“Our nation’s brave men and women in uniform brought to our attention that there has been inadequate education at the administrative level on how to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and fill in a federal write-in absentee ballot if their state-issued ballot does not arrive in time," the letter continues.
“Other service members also stated that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished."
But since when did Democrats become pro-war? Why would they defend someone like Liz Cheney, who ostensibly represented everything they claim to despise?
The answer is simple: They only pretend to be antiwar when it suits them. If they can score a few cheap political points against their most hated political opponent, they will welcome every single bloodthirsty warmonger with open arms. //
GreenLanternMD
2 hours ago
I remember reading that, after Clinton was elected following 12 years of Reagan and Bush, one leftist looked out on some troops and said, “Those are ours now,” and realizing that they really weren’t really antiwar at all. In the same sense, leftists hated the CIA and FBI until they were in charge.
The upshot is that leftists and neocons are authoritarians, more alike than different, consolidating behind Harris and (God forbid) Walz, while the free speech, antiwar, and now MAHA Democrats and MAGA Republicans and embracing a more skeptical paleolibertarian view of government. It’s a realignment that has needed to happen for a century.
The Montana-class battleships were the pinnacle of U.S. battleship design during World War II, intended to surpass the Iowa-class with unmatched firepower and armor. Featuring twelve 16-inch guns and enhanced protection, these ships were designed to counter Japan's Yamato-class battleships and bolster U.S. naval strength in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
When drones swarmed our military bases, the only thing bureaucrats ‘shot down’ were proposals about how to deal with the problem. //
In the end, the Journal strongly implies that the drone intrusions over Langley Airforce Base came to a halt only because twenty-something Chinese student Fengyun Shi accidentally crashed his drone into a tree. Law enforcement identified Shi’s suspicious behavior, and he was arrested before he could escape on a one-way trip back to China. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to only six months in prison.
This story provides a genuine, although probably unintentional, insight into American national security. U.S. policymakers tie themselves in knots over what they view as insurmountably complex technological and regulatory questions, instead of accepting common-sense approaches. //
Our national security apparatus is addicted to complexity. The more complex the problem, the more our elites feel justified in insisting that only the experts with the best credentials at the highest levels can be trusted to address the challenges we face. The larger the budgets that can be requested, the easier the excuses for when the problem remains unresolved.
The purpose of swarm tactics (whether from drones or otherwise) is to overwhelm a single target with multiple autonomous entities, which become increasingly difficult to track and react against.
The vulnerability being exploited isn’t a technological one. Rather it’s exploiting the opponent’s centralized and rigid decision-making process. This is the same logic deployed by Antifa rioters, who seek to overwhelm law enforcement with dozens of independently operating affinity groups.
Where all tactical decisions are increasingly centralized, and often subjected to political pressure (such as the role played by vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz in the loss of the Third Minneapolis Police Precinct during the 2020 riots), autonomous swarm tactics win the day. Where individuals and small groups are empowered to respond as needed and cut through the red tape, swarms can be defeated, as amply demonstrated by the response from Florida police to illegal efforts by pro-Hamas protesters to blockade major roads in April 2024. Where power is centralized, the swarm wins every time.
We should be wary when the national security apparatus insists that if we just granted them additional powers, they could defeat the latest and greatest threat. We should be skeptical of claims that we must continue to centralize power so our safety can be ensured. Instead, to defeat the swarms that threaten us, we should be on the lookout for ways to decentralize our security, spreading out responsibilities and empowering those closest to the problem to react with prudence.
After handing off the body of our fallen brother, we walk back to our rooms in silence. Thinking about the journey this body would take back to his loved ones on the other side of the world. We did this over and over for the next 14 months . There were times when there was much left of a body, and those times still haunt me. I was ask to do a honorable task, the burden of that task is still with me. Men and woman who sacrificed it all for a country they loved, I carried them to fly back home. Their loss forever with me.
