Category: Politics

  • SITREP

    SITREP

    There have been several people who contacted me concerning the overall state of affairs.  First of all, thank you…truly, thank all of you for your support.  TSO has done a remarkable job of stepping into the breach.

    We don’t really know a lot about dates and events surrounding Jonn’s funeral as of yet.  I know I speak for all of us when I say his family has our complete and unwavering support.

    For those of you who wish to send tips and content, please feel free to do so.  I know for a fact Jonn wanted us to keep on keeping on…so I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.   I can not find the words to express how much it sucked to post articles here without telling anyone of Jonn passing.  We didn’t want to do that until his family gave us permission to do so, I am so sorry.

    We may fumble, stumble and stagger for a bit…but we will always regroup.

    dave@militaryphony.com

    (202) 630-8468

  • Mary Ellis – ATA Spitfire pilot dies.

    Mary Ellis died on Tuesday at the age of 101.  She has the distinction to be one of the Glamour Girls  of the ATA.

    Mary Ellis blazed a trail for female aviators, as one of the first women to fly Spitfires, heavy bombers and jet aircraft.

    She was a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which employed civilians to deliver planes from factories to airfields during the Second World War.

    If you find the time, here are a few videos about her amazing career.  What an amazingly full life she had.

     

    This is just wonderful to watch.  What an exceptional group of women without whom the war may very well have turned for the worse.

     

     

  • 53 Percent of Employers said Veterans do not have successful careers after the Military.

    53 Percent of Employers said Veterans do not have successful careers after the Military.

    We take anything published in a Military Times article with a bit of skepticism, but this one is worth discussion.

    More than half of veterans struggle to find work in their desired fields after leaving the military because civilian employers want experienced and educated candidates ? and often don’t realize veterans qualify, a new survey finds.

    Only 17 percent of employers say veterans are viewed as strategic assets in the workplace, according to the survey, released this week by the marketing firm Edelman. And despite the large majority of veteran respondents saying they have education beyond a high school diploma, 46 percent of employers believe veterans do not pursue a college degree or vocational training.

    I have lost count of how many times some civilian said to me, “I was going to join the military but I got into college.”  That makes me twitch a knife hand and visions of throat punching dance through my mind.  Back in the 70’s and 80’s a lot of veterans never mentioned their service on employment applications.  The past election just beat this false narrative of “uneducated” voters to death.

    This concept that people remain “uneducated” if they don’t choose to run up 6 digits of debt to get on with life is nonsense.  I doubt there is a single person attending Evergreen that could re-assemble a transmission.  I am simply tired of people who weld, pour concrete, re-build engines, do roofing, and on and on being referred to as “uneducated.”   I put more trust in the guy who installed my septic tank than I do any person with a degree in Gender Studies.

    For example, 53 percent of employers surveyed said veterans do not have successful careers after the military. Yet federal employment figures show veterans reached a record-low unemployment rate in 2017 ? 3.7 percent, compared to 4.2 percent for nonveterans ? and other statistics show veterans have higher salaries and advance more quickly in their jobs, Schmeling pointed out.

    Gee… I wonder why they would think such a thing.  With all the posturing going on these days and military service seen as some form of disability, it’s shocking the number is only 53 percent.

    Military spouses also encountered challenges and wished the government would do more to advocate for them, according to the study. Sixty-eight percent of employers said they did not offer options for flexible schedules or remote work that military spouses could benefit from, and many admitted their companies do not understand the value that military spouses have to offer in the workforce.

    How could employers not understand the value of Dependapotami ?  A quick daytime drive around base housing will educate even the most dull-witted.   (Ok, let’s not dance on the keyboard sending what I call “recreational outrage,” I am just being sarcastic by using some false stereotypes… kinda false, ok maybe a little truth to it.)

    The study found one way to bridge the civilian-military divide in the workforce could be through internship and apprenticeship programs, particularly in the information technology and trades fields. Both employers and veterans see this as an opportunity for vets to gain the technical and soft skills that employers want.

    I didn’t even have to strain my elusive GED to come to that conclusion.  I need to tap into some of this “Study Money.”   Maybe if we weren’t all victims of military service or “got into college” instead of pissing our time away defending this nation, employers would have a higher opinion of us.

     

  • Jane Fonda; “I’m very sorry for some of what I did.”

    Jane Fonda; “I’m very sorry for some of what I did.”

