the country is moving in many unknown directions all at once and we may not like where it lands;

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy"

- Constitution of the United States, Article 2, Section 2

I found the following news via a piece at Ian Welsh’s site, and it struck me as important. While I don’t want to overplay what it implies, I don’t want to underplay it either.

An American Coup?

In a 30-minute interview with Judge Napolitano on September 18, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and critic of America’s wars, described a recent event in which Pentagon chief Gen. Lloyd Austin told President Biden that, in Wilkerson’s words, “the Pentagon has taken over, essentially, diplomacy as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war,” meaning Ukraine and Israel.

Wilkerson added, “And so they're now in charge.” Austin, according to this telling, listened “to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth” and forced the President to back down.

Biden was furious, we’re told, but “took that advice.” Except, as Wilkerson tells it, it wasn’t advice, but instruction. “No dice,” as Wilkerson characterized the message, sounds pretty final.

This is good news and bad news. The good, U.S. policy is now:

• To Netanyahu, if you invade Lebanon or attack Iran, you’re on your own.

• To Zelenskyy, no to long range missiles reaching deep into Russia.

So we and the world are safer, at least for a while.

The bad: Is this a coup? Has the military stood up to the President, forced him to change policy?

If the answers are yes, we’re on our way once more to revising the Constitution-as-practiced. Both political parties have already confirmed that the Fourth Amendment can be ignored. That’s now the “new normal.” So what’s this encroachment of the Pentagon into foreign policy, if not another “new normal”? Has MacArthur finally won?.........more.........