<Walz stealing those sacred moments, to drape himself in THIER honorable sacrifice is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard. His lying fill me with a rage and anger that I hope fall upon him one day. He dishonors his own service with these lies. He dishonors our nation’s heroes by stealing their courage and glory. 24 yrs of service thrown away because he knew he quit on his men, quit on himself, and is filled with the shame for who he sees in the mirror. Let us never forget those who gave it all. Let us never allow their glory, courage, and selfless sacrifice be stolen by anyone. We live our lives today to honor who they were as men and woman, TRULY THE GREATEST AMERICANS.
myx0mop
4 hours ago
I don't think they're trying to do what's right. They simply realize they're about to lose the election, and are trying to score some popularity points with the American voters, most of whom realize that our foreign policy has been a complete CF, and we've become a laughing stock and a toothless tiger under the FJB-FKH pathetic regime.
For seventeen consecutive days in December 2023, highly sensitive US military bases in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia were the target of a drone swarm of unknown origin, type, or purpose. The official response seems to be one of studied indifference. //
Officials didn’t know if the drone fleet, which numbered as many as a dozen or more over the following nights, belonged to clever hobbyists or hostile forces.
If this story is true, what the military doesn't know about the drones dwarfs what it does know. No estimate is given for the number of drones that appeared over Langley AFB before decamping for a flyover of other installations. That isn't an accident. If the size, altitude, and speed of the drones are known, I'm sure someone at least tried to count them, though, in fairness to the military that Joe Biden has created, they may have been unable to do that. It is difficult to believe that after a couple of weeks of appearing at roughly the same time, no one thought about having a helicopter aloft to follow the drones home. Likewise, a 20-foot object flying at 4,000 feet should show up on one of the dozens of radars managing airspace over Hampton Roads unless it has a stealth design, in which case we can rule out a non-national actor. The idea that a rogue hobbyist dropped a few million to develop a massive drone fleet to fly over US military installations strains credulity. //
Just for context, the Shahed 131/136 drone used by the Russians in Ukraine to attack Ukrainian cities and infrastructure is 11 feet long and has a maximum speed of 115mph. It carried a 110-pound warhead. The drones spotted at Langley are roughly twice as long. Every $350 million F-22 you see parked there could be hit by a rather cheap drone before the airbase had time to decide they were an "imminent threat" and react. //
Dieter Schultz Laocoön of Troy
12 hours ago
Hmm... thanks.
I fear we're setting the stage for a Pearl Harbor-type surprise here, where we've opened ourselves up to an attack, widespread or local, that will cost us dearly.
It won't look like what happened in 1941, they'll use different methods, but it'll be about as embarrassing to the country as that was.
Donald Trump has seen the deterioration of our military like everyone else has, and he's made a point to do something about it. The moment he's elected, he's going to make sure the DEI-obsessed, LGBT-heavy influence that has turned it into a joke around the world is cast out, and in its place, he's going to put real leaders who will whip it back into shape and return it to being respected, not laughed at.
In short, he's going to make it a military worth joining again.
Trump released an ad making this very point, and it holds nothing back. To get his point across, he uses clips from Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," to give people an idea of how his military will be run. An efficient, serious killing force that trains men to be warriors. The ad juxtaposes this by showing clips from the current state of our military, which is a lot of soldiers disrespecting the uniform by transforming into drag queens, as well as a clip of Rachel Levine calling it a "summer of Pride." //
Vivian Kubrick, the daughter of famed director Stanley Kubrick, dropped a bomb on the left, and stated that her father, a Reagan supporter, would have actually agreed with this ad on the basis that a very strong military is needed to achieve peace: //
Because I’m sure the irony of using FMJ footage is not lost on Trump or his team - Trump is always seeking to end wars and use peaceful methods. However, that’s primarily what FMJ is about, the shocking and complicated paradoxes of human nature.
And thus, on this tooth and claw planet, you need a very strong military - so I’m going to stick with the idea that FMJ footage was used primarily because of its powerful, realistic portrayal of boot camp, juxtaposed with the entirely demoralizing and inappropriate injection of WOKE ideology into the USA military. Which I agree with myself and which I’m certain my father would have agreed with.
