Tag Archives: Politics

Current Events, Recent Posts

Sweet Home Alabama

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FINALLY, a senator with something between his legs that many of his so-called GOP  counterparts lack and have always lacked, including McCarthy. That fellow ceases to amaze me how he can classify himself as a Republican. This is exactly how congress can get everyone’s attention.  Tommy doesn’t care about votes like all the rest of them do, he’s doing what’s right. Never heard of him before, but I know of him now!

From the Wall Street Journal                                                                      Alabama Senator’s Military Roadblock Draws Criticism

BY NANCY A. Y OUSSEF AND LINDSAY WISE WASHINGTON—Many of Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s colleagues say he is making bad calls.

The Alabama Republican lawmaker has thrown a roadblock in front of promotions for all senior military officers, drawing criticism from the White House as well as Republican and Democratic lawmakers. He also came under fire over his comments about white supremacists in the military, a controversy he tried to tamp down this week.

Tuberville, a former college football coach who guided Auburn University to a South-eastern Conference title, won election to the Senate representing his deep-red state in 2020. He was backed by then-President Donald Trump in the Republican primary over Trump’s onetime attorney general Jeff Sessions. In the general election, Tuberville defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Doug Jones and he has had a conservative voting record since taking office.

The 68-year-old thrust himself into the spotlight earlier this year when he announced he would block the promotions for top military generals and admirals until the Pentagon agrees to end its policy allowing troops leave and travel funds for reproductive healthcare, including abortion. He has said he won’t lift his hold on the promotions until the military changes its policy or Congress passes a measure codifying the policy.

Tuberville said he doesn’t believe the holds are affecting military readiness. He said this week that there had been no progress toward lifting them. “Zero conversations. Same as usual.”

While senators sometimes put holds on Pentagon political appointees who have policy- making responsibilities, the Tuberville move breaks with Senate tradition as it applies to career military officers. The standoff has created hundreds of vacancies at the top of the military, including the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

“It’s totally inappropriate. It’s outrageous,” President Biden said last month. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has also criticized the effort. “I don’t support putting a hold on military nominations,” he said in May.

Tuberville has also struggled to quell another controversy related to the Pentagon’s effort to root out extremism in its ranks.

In a radio interview in May, when asked if he believed that white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the military, Tuberville responded: “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.”

He criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for “saying we’re going to run out white nationalists, people that don’t believe how we believe.”

In 2021, Austin ordered a daylong stand-down for forces to discuss combating extremism within the ranks following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. A working group then recommended changes to Pentagon policy on how the department defined extremist activities and how the force should address an individual suspected of participating in such activities. A review found roughly 100 cases of troops engaged in extremist activities.

Tuberville, who has said conservatives are often unfairly called racists, defended his comments on white nationalism, including to CNN on Monday. He condemned racism but declined to say white nationalism was by definition racist. “That’s your opinion,” he told the CNN host.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) urged Tuberville to apologize.

McConnell, asked about Tuberville’s comments, said, “White supremacy is simply unacceptable in the military and in our whole country.”

Some colleagues said Tuberville had been unfairly maligned.

“I don’t sense from Tommy that he’s a bigot in any way, a racist,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.). “I mean, my gosh, the guy’s a college football coach…he’s certainly been around a multicultural world view.”

After a closed-door Senate GOP lunch Tuesday afternoon, Tuberville altered his stance. “White nationalists are racists,” he told reporters.

The same day, Tuberville’s hold on military nominees came under scrutiny on Capitol Hill as Biden’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, sat for his confirmation hearing.

Brown told the Senate Armed Services Committee the hold could affect both retention and recruiting, adding that it was forcing some generals to put off retirement and leading junior officers to reconsider their military careers. —Dustin Volz and Simon J. Levien contributed to this article.

Tuberville also came under fire over comments about white supremacists.

 

It sickens me how the so-called GOP senators can possibly condemn and criticize him for doing what needs to be done. You want to get the military’s attention this is exactly how to do it. Keep it up Tommy my man, go get em’! Wish my Florida senators had your set.

Originally posted 2023-07-13 15:27:48.

Current Events

America!

