Quote

Q. Mr. President, the Acting Secretary of the Navy told the crew of the USS Roosevelt that Captain Crozier was either, quote, “too naive or too stupid” to be in command. Is it appropriate for the Chief Officer of the Navy to be speaking this way about this captain? Is this the right way to —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven’t heard it exactly. I haven’t heard. I heard they had a statement that was made. If that were the statement — it’s a strong statement.

Look, the letters shouldn’t have been sent, and certainly they shouldn’t have been leaked. This is a military operation.

I must tell you, I’ve heard very good things about the gentleman — both gentlemen, by the way — I will say this. But about both gentlemen. And I may look into it only from the standpoint that something should be resolved, because I’m hearing good things about both people.

Q. What might you look into, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I may just get involved, if it’s okay with you.

Q. (Inaudible), you mean?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, because, you know what? You have two good people and they’re arguing. And I’m good, believe it or not, at settling arguments. I’m good at settling these arguments. So I may look into it in great detail — in detail. And I’ll be able to figure it out very fast.

But that was a statement — and it’s a rough statement. But look —

Q. Might you reinstate him if you decide it was —

THE PRESIDENT: Look — look, letters should not have been sent to many people, unclassified. That was a mistake. It’s a mistake that shouldn’t have been made, because it’s unfair to the families of the people on the ship because they get nervous. And it shows weakness. And there’s nothing weak about us now. Not anymore. We have the strongest military we’ve ever had. And we’re not going to be showing weakness to anybody because we have — that ship is incredible — nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. And we don’t want to be doing — writing letters. We don’t want to have letter-writing campaigns where the fake news finds a letter or gets a leak. We don’t want that.

So, the letter —

Q . Would you consider reinstating him —

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. So the letter shouldn’t have been sent. With all of that said, his career prior to that was very good. So I’m going to get involved and see exactly what’s going on there. Because I don’t want to destroy somebody for having a bad day. Okay? Does that make sense?[

Quote (Ghot @ 7 Apr 2020 23:13)

Yeah. It was another present from Obama. The soyboi brigades. Just what we need in our fighting forces. :/

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aZ7e5Zn_700b.jpg

Quote (thundercock @ Apr 7 2020 04:01pm)

Then you two are either too naive or too stupid to understand that Ghot knows what he's talking about.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 7 2020 05:25pm)

I'm not sure if this trend - if it even exists outside of my imagination! - was really caused by Obama. Might as well have been triggered by the disaster wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Or by the economic hardship many veterans faced in the wake of the Great Recession. Or it's due to the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity in the ranks which emerged irrespective from Obama. Or it's a result of the big partisan switcheroo that saw the Democrats in recent years become the party of pro-establishment, pro-status quo, pro-big government policies of all kinds, leading to them being increasingly embraced by the military-industrial complex - while the GOP has increasingly fallen out of favor with the MIC during the age of Trump, and in the light of the party's increasingly isiolationist stance.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 7 2020 03:58pm)

France has officially allowed the use of chloroquine:
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200324/france-allows-chloroquine-to-be-given-to-gravest-coronavirus-cases
https://www.france24.com/en/video/20200327-france-sanctions-use-of-chloroquine-for-certain-patients-with-coronavirus

Afaik, other states have since followed suit and also sanctioned its use.
Note that France gave it the green light right around the time Trump started really pushing this drug during his daily press conferences. And during the time he started casually mentioning its name, the French health minister was also starting to talk about it.

So whatever you think about Trump's approach, his promotion of this drug didnt come entirely out of the blue. I have to agree, however, that he was overpushing it, probably in the silly hope that this drug turns out to be a golden bullet against coronavirus. Which it most certainly isnt.

Quote (Surfpunk @ Apr 7 2020 04:07pm)

Yup.

https://www.stripes.com/news/in-speech-to-uss-roosevelt-crew-modly-calls-fired-captain-either-stupid-or-knowingly-negligent-1.625061

Quote (Santara @ Apr 7 2020 05:36pm)

My first CO was relieved for cause. He wasn't relieved by the SecNav either. We did a change of command ceremony, and he read his orders as "report to the Chief of Naval Personnel for further assignment."

Nobody came on board and trashed him on the 1MC.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 7 2020 04:06pm)

Perhaps its a generational divide? I'm by no means an expert on the inner workings of the US military - but from the outside, it to me feels as follows:

- until roughly 2000, the military was overwhelmingly conservative and overwhelmingly backed Republicans.
- somewhere between 2000 and 2010, this trend was broken among younger soldiers. nowadays, the military still clearly leans conservative, but over the last 10-20 years, the younger cohorts of the military have gotten more liberal and Democratic leaning (relative to their prior deep-red orientation) at a very rapid pace. among younger soldiers, I would guesstimate the partisan divide at something like 40:60 Dem:Rep, which is a huge shift from the situation just 2 decades earlier.

I might be talking nonsense here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's an interesting idea which would explain a lot of the observed dynamics.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday that he had accepted Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s resignation.

“This morning I accepted Secretary Modly’s resignation. He resigned on his own accord, putting the Navy and the Sailors above self so that the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, and the Navy, as an institution, can move forward,” Esper said in a statement.

Esper said that with President Donald Trump’s approval, Army Undersecretary Jim McPherson would take over as acting Navy Secretary.

Quote (Ghot @ Apr 7 2020 04:38pm)

Was he relieved because he wrote letters that magically leaked?