Truthfully, I believe my father (who supported Reagan), would very much approve of saving America, indeed the world, from the highly destructive Globalist forces threatening to take over this planet. And if that footage from FMJ helps Trump make the point that the US military needs properly trained, super tough, focused, dedicated warriors, and not introduce the demoralizing effects of woke-ism, and attracting people to join up simply to have their sexual reassignments paid for, then Trump has my blessing. //
My father had a great respect for life - his movies being unimpeachable evidence of his love for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! So on that basis, I feel very confident he would be a Trump supporter and would forgive using FMJ incongruously, if it helps the cause of freedom!
Capisce? //
flguy
an hour ago
Weakness invites aggression, not strength. Geo. Washington said we must stay strong to avoid war, and JFK said the same in his inaugural - "We dare not tempt them [potential adversaries] with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed." The left doesn't understand this concept. //
Weminuche45
an hour ago
- The job of the military is to break things and kill people.
- The job of politicians is to support the military's ability to do that
- To limit the necessity of using the military to solve problems that could have been solved another way
- To get the hell out of the way and let the military do what it does, kill people and break things, when war becomes necessary as a last resort.
I think it is inarguable that the military created by Joe Biden and Kamala is only fractionally as effective as the military under Trump. And even in Trump's first term, the rot of DEI and "gender equality" had already taken root. The failure of Biden and Harris is made clear every day as the only way the services make their manpower goals is by cutting end strength. //
The official and institutional embrace of sexual fetishes as a normal part of the military has been shocking. The clips Trump shows are nowhere near as bad as the situation really is. //
Kamala HQ @KamalaHQ
·
Trump says he will “fire” America’s military generals and replace them with MAGA loyalists, echoing Project 2025
12:24 PM · Jun 2, 2024 //
FOX NEWS: Are you going to fire those generals? The woke generals at the top?
TRUMP: Yes, I would get rid of them. Yeah. But see, now I know them. I didn’t know them before. But, you know, I came in, what do I know? I was a New York real estate person. But no, I’d fire. I would fire them. You can’t have woke military. //
If Trump intends to politicize the military, filling the ranks with loyalists, it sets the stage for a dramatic and fundamental change in how the United States is supposed to operate.
I'd encourage this guy to review how Thomas Jefferson dealt with known Federalist Army officers or ponder the fact that the military is not the civil service. The military is not an independent power center that has "equities." The president is the commander-in-chief. Every commissioned officer is appointed at each step of his career by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. I have a copy of the Congressional Record when the Senate voted to make me a second lieutenant. No one is advocating a partisan military, but Trump and many of us would like to return to the days when active-duty general officers, or even retired general officers, stayed out of partisan politics and basic standards of civilized behavior adhered to; see General Mark Milley Reportedly Stocking Up on Brown Trousers in Case Trump Is Reelected – RedState. The president has the right, and I would argue the duty, to ensure that senior officers faithfully execute his will and not sandbag him behind his back.
The former president has lashed out at generals before, but this was new. Trump apparently envisions a system in which U.S. military leaders will be subjected to some kind of ideological review, in which members of a task force — whose members will presumably be appointed by Trump — will go about assessing the generals’ and admirals’ personal attitudes.
Those deemed “woke” will apparently see their military careers curtailed.
What could possibly go wrong?
There is nothing wrong with Trump doing just that, and the worst results of that process would not be as bad as what we've seen with the military being suborned on a wholesale level by the left. //
ColderWeather
2 days ago
Step 1: Politicize the military
Step 2: Complain about the politicization of the military when someone tries to depoliticize it //
polyjunkie
2 days ago
The (false) assumption by this leftist tool is that the CURRENT military leadership is somehow apolitical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama retired hundreds of officers who didn’t support his view of the military, enabling the remainder to be politicized to implement the leftist agenda. Trump needs to purge (yes, the correct term) any officer at any level who supports the “woke” agenda and has implemented DEI policies from the last administration. If the leftist don’t like it, tough doo doo.
Oh, and call Miley back to active duty so he can be reduced in rank and court martialed. //
anon-kvbw
a day ago edited
Obama was the one who purged the military of officers who believed in the rule of law and constitutional governance. All Trump proposes is righting the ship. //
DoctorB92 anon-kvbw
a day ago
I was Army during the Obama reign of terror and I don't recall the number but he purged hundreds of Army officers at the general down to the colonel level because of their lack of social conscienceness or something like that. He forced warriors out and put in politicos and now we are continuing to reap the fruits of that disaster.
