An explanation of US military perspective and behavior re illegal orders [mil/US, Ω]

I found this intriguing. YouTuber KnittingCultLady, who is an Air Force veteran and author about two books on military culture from the standpoint of cults(!), put out this rather frustrated video clarifying how members of the military respond to illegal orders. The tl;dr is they will follow orders of ambiguous legality, and refuse to follow orders of obvious illegality, and what is obviously illegal may not be what civilians think.

2026 Jan 18: KnittingCultLady on YT: Some Examples of Recent Malicious Compliance from the Military, ALSO Listen Carefully To My Words:

Watch on YouTube

She doesn't put it this way, but it sounds from what she says that what makes something obviously illegal is that it resulted in a courtmartial or other nigh-universal condemnation when tried previously. Orders that are for doing things that are war crimes by the letter of the law but which did not result in prosecution or other negative consequences for the perpetrators when done in the past do not trigger the sense that they are illegal, e.g. if it was okay for Bush to seize Noriega, then clearly it must be legal for Trump to seize Maduro.

PSA: US, pay attention to weather [US, meteo]

Hey, Americans! Do you live around or south of the Mason-Dixon line? If so, your weather report for later this week is shaping up to be a bit exciting. Looks like Actual Winter will be visiting places that historically have been poorly prepared for this sort of thing, i.e. TX, the South, and the mid-Atlantic.

(Also eventually the NE, but a forecast of a few feet of snow is threatening us with a good time.)

H/t to the RyanHallYall YT channel. He's a well-reputed amateur, but his report is congruent with what I'm seeing in conventional weather reports:

Watch on YouTube

https://youtube.com/shorts/nh4JEVGWfFU

Good luck and remember running a charcoal grill in your living room is a dumb way to die.