This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Politics

  • Army continues plan to cut 40k troops

    Army continues plan to cut 40k troops

    Task Force Smith

    Here’s your “peace dividend” – the Army is continuing it’s plans to cut 40,000 more troops bringing the current manpower strength to 450,000, you know while Russia is pushing West, while we’re fully engaged with ISIS and the Taliban. While troops are deployed to Africa and the Philippines. From a link sent to us from reader “Ohio” to Reuters;

    The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army from its current size of about 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest number since before the United States entered World War Two.

    […]

    Defense officials confirmed on Tuesday the Army was moving ahead with the plan to reduce uniformed and civilian personnel and was expected to announce details on Thursday about which units would be affected by the cuts.

    The personnel cuts come as the Pentagon is attempting to absorb nearly $1 trillion in reductions to planned defense spending over a decade.

    “Smallest number since World War II”. You know what else would save money? If we gave the troops two-by-fours instead of rifles with which to drill. If we put cardboard signs on Humvees with “Tank” written on it in big block letters – that would save fuel. I mean if we’re going back to pre-world-war conditions, let’s go all the way back. Kaserine Pass was a great teaching point for the troops. So was Task Force Smith.

    The “peace dividend” always has a price – and that price is always paid for in blood.

  • Is it worth it?

    I served 3 tours in Germany, a total just barely short of 9 years. During those years, duty and time permitting my wife, son and I were able to see some of Europe. In 1988 or thereabouts, we booked a tour to Holland’s Tulip festival. A tour of Amsterdam preceded the Tulip Festival. Aside from Anne Franke’s house and a boat ride through the canals, the remainder of the Amsterdam tour was quite enlightening as to what post-Christian means. I see that clearer now than I did during a trip nearly thirty years past.

    I remember being in Amsterdam’s Dam Square beside their National War Memorial. The stench was quite bad. It smelled like a giant urinal. Graffiti covered buildings were visible in every direction. Not the reverence I would expect a country to pay a war memorial. It was not the place to take your family.

    No Amsterdam tour is complete without a walking tour of the Red Light district. Picture windows line the streets and in those red lit windows sit prostitutes advertising their wares leaving little to the imagination. Also along those streets are the drug bars. Legal of course. Then there are the bars with explicit signage advertising their live shows and before a youngster can ask his dad what that means, a sleazy looking street hawker clears up all doubt. Probably a great location for a rainbow colored Whitehouse. The Red Light district was packed with tourists. There was no line at Anne Franke’s house.

    I cannot imagine that Biblical Sodom was much different from this place. With our country’s accelerated drive toward moral relativism, legalization of drugs, and a push toward a Post-Christian America one can but wonder how long before Hometown America begins to mimic Amsterdam.

    I was reading some C. S. Lewis thoughts on what he termed Post-Christian Europe and Post-Christian man. To summarize it into my own words, he surmised rather clearly that Christian man had much more in common with the Pre-Christian pagan than he does with the Post-Christian man. At least the pagan and the Christian alike adhered to natural law.

    Riding the tour bus out of Amsterdam, if I saw a structure that was not covered with graffiti I do not remember it. It is one of the images that remain in my mind. Leaving the city and entering a rather pristine countryside covered with tulip fields drew a stark contrast. It was like two separate worlds, connected by language but little else.

    Here in America, we are even losing the language connection and like every other assault on anything distinctly American that too is purposeful.

    I received an email following last week’s post and someone ask me what are we supposed to do about all this change. “How do we fight it?” The undertone of sheer frustration was obvious in the email.

    There is only one thing each person can do. It starts by knowing what you believe. Knowing the source of the truth that is the foundation of what you believe. And having the fortitude and willingness to stand firm regardless of the consequences.

    Understand and hold firm that man did not give us freedom; therefore man cannot alter our path or take away our freedom. Freedom cannot be taken it can only be forfeited.

    In the service, each person knew of the obligation to refuse to carry out an illegal order. In our 50 states, we must have leaders who know when a Supreme Court decision has no basis in law or in the Constitution and who have the fortitude to challenge it – disobey it. We have too few willing to stand up.

    At some point, each of us will have to decide if it is worth it. Worth it to go into the streets in mass and stand up for what is right and to keep our country free. Red, White and Blue are the only colors that should ever light “our” Whitehouse.

    © 2015 J. D. Pendry American Journal All Rights Reserved

  • Meet Viole(n)t Grace TSO

    Going to take a point of person privilege here and introduce you to Violet Grace Seavey.  I met my wife blogging here and at The Sniper, and I even proposed to my wife on this blog.  (You can read it here if you never saw it.)  It took us 58 months to have our daughter, and there were times we wondered if maybe God had other plans, but through Him, and some help from science, we finally have someone to share our life.