As an Israeli retaliation for Iran's massive ballistic missile strike looms, the Biden White House has decided to deploy a six-launcher battery of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles to shore up Israel's air defenses, and at least 96 US soldiers will man the missile battery. //
THAAD was developed as part of the ballistic missile defense program and has proven itself effective against Iranian-designed missiles. THAAD can counter short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats and is the only U.S. system designed to intercept targets outside and inside the atmosphere. //
In previous Iranian attacks on Israel, US aircraft and warships have engaged Iranian cruise missiles and drones but only in international airspace. This deployment not only places American soldiers in Israel as the region slides, inexorably, in my view, toward a regional war that has the possibility of going nuclear; see Israel Hammering Iran's Proxy Armies Sends a Clear Message to Tehran That the Rules Have Changed – RedState, it marks the beginning of positive rather than incidental participation in the brewing war.
Purrl
10 hours ago
To me what this signals is Biden ignoring his pro-Iran advisors. As much as I despise the man, until he became a vegetable he was a pretty strong supporter of Israel (IIRC), and now that he's in full "screw you" mode I suspect he's reverting to type. Also, still in awe of the level of love for the mullahs displayed by the State Department; there's no good reason whatsoever to protect Iran's nuclear facilities.
But whatever his reason for adding another layer of defense for Israel, I approve. //
streiff wildmlm
11 hours ago
we are all pretty sure that Iran has enough fissile material (they were 2-3 months from that point in 2015 according to the Obama administration. They probably have a nuke ready to test. We know they have the delivery system.
Black Magic streiff
9 hours ago
Yes, Streiff is probably totally correct, and if anything is possibly low in his estimate.
And the Iranians idea of a test, will likely be to launch the missile at Israel and see if it works.
May God bless and watch over the Israelis.
And I truly pray he is still willing to bless and watch over America after the evil of the last 4 years.
Purrl wildmlm
10 hours ago
For the most part, anything you can put a conventional warhead on you can put a nuke on.
streiff Purrl
10 hours ago
once you have the fissile material, the rest is an engineering problem that was first solved 70 years ago.
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, retired Army General Mark Milley, fears that a Trump win in November will see him recalled to active duty and court-martialed. //
Milley's fear is based on a couple of things. At one point, President Trump told Milley he intended to do that to two of his most vociferous critics among retired general officers, and Milley was able to talk him out of it. //
The other reason is that Milley went out of his way to sabotage President Trump. Milley made a big production out of letting everyone in the media know that during the BLM riots, he considered resigning if President Trump ordered out federal troops under the Insurrection Act; he even made his alleged resignation letter public. He also made two calls to his "counterpart" in China's People's Liberation Army during the last three months of the Trump administration, assuring them the US would not attack China and again let the "right" people know.
We now know that Milley was a prime mover in the decision to ignore President Trump's directive that either the National Guard or active duty military be on hand to preserve order on January 6. That failure led directly to the disorder on Capitol Hill and Trump's second impeachment. //
One of the critical first steps an incoming President Trump has to be to gain control of the military, the Department of Justice, and the Intelligence Community. That will entail him demanding the resignation or retirement of hundreds, if not thousands, of hostile bureaucrats. He should take a page from General George C. Marshall's playbook and remove virtually everyone holding three- or four-star rank; see President Trump's Alleged War With His Generals Shows How the Military Is Producing Self-Centered Careerists Not Leaders – RedState.
If Trump is unable or unwilling to do this, then his second term will be the same squandered opportunity at national renewal as his first.
Forty U.S. Army soldiers who were in Israel as the advance team for what they thought was a routine training exercise last October 7 suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war, unarmed, and being forced to beg reluctant Pentagon officials to send an Air Force plane to extract them.
Approximately a quarter of the soldiers were just miles from Gaza in off-base housing near the IDF’s Tze’elim base when the attack began. A group of local Israelis – IDF reservists, police officers, and ordinary citizens – got them to the base, which Hamas terrorists were quickly heading toward. With his men in mortal danger, the U.S. team leader requested permission to open the arms locker so they could retrieve their firearms but was denied at the US Central Command level and “denied and/or ignored” at a level above that, according to a military intelligence analyst with knowledge of the mission and exfiltration.