    Chip and Mick send us links to Fox News which reports that Hanoi Jane Fonda Express some, but not enough, regrets for her visit to North Vietnam in 1970 to undermine our troops;

    “Prior to me becoming an anti-war activist, I had lived a meaningless life,” she said. “So when I decided to throw in my head in with the anti-war movement everything changed.”

    She then detailed her regret over posing on an anti-aircraft gun, which led her to being nicknamed “Hanoi Jane” and many accusing her of treason.

    “I am proud I went to Vietnam when I did. I am so sorry that I was thoughtless enough to sit down on that gun at that time and the message that that sends to the guys who were there and their families – it’s just horrible for me to think of that.”

    She admitted she knew little about the war before she encountered some American soldiers in France who enlightened her.

    For some stupid reason someone in Hollywood thinks that the American public would be interested in watching a documentary about her sad, useless life;

    Fonda revisited her best and worst moments for the HBO documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts.”

    In the trailer for the documentary, she reveals: “I’m very sorry for some of what I did.”

    Yeah, she was sorry for what she did, but then she threw in with the Iraq Veterans Against the War during the war against terror, so obviously she didn’t learn anything from her Vietnam experience.

  • Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer arrested again

    Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer arrested again

    We talked about Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer last month when the founder of Veterans on Patrol claimed to have discovered a campsite in Tucson, Arizona that was used to traffic in child-sex.

    For the second time this month, the founder of Veterans on Patrol, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, was arrested on suspicion of trespassing Sunday afternoon, according to Sgt. Kimberly Bay with the Tucson Police Department.

    Meyer, also known as Lewis Arthur, gained national attention after claiming through social media that his group discovered an abandoned homeless camp that was used for child sex trafficking, near West Valencia Road and Interstate 19. Local law enforcement officials said those claims were investigated and found no such evidence.

    This latest arrest was facilitated by videos that Meyer posted on YouTube which law enforcement discovered and used as evidence to arrest him for trespassing once again.

    From KGUN;

    Meyer has a history of similar actions and violations dating back to 2014 at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada and others in Arizona.

    In Surprise, Arizona, he was arrested for criminal trespassing, had an established homeless encampment in Phoenix and another in Mesa, and he more recently became associated with a homeless encampment on private property behind Santa Rita Park in Tucson.

    Several weeks ago, Meyer agreed to leave the Cemex property, but he returned and illegally occupied a tower.

    From Tucson.com;

    Meyer has persisted in making the claims on numerous Facebook posts in which he claims a massive cover up while soliciting donations and asking for volunteers to look for cartel activity in the desert around Tucson.

    Meyer, 39, was arrested Sunday at the Cemex property, where he had been living in a tower for nine days prior and had been returning to since finding the abandoned camp, the news release said.

    Despite the name of his organization, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer is not a veteran of the US military.

    Thanks to Martin for the tip.

  • Cohen’s “Purple Heart” comment spurs veteran protest

    Cohen’s “Purple Heart” comment spurs veteran protest

    According to the Tennessean, Steve Cohen’s comment the other day about how he wished that he could award FBI agent Peter Strzok a Purple Heart for the abuse he received from Republicans at a congressional hearing has angered Memphis veterans;

    Army veteran Darien Price, who lives in Memphis, said he was “blown away” by what he heard during the televised hearing.

    “That’s all I can say without cursing,” Price said in a telephone interview with the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee.

    Price is a Purple Heart recipient. He was injured in 2003 in Afghanistan when he was in a tank that came under enemy fire, he said. Initially denied to be a recipient, Price said Cohen’s office helped him with the congressional investigation that led the award in 2009.

    “It was very personal to hear what he said. It was like a big slap in the face,” Price said. “It is disrespectful to those alive who wear the Purple Heart but especially to families who lost loved ones to who fought for this country. Truly saddening.”

    Air Force veteran and VA whistleblower Sean Higgins is planning to organize a local protest;

    Higgins is organizing an upcoming march in response to Cohen’s remarks and in protest of the hospital’s treatment of veterans. He said he has applied for a permit and that 30 veterans, including Price, so far have committed to joining.

    From Fox News;

    Retired Staff Sgt. Johnny “Joey” Jones, a Marine Corps veteran who received a Purple Heart after losing both of his legs and suffering other permanent injuries in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Afghanistan, told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that Cohen’s remarks were “disgraceful.”

    Following public outcry, Cohen backpedaled on his remarks during a joint hearing Friday.

    “I regret mentioning the Purple Heart medal at yesterday’s hearing,” Cohen said. “My intent was to speak metaphorically to make a broader point about attacks against the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into a Russian attack on our country.

