Author: TSO

OK, so last week I did an interview with Army Times. And something went horribly awry. Basically, I think some pronouns got confusing and when I was referencing folks, the reporter was misinterpreting who I was referring to. Anyway, I am going to go through the article here and correct as I go along. I don’t want to steal an entire article, but honestly I am embarrassed at some of the stuff, and need to set the record straight. Also, the worstly held secret, initially blown by Ace of Spades (of all people), is now public domain. I use “TSO” not to “hide” my identity, but to try to seperate my work writing from my blogging. But, I’ve never truly disguised it either, and Jonn uses videos of me occasionally, so there you go. Anyway, without further ado….

Blogger helps expose alleged military faker
By Joe Gould

jgould@militarytimes.com

Should read “Bloggers.” Wasn’t just me, you guys saw what happened, it was a feeding frenzy of intel across all the blogs. More on that in a minute.

The goateed man was decked out in a formal Army uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his jacket and a Commander of the British Empire medallion hanging around his neck.

To blogger Mark Seavey, the “general” was an obvious fraud. Seavey’s fellow bloggers at the conservative “This Ain’t Hell” posted a photo of the alleged faker online, dead set on smoking him out.

“Wearing two Distinguished Service Crosses and a Combat Infantry Badge with two stars, is analogous to saying someone is a pitcher for the Red Sox and a quarterback for the Patriots,” said Seavey. “If that person existed, you would know about them.” The blog post led to tips, angry comments, media attention and ultimately the Feb. 5 arrest of Michael P. McManus, a 44-year old former Army private first class who served from 1984 to 1987.

More after the jump.
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First off, am I the only one watching them? I am totally stoked for the Winter Olympics. My brother used to be a skeleton guy, and as a kid I always dreamed of being Eric Heiden. Dude is the toughest man ever in my opinion. Anyway, I am up until midnight almost every night. Frankly I wish the roof would cave in on the figure skating and they postponned all those events, but I love almost every other sport.

Anyway, I wanted to bring up two athletes. The first I was talking to my Dad about, since all Maine television is apparently running non-stop stories on. His name is Seth Wescott, and he won the gold in Men’s Snowboard Cross yesterday. That shit was pretty cool to be honest. Anyway, Seth apparently lives just down the road from my dad, in fact apparently owns a bew pub there, where I will happily imbibe next visit. But, I went to his website at the Olympics page, and wanted to share this vignette from there.

Prior to the 2006 Games, Seth and his father, Jim, had discussed bringing the military service flag from the funeral of Seth’s grandfather, a World War II veteran who had died when Wescott was in sixth grade. The hope was that if he did well, he could celebrate with his grandfather’s flag – “a matter of pride” to his father, Seth explains. The problem was that Jim was seated in the upper bleachers and had trouble convincing security to let him near the race area. And in a moment of determination, Jim (“about the least rebellious person I’ve ever known in my life,” Seth admits) made a run past security, hurdled a barricade and plowed through a mob to bring his son the flag. “I know that for him, it was maybe the proudest moment that he’ll have in his life,” Seth says. “And he’s expressed that to me. So I think that for him that I could honor his father in that way, at that moment. It was a really powerful thing for the both of us.”

Seth runs THE RACK BBQ, at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain.

The second guy is Jonathan Quick, goalie of the US Hockey team. Now, I will be honest, I probably won’t watch the hockey games. Frankly, I liked it when it was amateurs. I’ll never forget where I was when the miracle happened. Either way, I bring up Jonathan Quick because he and I attended the same college for a small time, the communist enclave of UMASS Amherst. You could bring your dog or martini’s to class, but God forgive you try to espouse any pro-military feelings. It was basically PCU. Which is why when Brown Neck Gaitor alerted me to the fact that Quick is trying to wear this patch on his helmet, it made me feel so good.

BNG titled his post “How do you feel about “Go Fook Yourself” as a slogan?” which is the closest BNG has ever come to swearing when not discussing something IT related. Naturally the IOC won’t let Quick wear that.

Anyway, I also know that like 7 of the olympians are US Army, including a guy the other day who did well in Biathalon (I think 10th.) so far for sheer excitement, nothing beats the ski jumping/X-country skiing thing that the American lost in the final foot the other day. That was amazing competition. Anyway, anyone else watching?

Looks like the US will lose curling today. Just wait until 4 years from now when Caro is out there. She is required to wear a helmet of course, on account of not being…..overly graceful. But she will be awesome!

Oh yeah, hell of a weekend.

First up, it was Valentine’s Day, and my beloved took a real gamble, so credit to her. She is secure enough in our relationship to buy me….

I haven’t gotten it yet, but you damn well better believe that I will wear it to work with a tie on on the very first day, since they are discussing raises upstairs right now. When you wear this shirt on your soul, men want to be you and women want to be with you. I don’t make the rules, I just live by them.