The rest of the soldiers had just arrived in Tel Aviv, where Hamas rockets were hitting near their hotels. //
“With everything going on, with all kinds of indirect fire, with rockets, for a good six, eight hours those [soldiers who were at Tze’elim] were in very mortal danger and the military and civilian leadership [at the Pentagon] was perfectly willing to not even worry about it.” //
Approximately 40 hours after the attacks started, and only after lengthy “conversations at the 3-star HQ level,” a U.S. Air Force C-17 briefly touched down in Tel Aviv to exfiltrate the soldiers.
Hamas fired a barrage of 150 rockets at the airport shortly after the C-17 took off for Kuwait. //
Thanks to three separate military sources – one of whom was personally involved in the mission – who spoke to RedState exclusively, the harrowing and disturbing story can now be told. The sources are not named due to fear of retaliation. //
There’s never been an official acknowledgment that there were U.S. troops in Israel on October 7, but an October 31, 2023, New York Times story states: “But other U.S. officials said the Defense Department has dispatched several dozen commandos in recent days, in addition to a small team that was in Israel on Oct. 7 conducting previously scheduled training.”
The UK has announced it is giving up sovereignty of a remote but strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean after more than half a century.
The deal – reached after years of negotiations - will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move.
This includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft.
The announcement, made in a joint statement by the UK and Mauritian Prime Ministers, ends decades of often fractious negotiations between the two countries.
The US-UK base will remain on Diego Garcia – a key factor enabling the deal to go forward at a time of growing geopolitical rivalries in the region between Western countries, India, and China. //
Half a century or more after the UK relinquished control over almost all its vast global empire, it has finally agreed to hand over one of the very last pieces. It has done so reluctantly, perhaps, but also peacefully and legally.
The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction.
China is, to be sure, a nation with big ambitions. They want a big, ocean-spanning navy like a wolf wants a sheep, and they seem to be determined to get one. But they are going to have to step up their game. The country has been beset by quality problems in everything from shipbuilding to buildings to electric scooters, cars, and cell phones. Until they figure out their quality problems and learn to develop tech of their own that is on a par with Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the United States, we will continue to see incidents like this laughable failure of their vaunted new killer submarine - that sank alongside the pier. //
anon-6879
6 hours ago
As a retired Navy O-6, I would say Ward needs to get his stuff a little more together. (1) The picture in the article is of a ballistic missile sub, not an attack boat. (2) The attack sub was under construction, which means it sank while in the hands of the shipyard, probably without navy crew. Industrial accidents occur---we've had some bad ones when ships were in the yard, including fires and floodings. In the early '60's the attack carrier Constellation had a major fire while under construction which delayed its completion for more than a year. Did that man we didn't have an effective navy at the time? (3) The Chinese navy is much more than a "frigate navy." Their first supercarrier is at sea, and that gives them three afloat, with one carrier recently at sea in the South China Sea and off the Philippines with it's battlegroup. (Admittedly, they have a lot to learn about carrier ops.) However, they're projected to have five or six carriers by the end of the decade. That's as many as we have in Pacific. The Type 55 cruiser or destroyer leader (depending on how you classify it) is being built in numbers (Eight active, eight building.) Meanwhile, we're decommissioning our 30+ year old Ticonderoga Aegis cruisers without replacement. Their Type 52D missile destroyer is quite comparable to our Burke Class or the British Type 45 in size and capability; it's been built in numbers (25 active) and production continues. (4) The USN would love to have some frigates---we're struggling to build the new Constellation Class after the fiasco of the Littoral Combat Ships which were supposed to replace our once robust---now non-existent---frigate force. (5) The Chinese do have a good replenishment capability---their task groups operate in the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic, and the North Pacific with replenishment ships in company. They're also acquiring foreign ports for use by their deployed squadrons. (Meanwhile, our carrier strike group in the mid-east is without a replenishment oiler because it went aground and is out of service while the navy is struggling to get a replacement on scene.) Our replenishment capability is a mere shadow of what it was in the cold war due to "Peace Dividend" budget cuts in last three decades. (6) In any fast developing conflict over Taiwan or dispute of the South China Sea, China would have home court advantage and a massive advantage in numbers over what our 7th Fleet could muster. The truth is, in the last three decades the Chines navy has made massive strides in numbers, the quality of it's equipment and its operational expertise at sea. Meanwhile, the USN is undeniability in decline: our numbers are diminishing and in recent years we've had a rash of collisions and groundings not to mention poor material readiness of our ships due to industrial maintenance deficiencies. In summary, we underestimate the PLAN at our peril.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk @RepLoudermilk
·
President Trump directed senior DoD leaders to ensure events on J6 be safe.
