From Michael Goodwin of the New York Post

Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.

The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand-in-hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations.

The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.

The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.

Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang, suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.

By torching its remaining credibility in service of Clinton, the mainstream media’s reputations will likely never recover, nor will the standards. No future producer, editor, reporter or anchor can be expected to meet a test of fairness when that standard has been trashed in such willful and blatant fashion.

Liberal bias in journalism is often baked into the cake. The traditional ethos of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable leads to demands that government solve every problem. Favoring big government, then, becomes routine among most journalists, especially young ones.

I know because I was one of them. I started at the Times while the Vietnam War and civil-rights movement raged, and was full of certainty about right and wrong.

My editors were, too, though in a different way. Our boss of bosses, the legendary Abe Rosenthal, knew his reporters leaned left, so he leaned right to “keep the paper straight.”

That meant the Times, except for the opinion pages, was scrubbed free of reporters’ political views, an edict that was enforced by giving the opinion and news operations separate editors. The church-and-state structure was one reason the Times was considered the flagship of journalism.

Those days are gone. The Times now is so out of the closet as a Clinton shill that it is giving itself permission to violate any semblance of “evenhandedness” in its news pages as well as its opinion pages.

A recent article by its media reporter, Jim Rutenberg, whom I know and like, began this way: “If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?”

Whoa, Nellie. The clear assumption is that many reporters see Trump that way, and it is note­worthy that no similar question is raised about Clinton, whose scandals are deserving only of “scrutiny.” Rutenberg approvingly cites a leftist journalist who calls one candidate “normal” and the other ­“abnormal.”

Clinton is hardly “normal” to the 68 percent of Americans who find her dishonest and untrustworthy, though apparently not a single one of those people writes for the Times. Statistically, that makes the Times “abnormal.”

Also, you don’t need to be a ­detective to hear echoes in that first paragraph of Clinton speeches and ads, including those featured prominently on the Times’ Web site. In effect, the paper has seamlessly ­adopted Clinton’s view as its own, then tries to justify its coverage.

It’s an impossible task, and Rutenberg fails because he must. Any reporter who agrees with Clinton about Trump has no business covering either candidate.

It’s pure bias, which the Times fancies itself an expert in detecting in others, but is blissfully tolerant of its own. And with the top political editor quoted in the story as ­approving the one-sided coverage as necessary and deserving, the prejudice is now official policy.

It’s a historic mistake and a complete break with the paper’s own traditions. Instead of dropping its standards, the Times should bend over backwards to enforce them, even while acknowledging that Trump is a rare breed. That’s the whole point of standards — they are designed to guide decisions not just in easy cases, but in all cases, to preserve trust.

The Times, of course, is not alone in becoming unhinged over Trump, but that’s also the point. It used to be unique because of its adherence to fairness.

Now its only standard is a double standard, one that it proudly ­confesses. Shame would be more appropriate.

You Can’t Subsidize Freedom

A Cato Institute study finds that New York is the least free of the 50 states because of its high tax burden, huge debt and regulatory stranglehold. Another factor is business subsidies, which are almost four times the national average.

At first blush, that one might sound like a good thing. Don’t we want businesses to create jobs, and shouldn’t the state help by subsidizing employers?

Yes, and no. A current housing example proves the point.

A program called 421-a provided a property-tax break to developers in exchange for lower rents on some apartments. It lapsed last January, and a bid to revive it has the state adding another layer of incentives.

The measure reportedly proposes that laborers get at least $50 an hour in wages and benefits, with the state paying 30 percent of it in less ritzy parts of the city.

Here’s the catch: Where does the state subsidy money come from? Other taxpayers — that’s where.

With the state already projecting a budget deficit, other tax hikes might follow, which would make living here even less affordable.

In essence, then, the state and city already have such high taxes that, to get affordable housing, they must take money from other people to subsidize both developers and workers.

What does any of this have to do with free markets and capitalism? Nothing. Which is why Cato is exactly right that New York has a freedom deficit.

Clinton and Bratton’s Political Play

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton emerged from a meeting with Hillary Clinton gushing about her “ideas” and “experience,” as dutifully noted by numerous news organizations. But most failed to note that Bratton is leaving the NYPD for a job with Teneo, a corporate cousin of Clinton Inc.

It’s probably also just a coincidence that Bratton is cozy with the candidate that his current boss, the mayor, has endorsed.

Imagine the howling if a police com­missioner showered praise on someone the mayor opposed.

Good reasons why active law enforcement should butt out of politics.

Tokin’ gesture

Headline: “Obama rips daughter Malia for smoking pot”

So even the president is subject to the parent trap: 

Do as I say, not as I did.

Originally posted 2016-08-21 14:34:17.

How to define it. Need some help here. I am just an old retired Grunt. Several have emailed me asking what the hell is “Lactation Support,” and while I have tried my best to figure out exactly what that fool of a general meant, I am lost for words. If you know, please comment. I “think” I know what he meant, but like I said, I can’t be sure. Love to have your thoughtful definitions. Here’s the real definition, but for the life of me, I do not understand how or why commanders and soldiers need to balance it with readiness. Has this fool lost the bubble or what?

Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. The process can occur with all post-pregnancy female mammals, although it predates mammals.^[1] In humans the process of feeding milk is also called breastfeeding or nursing.

I joked for years using the terms, underwater mess kit repairman or  “combat gynecologist.” Now I am certain there are medical personnel training for the latter assignment.

Originally posted 2016-08-21 12:33:26.

Many readers will probably read this and think nothing of it; however, it has been flying around the Internet  for days now among those of us who are “warriors.” Yes, make no mistake about it, I still consider myself one of those rare breeds that have been systematically removed from our military, such as those whose photos I inserted below. I’m speaking of the type that runs toward the sound of gunfire, much like those brave fireman that run into burning buildings to see if life still exists inside. For those of you who lack military experience, who do you believe, the lackeys Obama has placed in key positions or those of us who have served our time in hell and survived. It’s your choice, but understand if the hildabeast wins in November, it won’t matter anymore because the America we once knew and loved will disappear from the face of the earth. The following Introduction of the writer is impressive and certainly qualifies his comments.

For two years as a senior combat trainer observer/controller) at the National Training Center (NTC)and another two as the G3 of the 1st Armored Division in Germany, I was fortunate enough to be responsible for their training as around 50 Armor and Infantry branch Lieutenant Colonels led their battalions through the most rigorous, realistic, large-unit training the U.S. Army has ever offered. I conducted the formal after-action review for every battle and so was very familiar with what took place and why. If the “battles” we fought had taken place with real ammo instead of lasers, artillery simulators, and subjective mine field and air attack assessments, every single one of those battalion commanders would have lost (dead, wounded, captured or destroyed) the equivalent of at least three complete battalions worth of men and equipment over the space of just two weeks. Every single one that is except Fred Dibella.

At the National Training Center, Fred’s battalion soundly defeated the best “Soviet Armored Regiment” that ever strapped on tanker boots in 5 consecutive battles! And it was not even close!  Lt. Col. Dibella understood tactical warfare and how to prepare his leaders and their men before they ever arrived on the battlefield. They came to the NTC with a mutual understanding of how every single piece of the task force affected every other piece and they understood that every leader’s battle plan must support the plan of the entire task force. The manner in which Lt. Col. Dibella had prepared and trained his leaders and soldiers before the first shot was ever fired was the best I have ever seen. The manner in which they actually fought the NTC battles was unequaled!

My entire experience with Lt. Col. Fred Dibella was over the course of those two weeks. But I can tell you that he knew more about how to fight and how to train his people to fight than any other battalion commander I had the opportunity to help train. So pay attention to what he writes in the article that follows.

Mac Johnson

—————————— —————————— ——————
In a 2015 memo by the Secretary of the Army to worldwide Army Commands, the Secretary dictated that ‘ In response, Colonel (Ret.) Fred Dibella, United States Military Academy (West Point) Class of ’69 and former TAC of Company F2 at West Point wrote:

“Ok, I’ve had all I can stomach. I’m done.

Scroll down and read this crap right now, if you think I’m kidding, then come back to my remarks, if you haven’t puked your guts out. (USMA ‘69 forum, feel free to permanently ban me from your rolls, but I’ve had enough.)

Obama and his lackeys have now systematically laid the groundwork to accomplish what no battlefield    enemy has ever done; that is, to emasculate the United States Military. I honestly don’t know how he could have done it more effectively. He’s dangerously downsized the force; he’s rooted out warriors like Stan McChrystal and

Carter Ham from the General and Flag Officer ranks and installed puppets like George Casey and Martin Dempsey; he not only obliterated ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’; he searched long and hard to find an openly gay (and utterly unqualified) man to be Secretary of the Army; he opened not just combat arms to women, but the absolute tips of the spear in Infantry, Armor and Artillery, and the predictable result is directives like “balance lactation support and readiness”?

Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? Balance lactation support and readiness!?

Sorry, I’m old school, but I THOUGHT READINESS WAS NEVER, EVER COMPROMISED… let alone for “lactation support”.

Have we gone completely mad?!? Do you think for a moment that the greatest fighting force the planet has ever known is immune to emasculation? That there’s nothing that Obama can do to significantly degrade its lethality?  That somehow we will magically prevail, despite all this crap?

Here’s the blunt truth, and if you think this flies in the face of political correctness and/or liberal theology… congratulations.

The most important reason the U.S. Military has been so dominant, so lethal, and so unbeatable over that last 200 years is that we subscribe to a Warrior Ethos. We’re not quite Sparta , but we ain’t been far behind. That is, until now. Up to now, we have recognized the blatantly obvious: That battles and wars are won by Alpha Males. And why is that? Uh… because men and women may well be equal in the eyes of God, but they damned sure ain’t identical in the laws of physics and psychology. Men are, by and large, bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive, more violent, more ferocious, more intense, more powerful, more brutal, more belligerent, more destructive, AND THEREFORE MORE LETHAL than women.

You don’t buy that? Tell you what – pick 50 men at random from anywhere and 50 women. Put ‘em in a big ring and tell ‘em to fight to the death. Have a problem immediately predicting the outcome? If you do, I can’t help you.  You’re an idiot or a flaming liberal who believes that “Laura Croft, Tomb Raider” is real.

