[Mil History] THE NAME Martin James Monti may not carry the same measure of infamy in the United States as Benedict Arnold, the notorious turncoat of the War of Independence. Yet the obscure St. Louis, Missouri native does hold the dubious distinction as being the only known American serviceman to have willingly defected to the Nazis in World War Two.
In October of 1944, the 23-year-old U.S. Army second lieutenant stole an unarmed reconnaissance plane from an Allied airbase in southern Italy and flew it into enemy territory as part of a bizarre bid to change sides.
The child of German and Italian immigrants and raised in a staunchly anti-communist household, Monti became a firebrand critic of the western Allies’ support for the Soviet Union. In fact, despite enlisting in the Army Air Corps in November, 1942, the young flying officer saw Nazi Germany as the best hope for stopping what he saw as the real threat to world peace: Bolshevism.
Over the next year and a half, Monti hatched a brazen scheme to join the fight against the Red Menace by casting his lot in with the fascists.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Donald Trump signaled Sunday night that he intends to use Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter to his own advantage, linking it to his own prospective controversial pardon of January 6 defendants.
'Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!' Trump wrote, in his first public comment since Biden announced the pardon Sunday.
That came not long after Fox News commentator Charlie Hurt made the linkage.
'I think he should at least commute the sentences of all of them and pardoned every single one that was obviously just following the person in front of them wandering through the capital,' he said.
'Pardon every single one of them. There were some that did more than just that. And I think he should commute their sentences and let them all out! Every single one of them,' he said.
According to the Justice Department, 140 police officers were assulated during the attack on the Capitol, including 80 U.S. Capitol Police officers and 60 from DC's Metropolitan Police Department.
Trump repeatedly floated the idea of the pardons himself during his campaign. His new choice to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has also taken up the cause of January 6 defendants. He also played 'Justice for All,' a rendition of the national anthem as sung by January 6 defendants, at campaign rallies.
More than 1,200 people have been charged on January 6-related charges. Many battled with police officers. Others got charged with interfering with an official proceeding on a day Congress met to certify the electoral votes that made Joe Biden president.
'I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can't say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,' Trump said during a May 2023 CNN town hall. 'I would say it will be a large portion of them and it would be early on' in his term.
Trump has avoided specifics on which defendants he might pardon. Some were convicted of using explosives or using blunt force objects to batter police officers.
Trump did not directly criticize the president for the move, but his incoming communications director used it to punch back at what Trump calls the many 'witch hunts' against him. In yet another stunnign move last week, special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal judge hearing the January 6 election overturn case against Trump to dismiss the case now that Trump has been elected, citing his immunity under DOJ guidelines.
'Dismissal without prejudice is appropriate here,' Chutkan Tanya Chutkan wrote in her decision.
'Dismissal without prejudice is also consistent with the Government’s understanding that the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office,' she added.
Biden made the shock announcement Sunday night that he would issue a presidential pardon for his troubled son, calling his prosecution 'selective' and 'unfair.'
In a statement, a spokesperson for Trump slammed what they called the Democrat-controlled justice system but didn't appear to disagree with the decision.
In October, Trump, who issued a slew of pardons during his four years in office and on his way out the door in January 2021, weighed in on the Hunter Biden pardon issue, with a response that surprised many.
Asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt last month if he would consider pardoning Hunter Biden, Trump said, 'I wouldn’t take it off the books.
'See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what - and Hunter’s a bad boy, there’s no question about it, he’s been a bad boy.
'But I happen to think it's very bad for our country,' Trump said of what he considers politically motivated prosecutions and punishment which he likens to his own experience.
#2
Trump should commute almost all sentences, pardon most of them, and start prosecution of the government actors involved in instigating other crimes.
#3
Whether J6 was planned by the Feds needs to be answered. Whether there cheating in Fulton County needs to be answered. There can’t be a mulligan on treason.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/02/2024 12:27 Comments ||
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The Japanese auto firm which employs 7,000 people in the UK and 17,000 in the US has embarked on a huge cost-cutting programme after suffering heavy losses.
Nissan said last month it would axe 9,000 jobs and 20 per cent of its global manufacturing capacity, as it scrambles to reduce costs by $2.6billion (£2billion) in the current fiscal year amid a sales slump in China and the US, its two biggest markets.
Chief executive Makoto Uchida is taking a 50 per cent pay cut and it has now been reported that chief financial officer Stephen Ma is stepping down.
But insiders fear the moves may not be enough as Nissan struggles to stay competitive with rivals who have pushed ahead more successfully with popular hybrid cars.
The warnings come as a strategic deal signed with competitors Mitsubishi and Renault back in 1999, covering European, Japanese and US markets, could be ending.
Two anonymous 'senior officials' at Nissan have been quoted by the Financial Times as saying that Renault is now looking at reducing its financial stake in Nissan.
That could leave Nissan requiring cash backing from the Japanese or US governments over the next year to remain in business, according to the report.
[FoxNews] The US is competing with Russia and China to develop hypersonic weapons.
The Pentagon is in the process of fitting the first-ever shipborn hypersonic missile system to a U.S. stealth destroyer once considered to be defunct.
The USS Zumwalt is stationed at a Mississippi shipyard as it undergoes the retrofit. The U.S. Navy is installing missile tubes towards the vessel's bow, where two inactive gun turrets were once positioned. The turrets had never been activated due to cost.
"It was a costly blunder. But the Navy could take victory from the jaws of defeat here, and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform," Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, said of the Zumwalt's retrofit.
Hypersonic missiles hold a key advantage in contemporary warfare because they travel at such high speed that missile defense systems cannot reliably shoot them down.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to target Ukrainian government buildings in Kyiv with hypersonic missiles last week. Such missiles are also believed to be capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast.
Putin's announcement came after President Biden approved Ukraine to use U.S.-made ATACMs missiles on targets in Russian territory.
Putin claims Russia's production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, and that Moscow planned to ramp up production further.
#3
Proco, the problem here has been promising to deliver something that's basically just smoke, but "we can make it if you give us a bajillion dollars. Maybe."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/02/2024 15:55 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Mil History] THE NAME Martin James Monti may not carry the same measure of infamy in the United States as Benedict Arnold, the notorious turncoat of the War of Independence. Yet the obscure St. Louis, Missouri native does hold the dubious distinction as being the only known American serviceman to have willingly defected to the Nazis in World War Two.
