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.

Their Reply

Well, I received my reply, but not from Mr. Stuart,

Him:”He’s a busy man so he asked me to reply.”

Yeah right, I am sure he did.  Anyway, I got the reply I suspected I would get.

Him: “We did a survey to find out where we should advertise to inform the millions of veterans who do not know about USAA.”

Me: Okay, I buy that, and your survey told you to advertise on CNN? Who did the survey? How many of those millions of veterans do you personally believe watch CNN?

Him: “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Me: Sir, you do realize that when you advertise on a particular show/event/special broadcast, you are in effect endorsing it? You may think you are, but how often do Americans write or call the advertiser when they are disgusted with a particular show? You know the saying about: Money talks, and something walks?

He was very cordial, polite, and a listener; well-trained, which I would expect nothing less from his station in the organization. However, I refused to budge an inch. I continued to express my displeasure with their advertising on ANY news program considering the plethora of displeasure Americans are expressing against the MSM in general. Especially in these trying times since the election and their bashing the duly elected president, and the deep divide in our country.

He did say that they are rethinking CNN after the problems created by the leaking of questions in the debate. I don’t know if he was saying that to try to appease me or not. But he assured me, he would express my thoughts with the folks responsible for where they spend advertising dollars, which I jumped in to remind him those funds are “our” money. He agreed.

I recommended all the NCAA sports e.g. woman’s basketball, WNBA, NHL, soccer, etc. He agreed, and never thought of the NCAA women’s sports. Once again he promised to mention my thoughts and ideas to the responsible people. I hope he does, but…?

So, will I leave USAA? No, but they have stepped down a tad from the very high pedestal where I had them for 43 years. Several of the responses I recv’d from you stated how much you loved USAA, and I could not agree with you more; they are my only financial company and have been for eons. But even the greatest of champions misstep now and then. I am a patriot, probably the most patriotic person you have ever known, and I am not a member of the so-called “silent majority.” I don’t know if I am even part of the “majority,” but I do know I am far from being “silent”.

Originally posted 2017-02-17 16:00:26.

Islamic Group Turns Down Trump Money to Fight Terrorism

Well, we taxpayers have just saved $800,000. That was easy. They accepted the money offered by their “brother,” but now reject it from President Trump. It’s amazing how he keeps on saving us money! However, what is disturbing about all this is their mission: “to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence.” Really? How about bringing your community into America by accepting our values and laws, and helping us to fight terrorism?

 

A California Islamic school has become the fourth Muslim group to turn down federal funds to fight terrorism under President Donald Trump’s administration, funds they had been receiving under a program developed by former President Barack Obama.

The Bayan Claremont graduate school’s board made the decision to turn down $800,000 in federal funds made available via the Department of Homeland Security through a program created under Obama known as countering violent extremism, or CVE. Officials say the program is aimed at fighting terrorism by attempting to undermine extremists’ abilities to recruit terrorists around the world. Fox News reports the rejection of the funds was borne of a desire to disassociate from Trump.

[T]he fledgling school’s founding president, Jihad Turk, said “officials ultimately felt accepting the money would do more harm than good.”

“It’s “a heck of a lot of money, (but) our mission and our vision is to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence,” Turk said. “And if we’re compromised, even if only by perception in terms of our standing in the community, we ultimately can’t achieve that goal,” he said, adding that accepting the funds would be short-sighted.

Originally published by The Blaze.

Originally posted 2017-02-15 08:09:37.

Rescuing The Frog

As with much of the stuff sent to me by compatriots, I do not know who wrote this. And that’s a shame because I really do like to attribute excellent pieces to the rightful author. If anyone knows the author, please let me know. This is a well written piece by someone who is obviously knowledgeable, well versed, and intelligent. Globalism is something we don’t hear many people talking about, especially the silly MSM, probably because they haven’t a clue what it means or entails. Here is an excellent primer. Bravo Zulu to whoever wrote this fine piece.

                                                                     

I have no idea what Donald Trump will do as president except that, in general, he will tear down the insidious, liberty-sapping globalist infrastructure put in place by globalists on both the left and right. We all know the story of putting a live frog in a pot of cold water and slowly heating the pot until the frog, not realizing he is being boiled, is cooked. 

Over the past 50 years, globalists of both parties, have been slow cooking the American frog.   Who are globalists?  They are people who believe that the world is, with technology, becoming increasingly smaller.  Consequently, they believe in the ever increasing consolidation of governing power in fewer and fewer hands.  They are the same people who, in the United States have turned the government on its head, taking governing power from the states whenever possible and vesting it in the federal government.

They are people who would take power from the Congress and vest it in the President thus taking power from the people.  They are the people who, as in Europe, believe that sovereign governments like Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Germany should cede their governing power to a more centralized government, like the EU in Brussels.  They are people who believe that sovereign government and governments like the EU should then cede their power to a United Nations.  Slowly, over 50 years, the world has been moving in these directions.

Their ultimate goal is to take power from the many and invest it a few, chosen from among the elite who, they believe, know better how the world should be.   They have achieved their goals through a reasonable first step, open trade among sovereign nations. But once borders are open for trade, they advance their agenda through increasingly open borders for migration and population redistribution. 

They use agendas like climate change and sustainability to redistribute the wealth of nations and to control their economies.  They control the language people are permitted to use so that certain concepts and issues cannot reasonable be addressed.  They impose regulations that deny individual freedom under the notion of the “common good”.  They overturn the rule of law and attempt to establish in its place “social justice”.   They take religious conviction out of the public square and replace it with moral relativism and situational ethics.   They have translated equality of opportunity into equality of outcome.  They have reconfigured spiritual equality of human beings with material equality of possessions.   They have changed the notion of individual responsibility into group responsibility.  And they have confused discrimination with being discriminating.  For 50 years, these changes have slowly been boiling the American frog.  