    (Photo deleted because of intellectual property theft by Bernath)

    She decided to wait until July, mostly I think my wife just wasn’t even trying hard because she (apparently) invented some thing called a Push Gift which I think is a load of made up stuff, but I have to buy her something expensive and because it is July she wanted a Ruby. June was probably like a bag of flour or something. Either way, she showed up at 0035 hours, and I haven’t slept much, so about to go nap. But I thought y’all might want to meet her.

    I’m going to get her a provisional appointment to The Citadel, but pray every day she gets into UVA, which I still think the best college in the country. I’m going to teach her land nav, the sublime beauty that is a road march, and how to Golf, because if I can turn quality time into golf, I am a hero.

    By the way, it’s “Viole(n)t” because Matt Burden is predicting she will wreak havoc on my life.

  • What killed America?

    Was it two dominant political parties always in opposition and vying for power as the founders warned was a great threat to our Constitution? That is certainly as good a candidate as any. These men and women do doggoned little these days, if they ever did, to represent Americans. They instead court the money and the powerful quid pro quo. It pads their pockets and points them to insider deals that make them wealthy on a civil servants’ salary. My one man poll places the popularity and effectiveness of the United States Congress somewhere just below whale crap.

    Was it when we started purging God from society? Removing prayer and any other vestiges of Him first from schools and then from any place where one might encounter an offensive Christian symbol. Even though our founding documents make the foundation of this lost nation quite clear. According to at least one Supreme Court Justice, those founders could not have envisioned what freedom and liberty encompasses in our more enlightened modern world. Apparently he does not think God got it right either. Well, who the hell am I to question a Supreme Court Judge? One of America’s appointed for life honest brokers. Turn away now, spewing your drink onto the monitor will just make a mess and hot coffee shooting out of your nose can be painful, although it will clear your sinuses.

    Was it when we began abandoning people who wanted freedom? About the time a progressive Congress cut off all aid to the South Vietnamese leading to a communist victory, executions, and re-education camps and to Pol Pot’s killing fields. That emboldened enemies and pushed allies away. Clearly we did not learn from that, because we allowed them to do it again in the Middle East. As we scooted, once again from a hard fought military victory, we opened up the gates of hell on the region’s Christian population and anyone else opposing the death cult that clearly spends its nights thinking up more creative ways to murder people. We do drone one of them occasionally, that will show them.

    Was it when the Supreme Court found in the Constitution the right to kill unborn children? Want to speak to me about genocide? We own the greatest one ever committed – and it is ongoing. Our president did ask God to bless Planned Parenthood once following a speech to them. Probably not a good idea. As a nation, we will answer for it someday.

    Was it multiculturalism? The advent of hyphenated-Americanism? It was when we started picking the carrots and peas out of the melting pot that we began the Balkanization of America. Geeze I forgot we are not allowed to say melting pot anymore because, well, it might offend someone who does not care about assimilating. Being a freedom loving American became passé. American values replaced by hyphenated-American values and effectively destroying what we did have in common – love and appreciation for the freest and greatest nation ever.

    Was it when spoiled Hollywood brats started visiting our enemies during war and making propaganda radio broadcasts, hippies burning draft cards and running off to Canada. Or was it when deserters had their bad discharges upgraded and draft dodgers were granted amnesty – and elected president.

    Was it when we lost control of our borders and control of who enters our country? Maybe it was when we lost the language. Push 1 for English… When you sing your Christmas carols what image pops into your mind when you sing “don we now our gay apparel?” The language, political correctness all of it together and it is like we followed Alice into Wonderland and have no human guide to bring us back home.

    Was it when the Supreme Court decided to rewrite laws by redefining a penalty as a tax and declaring that established by a state really means established by the federal government. Words now mean whatever some self-perceived enlightened judge says they mean. It is just a matter of time until they redefine what it means to keep and bear arms or any other right for that matter. Was it when the court found another right – homosexual marriage – in the Constitution? Using the same rationale for God, one must assume, as used to decide the founders could not have envisioned the modern world. Uh.. Sodom – Gomorrah.

    Was it when we decided we would start removing pieces of American history because someone finds them offensive? Does that differ from ISIS destroying artifacts from ancient cultures? Minus the murder it differs not. History hidden and forgotten is history repeated. You cannot find a Confederate flag on Amazon, but you can find Nazi items, any communist flag you can name, the Black Panther Flag the people who stood in the streets of Charleston and said “finish the mission, kill all of the slave masters”, and the Nation of Islam flag whose leader just declared “we have to put down the American flag.”

