Fred Kaplan at Slate says yesterday’s op-ed by retired admiral William McRaven is a big deal.

One former senior intelligence official who read the op-ed sent me an email: “Takes my breath away. This is BIG!!!” Another wrote, again on background, that fellow officers—retired and active-duty—will take this as a sign of a major rupture in civil-military relations, brought on by Trump’s blatant disrespect for national security officials and the entire security system.

Which has to be alarming for people in the military. The guy at the top who can unilaterally make things happen is a flaming lunatic and egomaniac – yes that’s pretty scary.

Then, late on Thursday night, 12 former CIA directors and deputy directors released a similar statement. By coincidence, the statement was written a few hours before McRaven’s op-ed appeared, according to two of the organizers.

The intelligence officials stopped short of asking Trump to revoke their clearances—that idea hadn’t come up in conversation. But like McRaven, they defended Brennan’s integrity and denounced Trump’s action as having “nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”

The statement went on: “We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case,” adding that “this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials” to stay silent. It noted that some of the signatories agree with Brennan’s long string of critical statements about Trump, while others do not. However, they all agree that decisions on security clearances “should be based on national security concerns and not political views.”

Plus, again, the views aren’t political so much as moral. Trump is a bad man and that wouldn’t change if he switched parties.

The ex-officials include William Webster, Porter Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, and John McLaughlin (those who served Republicans); Leon Panetta, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. James Clapper, Michael Morell, Avril Haines and David Cohen (those who served Democrats); and George Tenet, and Stephen Kappes (who served presidents of both parties).

More significant, seven of the 12—Webster, Goss, Hayden, McLaughlin, Clapper, Morell, and Kappes—were career intelligence officials. One, Petraeus, was a career combat commander. [Update, Aug. 17, 2018, 12:10 a.m.: Just before midnight, a 13^th ex-director, Robert Gates—another career CIA official who has served under several presidents of both parties—added his name to the statement. He had been inaccessible, until then.]

One of the signers told me that some who signed the statement did so reluctantly, given the long-standing principle that intelligence and military officers should remain apolitical. However, the consensus was that Trump’s behavior has gone beyond the pale.

Again – it’s not political. Firing people because they criticize you isn’t a matter of party allegiance, it’s a matter of crazed reckless narcissism. Trump holds a political office but what’s wrong with him is moral rather than political.

I’m going to give the statement its own post. It needs room to breathe.

Trump has canceled his fascist parade and blamed the DC government for making it too expensive.

President Trump on Friday canceled plans for a military parade this fall in Washington, blaming local officials for inflating the costs and saying they “know a windfall when they see it.”

Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, pushed back on Twitter, saying that she had “finally got thru” to the president to convey the “realities” of what it costs to stage events like military parades in the city.

She put the number at $21.6 million, though the city’s costs are just a fraction of the total, with federal agencies also kicking in millions of dollars. A day earlier, the Pentagon said Mr. Trump’s parade to celebrate the military could be postponed to 2019, as officials acknowledged that the event could cost more than $90 million.

And what would all that money be for? Nothing. A treat for Trump, and a threat to the rest of us – which is not nothing but it’s also not something we should have to pay for. It would be for nothing in the sense of a reasonable goal or purpose.

Mr. Trump, who enjoys military history, called last year for a parade of troops, tanks, jets and other equipment to pass through the streets of the nation’s capital. Early cost estimates for the fanfare ranged from $10 million to $30 million; CNBC first reported the new $90 million figure.

Nicely sly wording. Trump doesn’t study or pursue or research military history, he doesn’t even read it, he “enjoys” it – meaning, he likes to watch displays of military hardware. That’s not actually military history, of course, it’s just shopping.

Mr. Trump was impressed by a Bastille Day parade that he attended in Paris in July 2017. The city is scheduled to hold its annual Armistice Day parade in November. It was not immediately clear which parade the president plans to attend at Andrews.

The president had hoped to have military tanks and jets at his own inauguration parade, but he was told he could not.

The last time a similar parade was held in Washington was in 1991, celebrating the end of the Persian Gulf War. It cost about $12 million, or about $22 million in today’s dollars.

Mr. Trump’s dream of a military parade with tanks barreling down the streets and fighter jets flying above him has faced resistance. Critics have said these parades typically mark a victory in a war. Others have said it may not be the best use of the Defense Department’s money.

I wish this stupid infant would just go away.

David Ignatius asks:

What was so threatening about the former CIA chief? Beyond Brennan’s sheer cussedness, I’d guess that Trump was frightened — and remains so to this day — about just how much Brennan knows about his secrets. And by that, I don’t just mean his dealings with Russian oligarchs and presidents but the way he moved through a world of fixers, flatterers and money launderers.

Hmm, yes, Brennan probably does know a lot about Trump’s secrets. So…it wasn’t particularly clever to piss him off further, was it.

