All posts by Jim

Left HS before report cards came out. Enlisted in the Marines for four years. By the time those years were over, I was hooked - they had me for life. Spent nearly ten years as enlisted. Received a Silver Star, Bronze Star w/V, Purple Heart as a Sgt during first RVN tour. Upon returning to the State's received a combat commission to 2Lt. Retired after 36 total years as a Colonel. Book follows my career, but is more about the heroes with whom I served, the great mentors I had, and the leadership principles they instilled in me.

Thank You Lord!

 

 

I know you all have been waiting for this. LOL I had to wait to see what Greg said before I posted my personal thoughts on Tuesday. Truthfully I shut the TV down and went to bed around 2400. Just couldn’t handle it anymore; he was at 246. Woke up to pee at 0200; all that Scotch had to get out. Afterwards I went out to the living room and turned on the TV just for a peek, and at around 0218 FOX News gave the election to Trump. I wanted to go out and start up the motorhome and lay on the air horns and wake the entire neighbor-hood up. That morning I texted my neighbor and told her what I was thought of doing and she said: “I was awake and I would have come outside in my PJ’s screaming”

What is there to say? All the pollsters and the fourth estate (the so-called guardians of our democracy) all got it wrong. I shall have more to say later, but let me post Greg’s excellent article and read your comments.

Election hangover
By: Greg Maresca

Despite democrats posing as election officials, Dominion voting machines, the questionable
counting of votes, foreign interference, ballot box fires in several states, ballot stuffing, cyber tampering, and voting by illegal immigrants, the best possible outcome of a decisive victory – both with the popular vote and the Electoral College – was a stark and much needed reality.

Even with the outcome well in hand, Trump Derangement Syndrome will not go away as those infected can’t stand the thought of how Donald Trump is a quasar of politics. No one in American history has been attacked as relentlessly, by such a phalanx of powerful forces, and for as long as Donald Trump.

It would be nice to know just how many noncitizens voted but the nation’s fourth estate – its media – just ain’t interested and underscores just how the media continues to fail the American Republic.

What about the polls that got it wrong?

Pollsters almost always oversample democrats. When no one was looking, plenty voted for Trump understanding that the course the USS America was on was headed straight to oblivion and that a change was absolutely necessary.

Leading up to the election, Barack Obama was not too happy that some independent thinking Black men would actually vote Trump over Kamala Harris. This underscores how out of touch the bi-racial Obama is. You would think by now Obama would know that a good percentage of the brothers will take the fat, white, blonde every time.

Even the Amish turned out for Trump. If Harris had an advantage with the Amish it was, they were the only Americans not ticked off about the high price of gas as they rode their horse
buggies flying their Trump flags on the way to the polls in Pennsylvania.

During the campaign, plenty of RINOs were exposed that are too many to mention and played the part of the useful idiot extremely well.

I held my breath and not my nose when I voted. With Trump’s remarkable and victorious political comeback, he has plenty of work ahead and is now exclusively positioned to accomplish plenty. However, will the Left’s hostility of hatred, fear, and animosity toward Trump attempt to obstruct him from performing his duties and keep his life in the crosshairs? Rather than chaos and a drop in the markets hurting the American greenback, the nation refused to go the banana republic route.  The aftereffects had a distinct 2016 vibe as Trump peaked with the fall foliage.

Had those democrat honchos truly believed that Harris was leading in the polls; she would have remained sequestered. However, that was far from the case and Harris was compelled to appear time and again in public where she cannot help to expose herself as the incompetent DEI candidate she was. Her campaign was summed up in one sentence when she appeared on “The View” when she swung and missed with her slow-pitch softball of an interview when asked what she would do differently from President Joe Biden over the last four years. Harris was unapologetic and direct saying, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”  Game. Set. Match.

Harris won the democrat’s nomination for president without winning a single primary vote.

Perhaps the democrats will learn from this? To Harris’s credit, she did concede with dignity even though it was several hours after the fact.

If it’s any consolation to both sides of the aisle, all those political text messages and postcards will finally cease….

How any one with a brain and, at minimum cares even a tad about America, could cast a vote to a person who has never accomplished anything  in her lifetime is beyond me. But then; that’s the society within which we live today. I want to be Trump’s head of the DHS. LOL

Something tells me there will be a pile of bureaucrats looking for a job come Inauguration Day. I suspect Trump will retreat to his once TV Show, “You’re Fired!”

 

One More Reason

Jeh_Johnson_official_DHS_portraitwhy this fellow needs to find a new job, for he sure is screwing up the one he currently has, or is he. Maybe, just maybe, he’s following orders and doing just what he was put there to do. Who knows? You will not believe this this, trust me!

Secretary Jeh Johnson oversees the third largest Cabinet department and leads our nation’s efforts to secure our country from terrorism to natural disasters.

More than 800 immigrants mistakenly granted citizenship

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL | September 19, 2016 | 5:15 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birth dates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.