    Was it passive Christians who did not push back? Was it passive Christian ministers who frightened of losing their tax status failed to speak from the pulpit about where the nation was headed?

    It was the man in the mirror who grew apathetic, who took freedom for granted, who grew ignorant of the history and founding of our country, grew ignorant of the political process, voted for a party not a man or woman, desired to pass his problems off to the government to solve…

    © 2015 J. D. Pendry American Journal All Rights Reserved

  • More Thoughts on Guns and Murders

    A comment by one of our regulars (VOV) the other day – along with a video posted by another reader in a different discussion – got me thinking.  And it led me to look at a few numbers.

    I know that’s a huge surprise.  Try to get over the shock.  (smile)

    What I ran across wasn’t really surprising to me, except in one area. But it might be of general interest, so I decided to post what I found and my conclusions.  They concern guns, murder, and the distribution of the latter.

    In 2012, the USA had a murder rate (which includes non-negligent homicides) of 4.7 per 100,000 population. That year, the US population was somewhat less than 314 million (313,873,685); there were somewhat under 15,000 murders (14,866).

    What I found interesting was where those murders occurred. As most of our regular readers might guess, it seems a disproportionate number of them occurred in cities.

    1.  All Cities over 250,000.

    I was able to find data on the murder rate in all US cities over 250,000.   I then did a bit of number crunching (Excel is good for that) to determine the number of murders in those cities. Roundoff error may have resulted in a minor error, since I used rounding to get integer totals – but I don’t think it did.  If it did, I doubt any error is more than by 1 or 2.  Here’s what I came up with:

    US Cities over 250,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 55,501,250 Total Population 258,372,435
    Total Murders 5,805 Total Murders 9,061
    Murder Rate 10.5 Murder Rate 3.5

    Yep – for all US cities over 250,000 in population, the aggregate murder rate is roughly 3x that of the rest of the country. Although US cities with population greater than 250,000 have less than 18% of the total US population, they account for 39% of US homicides.

    If you think that’s an indication that murder is much more of a problem in cities than in the rest of America – that’s correct. But stay tuned; there’s a bit of a plot twist coming.

    2.  All US Cities over 500,000.

    I decided to look next at cities over 500k in population (Excel makes sorting REALLY easy). There are 33 such US cities.

    The results were a mildly surprising.

    US Cities over 500,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 41,237,116 Total Population 272,636,569
    Total Murders 4,114 Total Murders 10,752
    Murder Rate 10.0 Murder Rate 3.9

    Interesting. Though still disproportionate, considering only cities with a population over 500,000 actually narrowed the “gap” a bit. While some of that is due to adding the cities between 250,000 and 500,000 in population (and their murders) back into the “rest of USA” category, having any drop-off at all still seems . . . well, a bit odd.

    3.  Well, How about 600,000+?

    Here ya go. Not much change, actually.  Curious.

    US Cities over 600,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 37,852,847 Total Population 276,020,838
    Total Murders 3,783 Total Murders 11,0833
    Murder Rate 10.0 Murder Rate 4.0

    4.  The “Top 10” – US Cities over 1,000,000

    So, I decided to look at only the “biggies” – e.g., the 10 largest US Cities. As it turns out, there are also precisely the US cities that top 1,000,000 in population. So, I took a look.  Here’s what I found.

    US Cities over 1,000,000 (“Top 10”)

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 25,494,200 Total Population 288,379,485
    Total Murders 2.,261 Total Murders 12,605
    Murder Rate 8.9 Murder Rate 4.4

    Interesting – and, frankly, a bit surprising.

    The numbers continue to converge, which along with the previous data indicates the problem doesn’t always get worse as cities get larger.  One would guess it should, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

    5.  The “Worst Offenders”.

    So, let’s look instead at the “worst of the worst” and see what we can deduce. Sorting on murder rate and taking the “worst offenders”, here’s the list – and the numbers:

    The “Worst Offenders”
    State City Population Murder Rate Number of Murders
    Michigan Detroit 707,096 54.6 386
    Louisiana New Orleans 362,874 53.2 193
    Missouri St. Louis 318,667 35.5 113
    Maryland Baltimore 625,474 34.9 218
    New Jersey Newark 278,906 34.4 96
    California Oakland 399,487 31.8 127
    California Stockton 299,105 23.7 71
    Missouri Kansas City 464,073 22.6 105
    Pennsylvania Philadelphia 1,538,957 21.5 331
    Ohio Cleveland 393,781 21.3 84
    Tennessee Memphis 657,436 20.2 133
    Georgia Atlanta 437,041 19 83
    Illinois Chicago 2,708,382 18.5 501
    New York Buffalo 262,434 18.3 48
    Florida Miami 414,327 16.7 69
    Ohio Cincinnati 296,204 15.5 46
    Wisconsin Milwaukee 599,395 15.2 91
    Oklahoma Oklahoma City 595,607 14.3 85
    DC Washington 632,323 13.9 88
    Ohio Toledo 286,020 13.6 39
    Pennsylvania Pittsburgh 312,112 13.1 41

    Interesting. No apparent real rhyme or reason here. Some are large cities (Chicago, Philly); others are not. NYC and Boston didn’t make the list – but neither did Dallas, Houston, or LA. The list almost seems to have been culled at random from the list of US cities with population over 250,000.

    But whatever the underlying reasons these are the 21 US cities with the worst murder rates in the USA.  In fact, it’s all of the US cities with a population over 250,000 having a murder rate over 13.

    In the aggregate, those 21 cities have only 4% of the US population.  But they account for almost 20% of US murders – and their aggregate murder rate is just a hair less than 5x the national average.

    Significantly, though – those “gun crazy” states with really low ratings from the “Brady Bunch” don’t exactly seem overrepresented on the list.  None of the states with a Brady score of zero (AK, AZ, and UT) have a city on the list – and yes, each has a city large enough to be listed there.  In fact, if you do a quick count you’ll find that a handful of “states” – specifically, CA, PA, MD, NJ, IL, NY, MI, and the District of Columbia – account for almost half (10 of 21) of the cities listed.

    The average Brady Score of those eight “states” in 2011 was 51.375 (the “Brady Bunch” didn’t assign DC a Brady Score in 2011, but for computation here I’m arbitrarily assigning DC a Brady Score equal to that of NY). That average would meet the criteria for a “3-star” rating from the “Brady Bunch” with respect to the strength of their gun control laws.  Indeed, all of these states received at least 2 stars from the “Brady Bunch” in 2011.

    In fact, of the 11 states with a “2-star” or higher rating from the “Brady Bunch”, nearly 2/3 of them (7 of 11) have a city on the “worst offenders” list above.  I’m guessing it would be an even 2/3 (8 of 12) if the “Brady Bunch” had published a Brady Score for DC.

    In contrast, “gun crazy” TX – which has no cities on the list above – had a 2011 Brady Score of 4 and a 0 star rating from the “Brady Bunch”.  Plus, the US city with the lowest murder rate – Plano, with a 2012 murder rate of 0.4  (not a misprint; that really is intended to read “zero point four”) – is also in Texas.  Go figure.

    6.  Comments.

    A few caveats and comments before I get to my conclusions.

    The “cities” above are exactly that – legal and political entities.  They aren’t their entire metro area in many cases; they’re often ringed with smaller cities and towns (the famed “Suburbia”).  However, they do generally include the old, urban “inner city” areas for the  region in question.

    As I noted above, the number of murders for each city is calculated from the city’s population and its murder rate, then rounded to the nearest integer (best I can tell, it’s kinda hard to kill nine-tenths of a person).  So it’s possible that there may be a round off error in there somewhere – I don’t think there is, but since it’s possible I’ll mention that fact here.

    Data for 2012 national-level statistics was obtained a site called “disastercenter.com“.  They in turn give the source of their data as being FBI UCI statistics.  I didn’t verify that, but I did spot check their 2012 US murder rate against another source and found they matched – so I don’t think they’re “blowing smoke”.

    Data source for murder rate and population for 2012 for US cities of population 250,000 and over was Wikipedia.  Wikipedia data also appears to be taken from FBI UCI crime statistics.

    A personally retained softcopy of the “Brady Bunch” Brady Score Scorecard for 2011 was used to determined 2011 state Brady Scores.

    Microsoft Excel was used to “run the numbers”.

    . . .

    My conclusions?  Threefold.

    First:  gun murder does seem to be more a city problem than anything else.  But it’s not equally a problem in all cities – whether your talking big cities or smaller ones.   Some mid-size and large cities have a very good handle on the problem (San Diego and El Paso to name two), and even NYC and LA are doing a pretty good job; ditto for many other small- and mid-sized cities.  Others have issues, but aren’t sucking wind like the cities on the last list above.

    But some cities of all sizes have a major problem – including cities next door to other cities doing a good job, and with similar gun laws (e.g., Newark, NJ, and NYC).  Local conditions, policies, and quirks seem much more important than a city’s size.