Video 5 Comments

Remember the song America by Neil Diamond? What a great song. Saw him at the  Chicago Stadium many years ago and he opened with that song. It was impossible to stay in your seat. This video would be absolutely hilarious if it were not so true. A satire of what is going on in our society as it becomes a third world shithole more each day.  I could associate so much with his comments about the girl and the word “like.” Have you noticed the young ones today can’t talk extemporaneously without it. Joey B nails it. Enjoy if you can.

Originally posted 2023-06-28 11:36:13.

Current Events

A Colonel of Truth

1 Comment

I received this from my friend and Marine brother who writes a fantastic blog called by the above title. Read his latest. As always Andy nails it straight on the head, and feel free to leave him a comment.  You may have to copy and paste it into your browser.

https://acoloneloftruth.blogspot.com/2024/08/flynn-flammed.html

May the Lord bless patriots like Flynn, and I pray every day that there are millions out there like him (and us)!

Current Events

On The Road

10 Comments

I must apologize profusely for disappearing for such a long time. I have no excuse other than to blame it on so many birthdays (mine, of course—LOL) and so many items on my Bucket List that have eaten away at my waking hours.

For example, as I type this, my bride – Nancy, and my dog, Edgar – are sitting in the RV at a KOA in Watkins Glen located in the Finger Lakes area of upper state New York. We have been on the road since 27 July visiting kin on our way up the East Coast with an eventual destination of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, which has been on both mine and Nancy’s list for years. Of that, all I can say is been there, done that, no need to do it again. I did come away with a tidbit of information that made a significant impression on me. The amount of water coming over Horseshoe Falls is a phenomenal 34 million gallons PER MINUTE! WOW!

Anyway, we leave here tomorrow and go to Lake George, NY. We stay three nights, then head for the Flight 93 Memorial site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania—a must-see told to us by many fellow RVers and Marine brothers. Several recommended making sure one has a handkerchief.

Then we head home to the heat – which we have not missed at all. We expect to be in SWFL by the end of the month. 

We both have been extremely impressed with upper state NY; what a gorgeous area. If a bunch of die-hard idiot liberals didn’t run the damn state, we could see ourselves living here – during the summer months.

Anyway, my good friend and Marine brother, with whom most of you are familiar, sent me a column he’d written, and that gave me the incentive to make a post. As always, it’s a good read and filled with truisms.

The Buzz on the Bus                                                           By: Greg Maresca

Spending the summer behind the wheel of a bus has brought with it some interesting turns, detours, and plenty of spontaneous conversation. Many of the seniors on board do not get out as they once did. Others have little contact with the outside world except for their journey to various medical appointments, while some do not interact with many other than the small retirement community where they reside.

While driving, I do not like being beholden to the Global Positioning System (GPS), but there are times when it is the only option. Technology, when it works, can make any transition quite smooth but not when you’re sitting in a defunct parking lot or in the middle of a road surrounded by corn fields with no scarecrow in sight with the GPS informing anyone within earshot that “you have arrived at your destination.”

One distinguished gentleman and rider, a Vietnam veteran of two tours, noted how societies fail when tolerance becomes the ultimate virtue and is then defined by one party as gospel. He remarked about the irony of how Democrats preach tolerance of gays, illegal immigrants, and even convicted felons but then turn on fellow Americans who are Christians, conservatives, and republicans. As he stepped off into the smothering humidity, he parted with these words of wisdom: At this juncture, there is no excuse for NeverTrumpers to continue.

Then there was one woman (at least I thought she was female) who boarded wearing her surgical mask giving the ride a retro COVID-19 feel. She was the clear winner of the summer’s best bus rider mask that read simply: “Harris” with each letter emblazoned in a different color. It was the first campaign sign I witnessed in all my journeys extoling Harris for the nation’s highest office.

Perhaps she doesn’t realize how Kamala Harris as vice president owns each one of President Joe Biden’s failures that includes economic decline brought on by rising inflation, tens of millions of illegal immigrants, the Afghanistan debacle, and increased tensions, worldwide. Ironically, Harris opposes voter identification laws, but requires photo ID to get into her campaign stops.

Harris pleads with voters to elect her again, so she can solve all the problems that have been ongoing since she was first elected.