They ignored his guidance, prioritized optics concerns over security, and pushed a flawed narrative in their IG report.
The American people deserve the full truth.
cha.house.gov
Transcripts Show President Trump's Directives to Pentagon Leadership to
12:09 PM · Sep 20, 2024 //
We’ve known some of this before, but the transcripts themselves are pretty startling. They all but tell the sitting president of the United States to shove off:
When I first hit play, I was expecting some typical TikTok political video with a person on a coach saying some funny one-liner. What I wasn't expecting was for the camera to pan and show multiple U.S. servicemembers, currently serving in a combat zone, ripping Harris for her misleading statement:
Where these troops are deployed is not something we can know (or should know), but somewhere in Iraq or Syria is a decent enough guess. So, do those places qualify as combat zones? When I posted the video, I had a few people snipe in the replies that because America isn't in an active, large-scale war, Harris wasn't lying. That's not how combat zones are defined, though, and the United States government still recognizes much of the Middle East as an active combat zone.
To pretend otherwise is to play a ridiculous, insulting game of semantics that should be ruthlessly mocked into oblivion. American service members are still serving in combat zones where they are being injured and killed by rocket attacks and during active operations. Those people didn't cease to exist because Harris needed a talking point on Tuesday night.
The argument's premise is that Trump left Biden and Kamala with no plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan. The fact is that Trump signed the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban on February 29, 2020. For graduates of Baltimore public schools and others challenged by mathematics, that is 534 days before the Kabul airlift began. If there was no plan for the withdrawal, that really isn't the direct responsibility of the guy who left office 207 days prior to the event. The responsibility for planning the operation lay with the Defense Department, specifically within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
If Biden didn't have a plan, then it is the fault of service leaders who refused to do their duty and, in this telling of events, sat on their hands and refused to plan for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (During the big drawdown of the Army after the USSR went belly up, the Army refused to plan for a force reduction because it was felt that if word got out that we were planning, then the political people would think we were fine with the idea and make us do it. If we didn't plan, the reasoning went, we might not have to do it. I can see the same logic in effect in executing the end of our adventure in Afghanistan.) That would mean the very people blaming Trump for the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan include some of the people who were responsible for that withdrawal.
Thanks to the efforts of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we know there was a plan, but Biden and the "last person" in the room overruled it. //
The real threat to our democracy are military officers who trade on their rank to tell lies in the name of partisan politics. //
Mike Ford
17 hours ago edited
One of AFNN’s best writers, COL Jack Tobin (rest his soul) wrote the initial plan well before Biden came on the scene….
It called for the use of Bagram as the evac base and its subsequent retention.
It also followed standard NEO doctrine whereby you evac the noncombatants and THEN extract troops.
You damned sure don’t put your evac point in a downtown version of Dien Ben Phu //
Hoover the Great
18 hours ago
This debacle really shows why we need to take a meat cleaver to the US army. And by that, I don't just mean replacing personnel, I mean reducing footprint and eliminating force and positions. Reduce the size by maybe 80-90%. As Eisenhower stated, a massive standing army like we have does not make America safer.
ECoolidge19 Hoover the Great
17 hours ago
I saw a post on RS sometime ago, it listed the number of 4 star Generals during WW 2 compared to now. It was like 1-8. I forget exactly but I remember being surprised. Sounds like a good starting point. At minimum, you don't fire but just put a freeze on hiring new //
Hoover the Great anon-x1lc
2 hours ago
There is no security benefit from maintaining a massive standing army like we have now. Or if there is one, it does not remotely approach the cost of it, both monetary cultural and spiritual. That position is essentially the one held by President and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Dwight Eisenhower.