Why do you think Martin Dempsey, Obama’s personal lackey in uniform, issued his famous proclamation? You know the one: “If women can’t pass the standards at Ranger school, SEAL school, and other similar training programs, then the standards will have to be justified to me”.

God help me, but am I the only one who sees through that bull? I guess the Rangers at Point du Hoc weren’t good enough, huh Martin? Neither were the SEALS at Benghazi ? I guess Delta’s incredible successes are not sufficient.   ‘We must reassess the standards’. Total crock of —-. Scrape away the BS, and here’s the residue: We’re gonna lower the bar ‘till the women can get over it, period. Think that’ll have any effect on lethality? BTW, how’d you like to be the Ranger School Commandant who goes to Massa Dempsey’s office to ‘splain why women ain’t’ makin’ it? Think he might avoid that by “adjusting” things a bit?

But it’s more than physicality. It’s about the laws of nature. That is, when young men and women are put together they respond to hormones rather than ‘good order and discipline’. 1976:  Women are introduced to West Point .   Regulations strictly prohibited fraternization among cadets. Hahahahahahaha. Written by some idiot, no doubt.  They were bangin’ each other like rabbits. Trust me, I had a ringside seat. But that wouldn’t happen in a Ranger squad, or a SEAL team, right? If you said, “Right”, then you’re an idiot. The squad/team leader is messin’ around with a female and there’s no degradation to good order and discipline, right? The previous “Brotherhood” that formerly bonded warriors together won’t be affected, right?

So we now have a female Commandant of Cadets at West Point . See how freaking enlightened we are? We can appoint females to the leadership roles at the nations’ premier School for Warriors. That is, the nations’ FORMER premier School for Warriors. West Point is now the tip of the Political Correctness spear. We have gay marriages at the cadet chapel, we have kindness and compassion seminars, and we even have Sensitivity Officers on cadet staffs – right next to the Operations and Logistics Officers – to ensure that Alpha Males do not behave like Alpha Males. We dumb ‘em down now. We used to understand that good warriors were a little rough around the edges. We tolerated that, because we knew ‘em for what they were… Patton comes immediately to mind.   Instead, now we intentionally extract the fangs from the sheepdogs, just about the time when the wolves from Islam are stalking the flock…

Obama gave us Obama care, which is now sinking under its own sick formula. Good thing, because the gutless Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to defund it. Obama has given us Sotomayor and Kagan, two flaming Liberals who will sit on that bench for a generation of Looney Tunes. Obama has demonstrated his racism, his socialism, and his disdain for law enforcement and even his proclivity for Islam (the “peaceful” religion… what a laugh).   He’s been the single most divisive and destructive POTUS in my lifetime. America, thanks to him, is at war with itself. GOP vs ‘Crats, Blacks vs Whites, Haves vs Have-nots, Women vs Men, Armed vs Unarmed, you name the category… we have two sides at war with each other.

The debt is approaching $20 Trillion. That’s such a ridiculous number that even economists can’t fathom it. More than half of it generated on Obama’s personal watch. We have no national border. None. Agents have been defanged, and the illegal aliens come across at will. The problems in Arizona and Texas are ignored by Obama.  Israel has gone from being our most trusted and respected ally in the Mideast to being openly discredited, condemned, and insulted by him. The nuclear deal with Iran was and is a joke. Un-vetted Syrian male “refugees”… well hell, come to America! It’s all so transparent. You elect an utterly totally unqualified candidate with dangerous background affiliations in his past, and this is what you get: a self-inflicted wound.

But it all pales, in my humble world, to his destruction of the American Military. These are the guardians of our way of life. These are the warriors. These are the “rough MEN who allow us to sleep soundly, because they stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm”. But go ahead, America: let this ideologue continue the systematic defanging of our fighting force. Let him feminize it. Let him drag it into the political correctness cesspool. Let him continue the social engineering and tinkering. Keep putting high heel shoes on male cadets, so they can “empathize”. Forget all our hard-fought lessons at Khe Sanh, the Chosin Reservoir, Bastogne, Belleau Wood, Gettysburg, and Bunker Hill. Let the idiots tell you that war is “push button” now, so anyone can be a warrior.

Go ahead…

Historians won’t have a difficult time analyzing this disintegration. We were just too timid to put a stop to the madness… ”

Col. Fred Dibella, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Originally posted 2016-08-19 16:04:08.

No more Schlitz. Never did like it myself, even in my young enlisted days. Mine, as well as every other Marine’s favorite, was PBR. Actually, as best I can remember, that’s all the earlier “slop chutes” offered. Alas, now I prefer  Single Malt.  But then let us not dwell on the beer that made Milwaukee famous, for now it is famous for another reason – sissification by a leader.

Colonel Andy posts another great piece. What a sad example of someone elected to protect the people and their property. Shame of you Mayor, you are a gutless wonder so implies the Colonel, and I happen to agree with him.

http://acoloneloftruth.blogspot.com/2016/08/wilmayortalkee-in-milwaukee.html

 

Originally posted 2016-08-17 14:20:13.