Second up, my WoWing hasn’t been quite dorky enough. Actually, I am becoming disenchanted with my Guild since they couldn’t even organize a EoE raid. So, I joined a Role Playing server with an alt so I can join my buddy Superbowl6Romeo over there. Anyways, I was levelling my Nightelf Druid Saturday evening when I wandered into Goldhsire. This was going on at the Inn there:

The young lady [in actuality, probably a Teamster named Phil from Pittsburgh] dancing naked there asked me to be her “RP Father.” I immediately closed out all applications on my computer, went to the Elbow Room pub next door, and slammed 4 Guinness and a Irish car Bomb before returning to my apartment to continue levelling “Fubijang.”

Lastly, a few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to play Diplomacy online. Well, I got into a game. I will be playing France, with Spring of 1901 moves coming up. My Army in Paris will move to Picardy, my Fleet in Brest will move to the mid-Atlantic, and my army in Marseilles will be attacking into Spain. I’ve talked to all the other super-powers, but I was a bit late in emailing them, so am kind of afraid that Germany and England have allied against me. If so, I am fooked. If not, I am open to aligning with either of them. I will occasionally update you guys on the course of my game (Juliet7 on USAL) with maps.

Because, that is just the kinda dork I truly am!

BTW- Anyone know when the curling starts in the Olympics? I just conned Caro into joining a curling club, and I want to show her just how awesome curling is. When I curl with my Three Wolf Moon shirt on, the Earth itself will weep at my awesomeness.

Jonn discussed this briefly the other day, and last night I had some fun at Adam’s expense.  He used to have a thing that put up every Tweet that used Adam’s name, until the lovely Boston Maggie and I Tweet bombed his page.  Anyway, this morning I thought I might address a few things.

First off, I don’t know if I want Kokesh to win, or lose miserably. I can see merit in both. I mean really, who has been covering Adam longer than us? Hell, Jonn even had to correct Adam on his own friggin bio. It would be great fun for us if he won. On the other hand, the man is the worst possible individual anyone could ever choose to elect for a whole host of reasons that I plan to bring up.

But let us start with this fact: Adam Kokesh has the same chance of winning the New Mexico Third Congressional District as I do of becoming the next Laker Girl. We can dispense with the rest after that, but it is important that you realize his campaign has zero chance. The Cook Political Report (and everyone else who tracks races) list this as a “Solid Democrat” seat. The registration is D+7, and Kokesh will not pull all the GOP vote. The incumbent has not unduly pissed anyone off, so you can start with a solid D vote. Now look at Kokesh, does anyone who knows this guys background really believe him to be a GOP? I mean, set aside all policy considerations, does he act like a Republican?

Adam is a libertarian. He and others like him are the very reason I am not one. Because they are so inexcusably smug, so arrogant, and so blind to any other rational viewpoint. If you looked at issues, Adam may be right on the vast majority, but he is such a pompous ass that you want to disagree. Either way, how many Republicans do you know that share the stage with ANSWER, CodePink et al?

Adam States:

From the absurd to the twisted, the attacks on me have been coming with increasing frequency lately, and we welcome them. When you are truly challenging the established order, there will always be a pushback. While some of the attacks of a personal nature have been disturbing, at the same time, it is very reassuring to know that we are being attacked because we have become a credible threat!

This to me is the sort of brither approach. [I am not talking validity, so can it.] When half-baked attacks on Adam take place, it only makes him look better. And it is so unneccessary. THE MAN STORES HIS OWN URINE IN THE REFRIGERATOR. And being able to label them “attacks” is classic. There are some very, VERY valid questions about Kokesh we have documented here, and since Adam is the one seeking office, it should be him responding to them.

Either way, he is not a “credible threat” and I am loathe to even treat him as such.

None the less, some of the very valid reasons to question Adam include:

Maturity. Just a year ago he was living as a frat boy in the IVAW house which was rampant with drug use and other such recreations.

Honesty. Adam brags on his site that he “receiv[ed] an honorable discharge in November of 2006” yet fails to mention in the bio that he subsequently also received a General Discharge. Would that not be pertinent to the voters there?

Stability. At one point Adam was blogging about how he was mixing Gin and Xanax, about how he stored urine in his fridge, about how the DC police were following him, and how if law enforcement agents legally sought the arrest of a deserter (Matthis) that…well, let’s let him tell it:

Should any military or law enforcement personnel come here, to MY house, they will not be welcome, nor will they find removing him from the premises to be physically tenable.

Is there anyone out there who thinks you can entrust law-making powers to a man who would be willing to physically repel the legal actions of state actors? Does that strike you as appropriate?

Anyway, over the next few days, I will cover some of the bio points that Adam seems to be forgetfully omitting. I hope that some voters in the New Mexico Third Congressional District will look through the evidence and see that Tom Mullins is a far superior candidate. Even though I disagree with many of Mullins’ positions, he at least has the maturity, honesty and mental stability to more ably represent the needs of northern New Mexico.