We built this military machine after WWII. Before that, we had a skeleton military that we would quickly put the meat and muscles onto if we needed to fight a war. We never lost a war with that model. Since we built this military machine, the military's record is more mixed. That spans several decades, so is not just the result of bad people in leadership. It's the system itself.
So she's still in the Navy. We can hope that she will never be placed in a position of trust with classified information, but a reduction in grade? That's all? Really?
The military, as I'm constantly pointing out, is like no other institution in our society. A breach of faith, a breach of trust like this cannot be tolerated - and it cannot be forgiven. This is an act that, in the event of war, could have gotten everyone on that ship killed and a multi-billion dollar ship destroyed. Is checking your high-school friend's latest recipe for macaroni and cheese worth all that?
Given my brief and modest experience with operating in a secured environment with classified information, this punishment seems unbearably light. Chief Marrero has broken faith with her chain of command, has proven herself unfit to serve on a U.S. Navy warship, and should be handed a bad-conduct discharge and sent back to the block. //
PNC(SW) Mac
8 hours ago
As a retired USN Chief, I find this absolutely reprehensible. The most distressing factor is it wasn't just this POS E7, the whole Chief's Mess was complicit. What has happened to the United States Navy when it's senior enlisted leadership can't be trusted? They all should have been court-martialed and separated. //
Ace PNC(SW) Mac
8 hours ago
Chief, this is Obama’s Navy, not ours.
Just a small town boy PNC(SW) Mac
8 hours ago
All it takes is a few DEI hires in leadership positions for a lot of other people to DIE.
SAN DIEGO — A U.S. Navy chief who wanted the internet so she and other enlisted leaders could scroll social media, check sports scores and watch movies while deployed had an unauthorized Starlink satellite dish installed on a warship and lied to her commanding officer to keep it secret, according to investigators.
Internet access is restricted while a ship is underway to maintain bandwidth for military operations and to protect against cybersecurity threats. //
She and more than a dozen other chief petty officers used it to send messages home and keep up with the news and bought signal amplifiers during a stop in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after they realized the wireless signal did not cover all areas of the ship, according to the investigation.
Those involved also used the Chief Petty Officer Association’s debit card to pay off the $1,000 monthly Starlink bill.
The network was not shared with rank-and-file sailors.
Marrero tried to hide the network, which she called “Stinky,” by renaming it as a printer, denying its existence and even intercepting a comment about the network left in the commanding officer's suggestion box, according to the investigation.
But there is yet another dose of hypocrisy at play, from the very news outlets bleating about Trump’s alleged offensive use of the cemetery images. Look back over the past weeks of this outrage coverage, and you notice something curious: Nearly every report mewling about the disrespect these photos deliver includes those very images. Somehow, it is offensive for him to use the pics, but not the outlets displaying them.
And it gets worse. Many of these photos sport attribution from the news syndicates, meaning the pictures have been licensed – not only are the outlets receiving paid traffic while wailing about the dishonor, but the syndicates, like Getty Images, are charging for the use of their photos from Arlington.
If Trump using these photos is disrespecting the memory of the fallen, what is to be said of news providers who turn a profit from those same types of pictures? //
cupera1
7 hours ago
There are three big problems with the NPR Arlington National Cemetery story.
First: It is a story that had no named witnesses or named people that were harmed. In every reported story about ANC there is an un-named person that is reporting it and another un-named person that was pushed out of the way by the Trump campaign people. It is basic journalism. When a news story has the: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, verified evidence, documentation or a named source to can be relied on to be a factual news story. When left wing news sources, like NPR is missing any of these important items it can be deduced that it is a fake story or a hoax.
Second: ALL seven gold-star families and all other people that were there the entire time stated that they had permission to take pictures and video. The Trump people did the same and were also given permission for both. Also, there was nobody from the cemetery that objected to them being there, so the story is a hoax.
Third: The Trump people stated that have video of the entire event. From the time that people got out of their cars to when they left the cemetery. When the people in charge of ANC heard this they abruptly dropped any and all charges, none were ever listed. It was a hoax story.