Our friends at Bring the Heat don’t say where they got this sworn statement on then-cadet Spenser Rapone, but here it is;
It was written in November 2015, so I’m guessing the political climate was a little different then. I’m wondering why we haven’t heard from the prescient LTC Heffington in recent days, though.
So that fellow, Spenser Rapone who flashed his support for communism and his disdain for the US at his graduation last year seems to be in a world of shit. I guess folk have tracked him down in his enlisted assignments and his time at the Ranger Battalions was less than stellar if we believe our friends at Connecting Vets who report that;
Lt. Col Matthew Bockholt, director of public affairs for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) confirmed that Army 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone was “RFS.”
What this means: Released for standards (RFS) means a soldier is kicked out of the Battalion. A source in the Ranger Regiment veteran community tells ConnectingVets a Battalion member RFS means that the individual “no longer meets all standards as outlined in the Ranger Standards ‘Blue Book.’ The most common reason for this is failure to complete required training, but it could happen for a variety of reasons.”
Rapone had a deployment to Afghanistan, and his father, in a now-deleted post claims that deployment changed him. I don’t know how a deployment to Afghanistan would make him consider communism, though;
So, despite that, Rapone was accepted at West Point where his faculty mentor was one Rasheed Hosein, a professor of Middle East history, according to PJ Media which reports that Hosein is on administrative leave and he’s being investigated for something unrelated to Rapone, we’re told. Rapone and Hosein took a trip to India together a few years back. I still don’t see how all of that would make him a communist, though.
Anyway, he made his way through the Infantry Officer Basic Course last year, and then he went to Ranger School around February this year and for some reason they bounced him out. According to Stars & Stripes he’s back at his unit in 2d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. He’s in the field until later today according to his leadership;
[Brigade spokesman Capt. Michael] Mahar said Rapone has been in the field all week with his battalion, where he is an assistant operations officer helping to facilitate live fire exercises. Those conclude Friday, he said.
[…]
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team issued a statement saying, “Both the Department of Defense and the Army have longstanding policies encouraging soldiers to participate in the democratic process. However, the Army has strict rules regarding the wear and appearance of Army uniforms. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Tenth Mountain Division chain of command is aware of 2nd Lt. Rapone’s alleged actions and is looking into the matter.”
So, yeah, he’s in deep shit. Especially when it came to light that he disparaged President Trump (of course), Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Vice President Pence and John McCain, in public on his social media accounts. He also expressed his love for traitor and spy Bradley Manning;
Rapone’s Reddit account describes Manning’s “courage and tenacity” giving him “strength” to espouse his beliefs in the military.
I guess “courage and tenacity” means “incessant whining” in commiespeak.
The fellow who was named Bradley Manning when he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for trading away our government’s documents while he was entrusted with keeping secrets claims that he is not an “American traitor” according to Stars & Stripes;
Manning made the remarks at a conference in Nantucket that was one of her first public appearances since being released for a military prison in May. The Associated Press was the only media outlet in attendance.
“I believe I did the best I could in my circumstances to make an ethical decision,” she told the crowd when asked by the moderator if she was a traitor.
It really doesn’t matter how Manning thinks about what he did – the court said that he was guilty of breaking protocols that led to a massive security leak – probably the worst in history. Even if he had done those things without malicious intent, he’d still be a criminal.
When asked about Harvard’s uninvitation to serve as a “fellow”, Manning still doesn’t get why he was punished;
Manning said Harvard’s decision signaled to her that it’s a “police state” and it’s not possible to engage in actual political discourse in academic institutions.
“I’m not ashamed of being disinvited,” she said. “I view that just as much of an honored distinction as the fellowship itself.”
Yeah, well, if this were indeed a police state, he’d still be in prison – or lying in a potter’s field.
The other day, Travis Frink calmly walked into the hospital room where his mother was being treated for an aneurysm, fired a handgun three times into the woman and, just as calmly left the room.
Well, his stepfather, Bob Ferriere, blames the PTSD that Frink caught while he was in the Marines, according to the Valley News.
“As long as he was taking his medicine for PTSD, he was all right. When he got off the medicine, he would go wacko,” Ferriere said in a phone interview. “He beat people up. He would threaten people. He got locked up. He lost his job three or four times because he wouldn’t take his medicine.”
That’s odd, because thousands of Marines who suffer the effects of PTSD didn’t kill anyone, or “go whacko” this week, or the week and months before Tuesday.
“No one in this God-given world knows why he did it. I can’t tell you why he did it,” Bob Ferriere said, adding the only possibility was the PTSD, based on his past behavior.
Ferriere said he believes Frink suffered from PTSD from his time in the Marines and had a traumatic brain injury. But he didn’t know when he served nor how he might have gotten injured. He also did not say what medications Frink was taking.
“He had 10 years of fighting PTSD,” Ferriere said. “When he didn’t take his medicine, he went berserk.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Marines did not respond to a request to confirm Frink’s military service or his injuries.
Step-Dad, obviously a trained clinician familiar with PTSD, “believes” that Frink suffers from PTSD, but he doesn’t know when the guy served or how he caught the disorder. He’s convinced that medication corrects Frink’s PTSD, but he doesn’t know what this magic drug is called – despite the fact that this supposed disorder affects the entire family. I’m thinking that he was messed up before he joined the Marines, if he even was a Marine, and came out the same way.