    Second:  My original opinion about the Brady Score hasn’t changed.  The acronym for “Brady Score” is “BS” – and that’s perfectly descriptive.  Legal restrictions on firearms ownership by law-abiding citizens don’t seem to do squat to prevent murders.

    Chicago and DC legally banned most firearms until recently, and it’s still virtually impossible for a citizen without connections to get a handgun carry permit (or even legally purchase a gun) in either location.  But both are among the cities with murder rates grossly higher than the US average.  And of the US cities with the 10 worst (highest) murder rates, 6 of them are from states that the “Brady Bunch” awarded 2 or more stars in 2011 for having Brady Scores in the top 22% of states:  CA (2 – Oakland, Stockton), NJ (Newark), MI (Detroit), MD (Baltimore), and PA (Philadelphia).

    Third:   Little Marty-boi O’Malley should shut his dissembling, hypocritical mouth regarding guns and gun control.  He obviously doesn’t know sh!t from Shinola when it comes to preventing gun violence.

    Why do I say that?   One word:  Baltimore.  Look above for the details.

  • Arizona F16 Crash – Update

    The pilot of the F16 that crashed in Arizona has been identified.  Per AP reports, he is Brig. Gen. Rafid Mohammed Hassan, Iraqi Air Force.

    Brig. Gen Hassan had been training in the US on the F16 in order to use it against ISIS/ISIL/whatever that gang of murderous thugs is called today.  His status is still formally unknown.

    Update:  Brig. Gen. Hassan did not survive.  His remains have been located.

    Godspeed, General.  May He grant you be found alive and well.

     

    (Updated to reflect confirmation of Brig. Gen. Hassan’s death and recovery of remains.)

  • F-16 Down In Arizona

    Our aerial brethren are short an aircraft this morning – and may be short one pilot.

    The 162nd Fighter Wing, Arizona ANG, based in Tucson, AZ, lost an aircraft last night.  The bird – an F-16 – went down near Douglas, AZ, during a night training operation.

    The status of the aircraft’s pilot is not currently known.  If you’re inclined to pray, a prayer for that individual’s safe recovery might be in order.

    The military is a risky business, both in war and peace.

  • Ever wanted to play golf with a Medal of Honor Recipient? Here’s your chance to play with three.

    Ever wanted to play golf with a Medal of Honor Recipient? Here's your chance to play with three.

    I’ve been really lucky to have met all three of these Medal of Honor recipients, Sal Giuna, Ryan Pitts and Kyle White.  I spent a week riding on horseback and camping with Ryan, have been drinking with Sal on more occasions than I can remember (in fact, most the nights ended with me remembering little) and hung out with Kyle at last years convention.  Finer men you will never meet.  Sal is one of the best dudes to go drinking with you’ll ever meet, and Ryan is just a great guy all around.  Ryan was kind enough to invite me to his award ceremony, but I was at the other two as a journalist as well.

    Anyway, the 173rd Association is having a golf tournament featuring all three.  I’m hoping to lock down my travel for it today.  As Parachute Cutie tells us:

    The 173rd Airborne Brigade Association Foundation is sponsoring a fund raising golf on Monday August 3, 2015 at the Manchester Country Club in Bedford, NH.  Medal of Honor Recipients SSG (r) Sal Giunta, SGT (r) Kyle White and SSG (r) Ryan Pitts are guest hosts for the event and will all be golfing.

    Event opportunities:

    Cocktail reception with Sal, Kyle and Ryan on Sunday August 2, 2015.  Beer, wine and food provided.  $100 per person.  Limited number of tickets available

    Golf outing on Monday August 3, 2015 – $200 per golfer includes 18 holes, cart, lunch and awards dinner.  Can register as a single golfer, 2, 3 or 4.

    Awards dinner on Monday August 3, 2015 after golf is complete.  $75.00 per person.

    We’ve got some really cool auction and raffle items lines up, too.

    Facebook page link – https://www.facebook.com/pages/173D-Airborne-Brigade-Foundation-Golf-Outing-2015/1431316233840034?fref=ts

    Registration link (for cocktail reception, golf or awards dinner after golf) – https://www.skysoldier.net/event-1947110

    Registration link for sponsorships that range from $125 up to $15,000 – https://www.skysoldier.net/page-18139

    So, if you want to golf with them, or be a sponsor, you should sign up soon.  If you are going to go, let me know so I can see if we can get in a foursome for the tournament.  I warn you now, I suck.  I’ll probably hit right under 100, but I also guarantee you that I do it while consuming at least 12 beers.  So, you can drive.