Harris entered the presidential race a month ago and has yet to give any interviews or press conferences with no blowback from journalists. Such behavior underscores how journalistic objectivity is a myth. One recent headline in a national publication read: “Harris Tough on Border.” This was not a satirical piece but an actual “news story.” Politics can be a pleasure when you have a complicit media working nonstop for your campaign and gratis, too. Time magazine admitted Harris refused to grant an interview for their cover story. Her media rebranding is something to behold as it is nothing but a complete fabrication in the first degree.

As such, the Biden basement 2.0 campaign strategy has officially commenced.

If it was successful once, why not again?

Despite a colluding media providing cover like bodyguards with every step her campaign takes, Harris’s extreme positions on abortion, gender ideology, parental rights, crime, and immigration are actually left of Biden, which should speak volumes but reaches only deaf ears.

Harris understands that to get debt-burdened Millennials to support her is by making promises in the extreme – Medicare for all, cancelling student loans and universal basic income. This trifecta of financial doom would have drastic consequences for the economy, stock market, and millions of Americans’ retirement accounts. But given Millennials’ knowledge of economics is just as pathetic as their comprehension of civics, it is the perfect paradigm.

I passed on telling this young woman that Harris and her bus driving hack have one thing in common: We both have never won one presidential primary – ever. And yet it is Donald Trump who is the real threat to democracy. I’m sure she would have been offended because if one disagrees with the left, one is not only ignorant and insipid, but evil.

The time is long past burying our heads in our phones and other narcissistic pursuits while our constitution and the republic founded upon it is being bused over a cliff.

Current Events

Toxicity

6 Comments

A VERY WELL written article from US & World by someone who must have been a Marine. I looked him up and here is who he is: Prioleau Alexander, who is a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a graduate of Auburn University, is a former Marine officer and a self-employed advertising entrepreneur. And trust me he pulls no punches. Enjoy. And oh BTW, I personally agree with everything he says. What say you?

US & WORLD

Fitness News – Independen. Unapologetic

Here he is with my favorite 2024 Presidential candidate

Prioleau Alexander: The Marine Ethos

Current administration making changes that go against the Corps’ congressionally mandated responsibilities …

by E Prioleau Alexander May 3, 2023 

I don’t know much about the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Coast Guard, but I do know a bit about the Marines … and I can tell you that since 1775, there is a singular mission that gets a United States Marine out of the bed before sunrise: Killing those who wish harm to the United States.

That’s it.

To understand a Marine, you must know they have one thing they fear far more than death: Failure to perform in a way worthy of those who worn the uniform before them – a reputation built on blood, pain, and death.

The Corps, you see, is not a branch of the military – it is a cult.

This is because Boot Camp and Officer Candidate School tear men down to the edge of their souls, then rebuild them as men who believe they could go head-to-head with Hell’s most powerful demons. These young men and women leave that training with the belief that there is no greater or harder-to-earn honor than wearing the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor insignia. With that goes their belief that “every Marine is a rifleman.”

Are there not men such as these in the other branches? Absolutely, but each branch has its own mission – and serving as America’s “force in readiness” rests with the Marines. It is their job to be the first to fight – taking charge of hostile situations by deploying extreme violence. In the Korean War, North Korea overran the south until there was but a tiny patch of land left unoccupied. The Marines landed, and in short order the retreat of the enemy began.

Who are the Americans who sign on to be a part of this? As liberals would say, “toxic males” join the cult because they are old-fashioned patriots – and want to be a part of America’s most elite fighting team. Tough and driven women who also want to be a part of something elite often join, even if it means certain jobs and promotions won’t be available to them.

Life is much easier for a woman in the other services, but female Marines aren’t looking for “easy.”

What binds these men and women? Their ethos. The belief that they are different from Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen. That they can do the impossible, despite a lack of funding and using the Army’s hand-me-down gear. That they can accomplish the difficult in short order – and the impossible with a little extra time.

The importance of Marines believing themselves to be a breed apart cannot be overstated. Writing about the current failures of Marine Corps leadership, Marine Medal of Honor recipients Maj. General Jim Livingston and Colonel Jay Vargas state, “The structure of the Corps or the weapons they are provided can be changed or reversed. Ethos is different—and once extinguished, it is gone forever.”

Marines have always been told they are America’s shock troops. They are the force the President uses when it’s time to call 911. Take that away, and you might as well offer them a beret and roll them into the Army.