DHS said in an emailed statement that an initial review of these cases suggest that some of the individuals may have ultimately qualified for citizenship, and that the lack of digital fingerprint records does not necessarily mean they committed fraud.

The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth’s auditors said they were all from “special interest countries” — those that present a national security concern for the United States — or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries.

DHS said the findings reflect what has long been a problem for immigration officials — old paper-based records containing fingerprint information that can’t be searched electronically. DHS says immigration officials are in the process of uploading these files and that officials will review “every file” identified as a case of possible fraud.

Roth’s report said fingerprints are missing from federal databases for as many as 315,000 immigrants with final deportation orders or who are fugitive criminals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not reviewed about 148,000 of those immigrants’ files to add fingerprints to the digital record.

The gap was created because older, paper records were never added to fingerprint databases created by both the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI in the 1990s. ICE, the DHS agency responsible for finding and deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, didn’t consistently add digital fingerprint records of immigrants whom agents encountered until 2010.

The government has known about the information gap and its impact on naturalization decisions since at least 2008 when a Customs and Border Protection official identified 206 immigrants who used a different name or other biographical information to gain citizenship or other immigration benefits, though few cases have been investigated.

Roth’s report said federal prosecutors have accepted two criminal cases that led to the immigrants being stripped of their citizenship. But prosecutors declined another 26 cases. ICE is investigating 32 other cases after closing 90 investigations.

ICE officials told auditors that the agency hadn’t pursued many of these cases in the past because federal prosecutors “generally did not accept immigration benefits fraud cases.” ICE said the Justice Department has now agreed to focus on cases involving people who have acquired security clearances, jobs of public trust or other security credentials.

Several members of Congress criticized the Obama administration Monday in the wake of Roth’s report, though the report suggests that the gaps extend several years earlier than the Obama administration.

Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul said ICE should quickly investigate all of the cases at issue and ensure that all immigration fingerprint records are digitized in short order.

Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.

At least three of the immigrants-turned-citizens were able to acquire aviation or transportation worker credentials, granting them access to secure areas in airports or maritime facilities and vessels. Their credentials were revoked after they were identified as having been granted citizenship improperly, Roth said in his report.

A fourth person is now a law enforcement officer.

Roth recommended that all of the outstanding cases be reviewed and fingerprints in those cases be added to the government’s database and that immigration enforcement officials create a system to evaluate each of the cases of immigrants who were improperly granted citizenship. DHS officials agreed with the recommendations and said the agency is working to implement the changes.

___

Originally posted 2016-09-20 10:59:50.

Wanted: US military senior leadership with honesty and moral courage. Apply here.

The US Military – A Fish Rotting from the Head

I wish Mr. Starmann would really open up and not mince words or hold back. LOL

Ray Starmann served as an army intelligence officer in Germany during the last days of the Cold War. He is also a veteran of the Gulf War. Ray also wrote the Hallmark original movie, “Generation Gap” with Sean King.

The US Military – A Fish Rotting from the Head

By Ray Starmann

The US military is a fish rotting from the head; a politically correct, feminized, decrepit, nearly bankrupt force that is one step away from complete obliteration on the land, on the seas and in the air.  The military is decaying by the hour. Veterans know it, the troops know it, the military’s senior leaders know it, yet they do nothing as the floor gives way underneath them.  As long as we favor civilian leadership (per the Constitution) the Military top bass will have to play politics (LM)

From our commander-in-chief, to the Secretary of Defense, the secretaries of each service branch, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the admirals and generals, the US military is being led by a combination of leftists, feminists, selfish careerists and all around lackeys and yes men. Only compliant four-stars are picked for the top jobs (LM)

The current crop of senior leadership in the US Armed Forces has either green lighted, watched or turned away in embarrassment as every form of budgetary cut, equipment shortage, dimwitted national security directive and social engineering policy is hammered into the military like a thousand nails in a wooden coffin.

Obama's ArmyWe now have a military where Marine Corps planes don’t have spare parts, where Navy ships are decrepit and Naval air assets have less range than the planes Bush 41 flew in WWII; where Armor officers can’t run a tank range; where breastfeeding soldiers express milk in the field; where the slightest non-PC comment gets you a ticket to unemployed obamaland; where male ROTC cadets parade around in red high heels to express empathy for rape victims; where women are want to serve in the Navy SEALs and the US Army’s Delta Force; where fantasy and delusion have become standard operating procedures.

An example of the moral relativism wafting through the Pentagon like Sarin nerve gas are the comments made by General Mark Milley, the Army Chief of Staff, who sports Ranger and Special Forces tabs and who once served in the famous 5th Special Force Group. Milley told the nation and the world that women will serve in direct ground combat units and furthermore, he has no problem with young American girls being subject to a draft that could ultimately send them into direct ground combat units, aka the infantry.

