illegal for companies to enter into contracts based on race under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits federally funded universities from discriminating based on race. The Microsoft fellowship likely violates both laws, according to Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a law professor at the University of San Diego.

A Microsoft spokesman, Rhoades Clark, declined to comment, telling the Washington Free Beacon that Microsoft "has nothing to share."

Until recently, IBM’s Ph.D. Fellowship Rewards Program used similar criteria. That program, which also allows four applicants per school, required that half of each university’s nominations go to "diversity candidates or underrepresented populations in technology."

But 24 hours after the Free Beacon contacted IBM for comment, the company scrubbed the quota-like language from its website, which now stipulates that schools "consider a diverse slate of candidates for the program." IBM did not respond to a request for comment.

The fellowships reflect the race-conscious consensus that has taken hold of Silicon Valley, where ostensible corporate competitors increasingly mimic each other’s policies. Like Microsoft and IBM, Google caps the number of white and Asian men that universities can nominate for a Ph.D. fellowship, using language almost identical to Microsoft’s. "If a university chooses to nominate more than two students," Google says, "the third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability."

That criterion has been in place since at least April 2020, according to an archived webpage. It is not clear when Microsoft and IBM adopted their criteria.

Nearly every elite university in the country has nominated students for one of the fellowships and some, like Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have nominated students for all three. Though universities are unlikely to lose federal funding over the fellowships, they could face lawsuits or civil rights investigations.

So could the companies themselves. Since the programs are not unconditional grants—fellows must remain in their Ph.D. program for the duration of the fellowships—courts would probably treat them as contracts, said Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project. That would expose Microsoft, Google, and IBM to liability under the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the law banning race discrimination in contracting.

Other tech companies are already facing such lawsuits. In July, a white woman filed a class action complaint against Amazon over a program that gives "Black, Latinx, and Native American entrepreneurs" $10,000 dollar stipends to launch delivery startups. The program violates the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the lawsuit...