Brennan, like Comey, was there at the beginning of this investigation. Trump must have asked himself: What does Brennan know? What did he learn from the CIA’s deep assets in Moscow, and from liaison partners such as Britain, Israel, Germany and the Netherlands? Does Trump think Brennan will be a less credible witness without a security clearance?

Well, he’s dumb enough. He’s dumb enough to think that removing the security clearance actually removed the knowledge from Brennan’s brain.

The retired admiral who oversaw the raid that killed bin Laden tells Trump to take away his security clearance too.

Dear Mr. President:

Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.

Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.

He says he had hoped when Trump was elected he would rise to the occasion and become a great leader.

A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.

Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.

If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.

Which will be never. He couldn’t if he wanted to – he doesn’t have the faintest idea how, or the qualities that would enable him to learn how. He’s bad quality all the way down.

Trump has always called women dogs, so lighten up already. Gail Collins is one of those women:

Hey, it was long ago, but it still comes up. Particularly now that we’re making lists of all the women our president has ever compared to a canine. Back when I worked for New York Newsday, he sent me a copy of a column I’d written, scrawled with objections, along with an announcement that I was “a dog and a liar” and that my picture was “the face of a pig.” At the time, he was only a flailing real estate developer trying to make a deal with the city, yet it still seemed so weird that at first I wondered if it might be a joke, or some enemy of Trump’s trying to embarrass him. But no, it was a missive from the man himself.

She thought it couldn’t be at first because normal adults don’t act like that. Period. An adult who sends personal abuse to a total stranger is badly broken somewhere. Trump has always been badly broken.

This week, of course, Trump referred to his ex-friend Omarosa in a tweet as “that dog.” I am going to go out on a limb and say that when the president of the United States insults a woman that way in a public statement, it’s a little bit more of an issue.

One that will never go away. As the temperatures rise and the forests burn and the crops fail, it will still be the case that the US once had a hateful bully as a president.

One of the worst things about this moment in our national lives is the fear that if Trump gets into trouble for doing something dumb and obnoxious, he’ll respond by doing something huge and maybe dangerous. Have you heard that Stormy Daniels is going to be on the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother”? What happens if she tells that story about a hotel room spanking session to a house full of smirking Europeans? He could declare a war.

Or not even declare a war but just do a Pearl Harbor and drop a few nukes on someone.

During the campaign Trump continually pointed out that he went to the Wharton School of Business. (“It’s like super genius stuff.”) That gave many people the impression he’d gotten the high-prestige Wharton M.B.A., but he was really just a transfer student into the undergraduate program. Skeptics suggested he only edged his way in because of family connections. He graduated without any honors or distinction, and went on to publish a best-selling memoir that was written by somebody else.

I’m betting there were no dogs in it.

Trump is triggered. His people have been telling him to ignore Omarosa and her book, which tells us that they’ve confused him with someone else.

Now advisers fear his rage at Manigault Newman is fueling irrational outbursts that bolster the claim in her book that Trump said the “n-word” during an Apprenticeouttake.

Irrational outbursts? Trump?? Surely not. It’s people like Brennan and Comey who go in for that kind of thing; Trump says so himself.

In recent days, Trump has called Manigault Newman “crazed,” a “lowlife,” and a “dog” on Twitter. His campaign filed an arbitration suit against her seeking “millions.” And Trump told advisers that he wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to have Manigault Newman arrested, according to one Republican briefed on the conversations. (It’s unclear what law Trump believes she broke.)

No it isn’t! It’s perfectly clear: it’s the law against saying a single harsh word about Trump.

Another Republican recounted how over the weekend Trump derailed a midterm-election strategy session to rant about Manigault Newman’s betrayal.

Look. Election strategy is about other people as well as Trump. Manigault Newman’s “betrayal” is solely about Trump. Which one do you think he’s going to rant about? Let’s stay on our toes here.

One Trump person said it’s a death spiral. That would be good.

Vox gives us Sarah Sanders’s disgusting performance “explaining” Trump’s attack on Brennan.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, reading a statement from the president during the daily press briefing on Wednesday, cited Trump’s “constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information” as justification for his decision to revoke Brennan’s clearance.

“Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations — wild outbursts on the internet and television — about this administration,” Sanders said, reading the president’s statement.

“I’m not a reckless lunatic, you’re a reckless lunatic!” Trump is the guy who goes in for wild outbursts on Twitter and at his “rallies” and on the global stage; Brennan talks soberly and seriously about the danger Trump is to all of us.

Fmr. Deputy National Security Adviser to President Obama, Ben Rhodes tells @AliVelshi that what John Brennan says on his Twitter account "should have absolutely no bearing on his fitness to maintain his security clearance." pic.twitter.com/vG0i2IFyON

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 15, 2018