We’re all supposed to nod in a semi catatonic state as a man who wore the famed Green Beret spouts out this absolute nonsense with a poker face. Unless Milley has become some kind of bleeding heart liberal, I doubt he believes anything he has said. What Milley does believe in is the greater good of Milley, just like Dempsey believed in the greater good of Dempsey.

And, look where that’s got us.

What’s in it for you General Milley, the Chairman of the JCS once General Joe pops smoke? What’s the price today for selling out America’s women to mass slaughter on a distant battlefield?

Tis the season of moral cowardice at the Pentagon and it’s quite reminiscent of the Vietnam era, when political perfumed princes (great image) skulked through the hallways of the Pentagon like mastodons; admirals and generals who cared more about their careers than about the troops and the nation they had sworn to serve.

Some point out that the military is subordinate to civilian authority. (I just did) They need to remain silent. (no thanks) I’ll say it again. Someone with a lot of stars on their shoulders is going to have to fall on their sword and resign. (that’s the spirit) When they do, they need to hold a press conference and tell the nation how a combination of the Obama White House and willing minions are demolishing the military by the hour. (now, who is first?)

But, this will never happen, mark my words.

A more realistic option is this:

The US military must be gutted from the top down by a President Trump. A President Trump must fire the Secretary of Defense, the secretaries of each service branch, the entire JCS and every admiral and general until he gets to a point where he’s cleaned out the perfumed princes, feather merchants, and narcissistic careerists who have run roughshod over the military in order to pursue their own goals.

The US Army was on the verge of self-destructing in the post- Vietnam years of the early and mid 1970’s. What saved it from imploding were the field grade officers and some tough and truthful general officers who maintained Army traditions and who rebuilt it from the bottom up; men like Dick Cavazos, Carl Vuono, Shy Meyer, Paul “Butch” Funk, Norman Schwarkopf and Fred Franks.

In 1974, the Army’s problems were at the bottom, not the top. The Army had soldiers who were thugs, gang bangers, druggies and race baiters. Race riots were common and officers were afraid to walk into a barracks without being armed.

The troublemakers were discharged, the new volunteer Army began to slowly attract motivated and better educated soldiers and with the election of Ronald Reagan money flooded into the lean green machine; resulting in new equipment like the M1 tank and funds for endless training at places like Hohenfels in Bavaria and on major NATO exercises like REFORGER. (I got to lead a dozen USNR war-gamers to Germany for that one – fun in 93 – Kaiserslaughten)

By 1990, the US Army was a magnificently trained and equipped fighting force. The men responsible for the military’s ascent were the senior leaders who had seen the military savaged by political generals and admirals.

General Fred Franks, an amputee, who rose to lead the VII Corps to victory in the Gulf War is a symbol for everything the Army’s senior leadership once stood for and doesn’t today; devotion to duty, honesty, moral courage and most importantly, putting the troops always above personal ambition.

During the Gulf War, a soldier in Third Armored Division noticed that General Franks looked very worried as he spoke to young soldiers. The soldier told General Franks, “Don’t worry General, we trust you.”

How many soldiers can say the same thing about their senior leadership today?

A young adult who enlists in the military must know that their leaders care more about them than their careers and retirement benefits and investment portfolios.

Wanted: US military senior leadership with honesty and moral courage. Apply here.

Originally posted 2016-09-19 15:01:49.

To the NFL commissioner

nflFirst of all, I find it interesting that this NFL logo, is plastered over our flag. How disturbing is that?

I do not know the author. I am sure he and I were within shouting distances many times throughout our careers. I could not have put on paper my frustrations with the society within which we live any better than he  did. Told only the way a Marine could do it. Up front and pulled punches.I am not done with the NFL. Oh, I’ll watch a game or two, but only when my team is playing  so I can make a list of the sponsors, whom I will immediately begin boycotting. Money talks folks You want to get the NFL’s attention, don’t buy any product that sponsors an NFL game. Then the companies withdraw their sponsorship, the broadcasting companies can’t sell their airtime, so they stop showing or cut back on games.T rust me it works.

That freak show they put on at last years’ Super Bowl was a sickening, anti-American society, racist piece of pathetic garbage I have ever seen. The world watched as we made fools of ourselves during a freaking football game. It would be laughable if it weren’t such a disgraceful snapshot of our America.

Commissioner,

I’ve been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.

I missed the ’90-’91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they’re something special! They’re not! My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this!

You’ll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an immediate stop to this. Yes, I know, it’s their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner. What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring.  I guess that’s much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National Anthem. Hmmmmm, isn’t it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK?   You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit, kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game! You condone it all by your refusal to act. You’re just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud  those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and carry rifles.
They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families. They don’t do it for an hour on Sunday. They do it  24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced. They don’t even have ice! Many don’t have legs or arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America. They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety.   On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

Col Jeffrey A Powers USMC (Ret)

Originally posted 2016-09-16 17:03:11.