The Marines just provide an easy-to-understand cause for the media – the same media that runs with the story before they can even verify it with the Marine Corps.
Thanks to H1 for the link.
Yesterday, we talked about Harvard University’s offer to that fellow who was named Bradley Manning when he spied on his fellow soldiers and released classified information to the world. According to The Guardian, Harvard has rescinded that offer;
Harvard University has rescinded an offer to make Chelsea Manning a visiting fellow after the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, cancelled an appearance at the university.
Pompeo had been scheduled to appear at Harvard’s John F Kennedy school of government to give a speech on global security concerns, but withdrew on Thursday, calling the university’s invitation to Manning a “shameful stamp of approval”.
On Wednesday, the military whistleblower had been among a group of 10 – including former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski – invited to speak at the institute of politics at Harvard’s Kennedy school as visiting fellows.
But hours after Pompeo’s withdrawal, the university stripped Manning of her title.
Former director of the CIA Mike Morell also resigned in protest to the school’s decision to hire Manning;
Manning says that he’s honored to be dis-invited from the school;
honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman visiting @harvard fellow ? they chill marginalized voices under @cia pressure ??? #WeGotThis https://t.co/7ViF3GaSec
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) September 15, 2017
My question is; when was his voice ever “chilled”? He’s been running his trap non-stop since he was convicted.
The traitor and spy who was known as Bradley Manning when he was in the Army, up until he decided that he was a woman, who was eventually had his sentence commuted by the President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, is now teaching at Harvard University, according to Military Times;
Chelsea Manning will be joining Harvard University as a visiting fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, according to the school’s website.
Manning will speak on issues of LGBTQ identity in the military, Institute of Politics Fellows co-chairs Emily Hall and Jason Ge wrote in an announcement posted Wednesday.
“We welcome the breadth of thought-provoking viewpoints on race, gender, politics and the media,” Bill Delahunt, IOP acting director, said in the announcement.
Yeah, if you’re sending your kids to Harvard, and this shows up on your child’s transcript, you should pull your child from the University because they’re not learning anything. Manning hasn’t shown any remorse for his crimes, and Harvard hired him because Manning has name recognition…and nothing more. Otherwise they would have hired someone who was transgender and in the military and wasn’t imprisoned for being a traitor.
And really, what do “issues of LGBTQ identity in the military” have to do with anything – it’s right up there with underwater basket-weaving.
From the Harvard announcement;
“Chelsea E. Manning is a Washington D.C. based network security expert and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst. She speaks on the social, technological and economic ramifications of Artificial Intelligence through her op-ed columns for The Guardian and The New York Times. As a trans woman, she advocates for queer and transgender rights as @xychelsea on Twitter. Following her court martial conviction in 2013 for releasing confidential military and State Department documents, President Obama commuted her 35-year sentence, citing it as “disproportionate” to the penalties faced by other whistleblowers. She served seven years in prison.”
David sends us a link to the story of William Robert Dunbar, a National Guardsman who threatened the life of Vice President Pence…twice;
According to a criminal complaint, police allege Dunbar made the threat when he was on duty at the Army National Guard Training Center along Aviation Drive in Richland Township.
The vice president was in Shanksville on Monday for the 16th anniversary observance of the Flight 93 crash.
“If someone pays me enough money, I will kill the vice president,” Dunbar said, according to the complaint.
Witnesses said they contacted their commanding officers after hearing Dunbar make the threat two times, the complaint said.
Dunbar is cooling his heels in the local jail on a $1/4 million bond and the cops own his guns.
AnotherPat sent us the link to Newsbusters which reports that “Miss America Contestants Asked to Condemn President Trump”. I don’t watch that fluffy stuff, so it didn’t bother me one bit. What Miss America contestants think about politic rates right up there with how much I care about Hollywood’s predictions of the end days of Global Warming;
It began with a question asked by judge Jordin Sparks to Miss Missouri, Jennifer Davis, about the multiple investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians – did Miss Davis think the Trump campaign was innocent or guilty? She said, “Innocent.” The crowd responded with mostly cheers. She said there wasn’t enough evidence but if the campaign proves to be guilty, the Justice Department should punish accordingly.
[…]
Miss Texas, Margana Wood, was asked by Jess Cagle about the Charlottesville protest with the KKK, white supremacists, and Antifa. Should Trump have said there were good people on both sides of the protest, he asked. Miss Wood gave a boilerplate liberal answer – Trump should have labeled the white supremacists as terrorists and made a statement sooner to make all Americans feel safe. She didn’t mention the terrorist actions of Antifa, though.
I guess the resulting Miss America, formerly Miss South Dakota, won after she was asked about Trump pulling out of the Paris climate Treaty;
Menounos: 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement, in which each country sets non-binding goals to reduce man made climate change. The U.S. is withdrawing from the agreement citing negligible environmental effects and negative economic impact. Good decision, bad decision? Which is it, and why?
Miss North Dakota: I do believe it’s a bad decision, once we reject that we take ourselves out of the negotiation table. And that’s something we really need to keep in mind. There is evidence that climate change is existing so whether you believe it or not, we need to be at that table and I think it’s just a bad decision on behalf of the United States.
Whatever. She’s not President, who cares.