OK, so this post will be unlike my other posts. So, if you came expecting the usual, me calling Branum “Fatso the retarded manchild”, then I fear this post will do little to slake that thirst. I said before I would actually do a legal review of why Barnum is so damn bad, and although I know this will get little traffic, I am hoping someone sends this around to the CO community so that the next guy to try this doesn’t get screwed by an unscrupulous lawyer.

A few things upfront.
1) I am not a lawyer. I only know CO stuff from what I read, largely from the documents Branum has on his own website. But, what I lack in direct knowledge, I make up for in ability to read, and to use logic as my guide.
2) I’m doing this not because I actually *LIKE* CO’s, but I still feel that they deserve better representation than they are getting from this guy. I do, however, respect a few, in particular Logan Laituri. He did it the right way, and if you need advice, GO TO HIM, not Branum.
3) I believe Branum should be disbarred. He is an embarrassment to a profession that is too easily maligned, and which on the whole I believe to be an honorable profession.
4) Again, not a lawyer, so do not email me asking for help.

This morning I put up a thing about Travis Bishop having some of his sentence suspended. But, one has to wonder what he would have gotten had he had a lawyer who used a winning legal gambit, instead of this bullshit:

Bishop’s defense called two witnesses to the stand. Both are active-duty Fort Hood soldiers who claim they too were never informed that filing for CO status was an option….

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” Capt. Matt Kuskie, the prosecuting attorney, argued after the defense made its case.

Maj. Matthew McDonald, who served as the judge, said whether or not Bishop was notified about his right to file for CO status is not relevant to this case.

Have you ever met anyone who didn’t realize that ignorance of the laws is not a defense? Honestly, I don’t mean even lawyers. Any person over 18 who thinks that “I didn’t know” will get you out of it is a moron. Branum’s entire defense here was that Bishop didn’t know about CO status. That isn’t a defense, unless you are arguing mitigation for some sort of mental defect.

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Big win for the large neanderthal looking jackass from Oklahoma:

FORT HOOD, Texas – Sergeant Travis Bishop received word this week that he was given a 3 month suspension, of the 12 month sentence he received last year for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan based on his Christian religious beliefs against war.

Lt. General Robert Cone, commanding general of Fort Hood approved the sentence reduction on February 4th after considering Sgt. Bishop’s clemency application.

Sgt. Bishop’s clemency application included a legal brief (alleging problems at trial, problems with the processing of Bishop’s conscientious objector claim, and mistreatment at the Fort Lewis brig), a hand-written letter from Sgt. Bishop, and 433 letters (signed by a total of 538 people from 21 different countries) from members of Amnesty International calling for Sgt. Bishop to be released.

Now mind you, any other lawyer probably wouldn’t have had his client receive the maximum punishment allowed, but for Branum, this is colosal. You just know he didn’t write that press release, it is too well written.

Let’s review the record though, according to Branum, poor Bishop was the subject of a wretched trial, wretched detainment, and tortured by the horrible army. And their big win was to get a year sentence reduced to 9 months. You keep at ’em big fella! At this rate you might get an acquittal for jay walking in 2054.

A friend wishing to remain anonymous emailed me this, and it is pretty damn cool.

This will come out in sections.  I have not been authorized to release it, but the email attached claimed it had already been “filed.”

MCMANUS was previously convicted in U.S. Federal Court in California in 2002, arising out of federal criminal charges originating in Louisiana, for impersonating a U.S. “Air Marshal” and also impersonating a U.S. Army Major, both in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 912, He received a sentence of two years probation, which was later revoked for violations. At the time of his offense relating to those criminal charges, MCMANUS had been wearing an unauthorized U.S. Army Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) of the unearned rank of Major (and with fraudulent U.S. Army identification papers naming him as an Army Captain) with attached unearned patches, insignia, and awards, on board a commercial aircraft in New Orleans and also falsely represented himself to the flight crew as a current member of the U.S. military and an “Air Marshal”, and where he attempted to gain access to the plane’s cockpit. Due to the suspicious nature of his uniform and his suspicious claims to the flight crew, he was not permitted by the flight crew to remain on the flight. He was later arrested in California and convicted of these charges there.

Official U.S. military records, which include MCMANUS’ form DD-214, indicate MCMANUS entered on Active Duty with the United States Army on November 11, 1984 and separated on March 31, 1987. During this period, MCMANUS attained the rank of Private First Class and a pay grade of E-1. The form DD-214 further indicates MCMANUS was awarded or authorized to wear only the following awards: an Army Service Ribbon; Overseas Service Ribbon; Expert Marksmanship Badge – Rifle; and Marksman Marksmanship Badge – Pistol. MCMANUS’ type of separation is Defined on the DD-214 as “Discharge” and the character of service is defined as “Under Honorable Conditions”, which is not the same as an “Honorable Discharge”.

HERE IS THE BEST PART (after jump):
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