For Marines, “the good order and disciple” of a combat unit is paramount, and that good order and disciple is based one primary belief: We are all the same. Yes, we are different colors of green, but we are all green. We are Marines, nothing will divide us, and no one will be singled out for any kind of special treatment.

The first open strike of the Marines’ ethos came with the reversal of “Don’t ask don’t tell,” a policy that worked well for the Marines. Openly gay individuals began serving in the Corps despite the fact the Corps is mostly comprised of “toxic males” who object.

Then came women in combat arms, and many “toxic” males in the business of gunfighting don’t want to be burdened by a female who may slow them down, or receive undue attention from instinctually-concerned males if wounded in combat. (For men, hearing a man scream in pain is very different than hearing a woman scream in pain).

U.S. Marines (USMC)

Finally, we come to admittance of openly trans individuals, with the military paying for their gender mutilation surgery. This needs no further analysis.

Is honoring the particular friction a person likes during sex worth disrupting the ethos of America’s one military unit capable of serving in every clime and place? Liberals would say, “If they don’t like it, they can get out.” They are. Liberals also say, “If they don’t like the new system, don’t join.” They aren’t.

If you haven’t served in the Corps, Marines don’t care about your opinion on “toxic” men… because they know first-hand these men are the best at stacking up enemy dead like cord wood. These “toxic “males speak of themselves only as Marines, without the need for adjectives pointing out their differences.

The current mumbling point for those in favor of this lunacy is that “the Corps is stronger with diversity.” No statement could be further from the truth: The Corps has been feared by enemies of America for centuries because there’s no diversity. Everyone is green, and committed solely to the accomplishment of the mission.

Is that offensive? Too bad … the truth can hurt.

In addition to the sexual revolution in an organization that lives and dies by unit cohesion, Marines find themselves with a new Commandant — General David Berger — who seems to have lost his mind … to the point of making changes that go against the Corps’ Congressionally mandated responsibilities.

No two words sum up this evolution better than the Commandant’s retention efforts being touted as “Talent Management.” First, these warriors aren’t “talent” — they are Marines. Second, Marines don’t “manage” anything – they lead. I confess I laughed out loud at the Commandant’s cluelessness when I read the words “talent management.”

U.S. Marines (USMC)

General Livingston and Colonel Vargas sum up the current Commandant’s other changes quite succinctly, pointing to the erosion of the Corps’ ethos: “The decision has been made to eliminate all armor, and scout sniper platoons in infantry battalions. The Corps is moving forward with drastic cuts in the infantry, cannon artillery, assault amphibious vehicles, aviation, military police, assault beaching and combat service support. They have crippled the Marine Corps capabilities to respond to global crises and contingencies across the spectrum of conflict. And they are investing in experimental weapons that simply replicate war-fighting skills offered by other services.”

It is madness to make cuts to anything having to do with the man-to-man warfighting skills and equipment needed to destroy the enemy, because man-to-man warfighting is the Corps. Tanks, assault amphibian vehicles, combat engineers, artillery, and the air wing exist solely to assist infantry grunts in planting the American flag on enemy soil. The rest of the Corps exists solely to support those combat arms units. The Army, Navy, and Air Force can handle the other warfighting needs — and they are quite good at it.

If you were to meet General Livingston or Colonel Vargas in person, even if they were attired in their Dress Blues and wearing their Medal of Honor decorations, it would be perfectly acceptable for you to forgo the formalities of their rank, and greet them by saying, “Hello there, Marine.”

That is part of the uniqueness of the Corps—that rank and awards take a distant second to the honor of being called a Marine.

If the Corps isn’t going to react on a moment’s notice to rain hell on an enemy that pops up in some remote area of the globe, who will?

I hope Congress and the Corps’ current leadership will get together for a discussion centering on the question, “Why are we trying to strangle the life out of the very things that make Marines who and what they are?” There are hundreds of thousands of former Marines out here who’d love to know the answer, and they’ll be joined by a few million civilians when they no longer hear the words, “The Marines have landed, and the situation is now under control.”

I never met Colonel Vargas, but I know MajGen Livingston very well. He was my 6th Marines regimental commander when I was blessed to have had command of 2/6, Huxley’s Harlots. There is no better warrior in my book. A Marines’ Marine through and through.

Originally posted 2023-06-21 18:41:14.