    “I have nothing but the highest respect for members of the armed forces, especially those who have been awarded Purple Hearts, as well as the hard working men and women at the FBI. We are safe because of their service and sacrifice,” he said.

  • Ob-strzok-tion of justice

    For eighteen months, Democrats and the liberal media have been hoping beyond hope that the Mueller investigation will result in Donald Trump being found guilty of colluding with Russia or obstruction of justice. They would prefer the latter, for while collusion could be conjured into grounds for impeachment by an increasingly unlikely Democrat-controlled Congress, it is no crime. So obstruction of justice, an actual prosecutable crime, is what they have really been salivating for. In Thursday’s congressional hearings featuring the FBI figure central to all of these hopes, Peter Strzok, the Dems showed the world just how willing they are to engage in some major obstruction of their own to prevent House Republicans from investigating the investigator. While their behavior may not rise to criminality, it certainly robbed the American people of a full opportunity to hear Strzok’s responses to penetrating and pointed Republican questioning.

    Time after time, when Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee tried to pin down the unctuous, slippery Strzok, some Democrat member or other would break into the questioning to raise a superfluous objection that broke the line of questioning and refocused attention away from the legitimate target – a corrupt FBI investigation, or rather multiple corrupt FBI investigations – relieving the frequently beleaguered subject of the committee’s immediate focus. Or, when it came their turn to speak, the Dems would dredge up unrelated criticisms of the Trump administration, such as poor little immigrant babies being abused by evil ICE. One of the most despicable things they did was to rope in all the other members of the FBI by painting Strzok as just one of the regular guys, thus tainting the whole force. I’ve lost count of how many former FBI agents, even executives, who have come forward to deny this, pointing out that Strzok’s and his cronies’ behaviors were clearly atypical of the service.

    The most heated outbreak of such Democrat witness protection came when Texas Republican Louis Gohmert raised the issue of how Strzok could expect the committee to believe his, Strzok’s, every pious assertion of virtue when the guy had been cheating on his wife with another member of the FBI investigatory team throughout the time he was investigating Trump and Hillary. I thought it was a legitimate question, although I might have asked it even more pointedly – such as, “Mr. Strzok, you ask this committee to accept your virtue without demurral, so I’m wondering: are you still cheating on your wife?”

    The Democrats couldn’t have stunk things up more if they’d wheeled in a cart of week-old red herring and dumped it in the open area between the committee members and the witness. What made this obfuscating all the more infuriating was the fact that Strzok’s culpability is so well and thoroughly documented, much of it in the public domain, yet in spite of that, he and the Democrats could so blithely, even haughtily, ignore that 900-pound gorilla while mouthing continuous denials of known facts and wrapping this smarmy, smirking swamp creature in pious protestations of public service and patriotism.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Democrat Media finally succeeds…

    Reading the comments following blog Thomas Lifson’s Saturday article on the latest Dem/media sleaze attack upon a Republican political figure, Congressman Jim Jordan, I found one that immediately resonated with me as perhaps significantly consequential to the coming election and even farther into the future. Commenter Skeptic wrote:

    My rule is that if it comes from the legacy media, it is false. My new policy is to not care what is said about Trump or his supporters or even whether it is true or not. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and nothing else matters. In this case nothing deserves a second look. It is all lies.

    That 21st Century declaration of independence from malicious media mind control gripped me because it so letter-perfectly described my own response to this latest campaign by the media and the Democrat dirty operations, and I suspect that of millions of other Americans. We are fed up with this endless parade of sleazy character assassins and their claims of past sexual sins against Donald Trump or other Republicans that the liberal media always take between their teeth and romp with, ever so gleefully.

    What the so-called legacy media now has left to chew on is their shabby legacy of distrust and disbelief, having squandered that most precious coin of the realm, public trust. When even long time Democrats finally are turning away from the party in disgust, appalled by such seedy tactics and shameful media slander, perhaps it is time for those who control the output of these media organizations to heed a bit of ancient wisdom. Both media moguls and Democrat leaders should ponder the biblical admonition that “The wages of sin are death,” for surely their treachery is destroying their followings as the #WalkAway movement is demonstrating, a phenomenon that is as much about distrust of the media as it is about the loony leftism of the party. While they’re pondering, those same leaders might also give some consideration to Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried wolf until no one believed him.

    If Skeptic’s creed is as widely representative of the American populace as I suspect, then it shows that the socialist fanaticism adopted by the Democrats and their media mouthpieces has finally succeeded in destroying their own credibility outside their urban liberal enclaves and in the process the continued viability of both.