Now Donald Trump has upset the apple cart.  And he is being vilified with every action he takes and every word he speaks.  He is in a fight before he even becomes president.  But this political fight is not a fight between Republicans and Democrats nor a fight between the Establishment and the Forgotten Man, nor any of the other media created divisions asserted by pundits.  The fear and outrage we are witnessing toward Trump is precisely because he has pledged to tear down the globalist infrastructure. You can’t blame younger people, for example, for being upset.  It’s all they have known and been taught.  They have no idea how the globalist agenda has weakened the United States in order to make her the equal of other nations.

They are now being told that the rules under which they have operated for most of their politically conscious lives might be over-turned.  It is exactly the way most older Americans felt as Obama spent the last 8 years making everything seem upside down to us.  The difference is that we older folks have lived under both systems and know the difference.  We understood because we lived witness to the heat being turned up on the kettle.  We felt the water beginning to boil.  And, instead of being comforted and lulled to sleep by the warming water, we remembered how cool and refreshing was the pond water that allowed us greater freedom.  And we jumped out.  We jumped with Trump (some of us).

So, Trump’s poll numbers will be low because globalists, foreign and domestic, are aligned against him.  They see 50 years of “slow boiling the frog” about to be over-turned.  The frogs are trying to escape the pot.  They see: freedom and business-killing regulation…gone, a failing, socialist healthcare system…repealed, religious freedom and religion itself…restored, the international globalist world order…redefined, national sovereignty taken from the hands of international bodies like the United Nations, and national borders restored and immigration laws enforced, thereby destroying the George Soros funded open borders that are the very foundation of their globalist agenda.

These things and more threaten the very existence of the globalist world view.  They will bring about change that will be resisted mightily by the very people who have imposed tremendous change on the United States in recent years.   They will attempt, as they have already, to delegitimize Trump, to frighten the uninformed with visions of Hitler and fascism, to tell people that they will be oppressed by a dictator.  They will try to further divide the nation by race, gender, age sexual orientation, suggesting they will all be harmed by this president.  In effect, they are telling the frogs not to jump out of the kettle where it is warm and comfortable and where we are all in it together.  “Don’t jump out into that cold cruel world where there are snakes that can eat you up.  Beware the snakes.  Stay in here where you are nice and comfortable and where WE will protect you from the snakes.   Perhaps they are correct that it is safer in the pot for now but I have no doubt that in the long run, we will be “cooked”. 

In the near future, there will be obstruction and a concerted effort by globalists of both parties to undermine the new administration because their plan, at least temporarily, has been derailed. Against this desperation driven fear and anger, I hope and pray Trump can prevail.  But I certainly don’t expect if he does, that it will be with any cooperation from those who oppose him because they operate on the false belief that they will lose more than they will gain.  Those who seek to take power from the people and consolidate it in the hands of the few are frustrated at this point in history.  The people who have been taught that the globalist agenda is best for everyone do not recognize that what is best for everyone is good for no one.   After the past 50 years of being the frog getting slow boiled in the pot of globalism, you can’t really blame them. Trump is taking them and the nation out of the pot.  The only thing that may change their minds is if they see that being taken out of the pot didn’t deprive them of a nice warm home but actually saved their lives.

 

Originally posted 2017-02-14 16:05:39.

Are you a USAA member – Reply 1

I recv’d a brief reply from USAA, but only to let me know they kicked it upstairs. Here it is:

Dear Colonel Bathurst,

Your email addressed to Mr. Parker was received by CEO Member Relations.  Feedback from our members is important to us, and we are always interested in ways we can improve our products and services.  Your comments will be shared with the appropriate area for review, and our business specialist will follow-up with you directly within two business days.  We appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns.

Thank you,
Eric L
USAA

 

Originally posted 2017-02-11 16:21:16.

Are you a USAA Member?

I just sent the following message to my once-favorite American Corporation. I have my principles as I thought they did as well. Who knows what’s next – press one for English?

 

This message is meant for Mr. Stuart Parker, our CEO, and I will recognize a reply from no one except him for I believe I deserve no less. I have been a loyal member of USAA since 1974 when I, as a SNCO became eligible to join. I always considered USAA to be the MOST respected company in America, and during my thirty-six years as a Marine have probably been responsible for 100’s of Marines and sailors joining our organization. You are my bank, my investment broker, and my insurer. My five children are USAA members, as are my nine grandchildren. However, I have reached a point where I am seriously considering going back to Navy Federal for banking and mortgage help, to another brokerage house for my investment, and back to Geico for insurance.

Why? This morning I was attempting to find FOX News and happen to mistakenly click on CNN and found myself in the middle of an ad from USAA. Imagine my dismay that my once admired and highly respected company would spend “our” funds to advertise on such a biased and unethical organization that has been caught violating ethical standards and rules by their employees, e.g., leaking debate questions to a candidate. I watch FOX because, in my opinion; they are the “least” biased of all the TV news outlets. Obviously, you are free to advertise where you feel USAA will get its best bang for the least buck, but I would also expect you to consider the fallout for your choices as well. This missive will appear on my social media sources and my blog as well. I have a tough decision ahead of me now. Sign me as a highly disgruntled long-time member

Jim Bathurst 

PS If I get a reply from the “correct” person, I promise to post it as a follow-up. Should prove interesting.

Originally posted 2017-02-11 11:46:50.