Category: Politics

The President has returned the Defense Department’s and Homeland Security Department’s policy on accepting transgender people to it’s current status. The President signed a Memorandum yesterday in that endeavor;

Sec. 2. Directives. The Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the U.S. Coast Guard, shall:

(a) maintain the currently effective policy regarding accession of transgender individuals into military service beyond January 1, 2018, until such time as the Secretary of Defense, after consulting with the Secretary of Homeland Security, provides a recommendation to the contrary that I find convincing; and

(b) halt all use of DoD or DHS resources to fund sex reassignment surgical procedures for military personnel, except to the extent necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex.

The Memorandum becomes effective on January 1, 2018 (for paragraph (a)) and March 23, 2018 (for paragraph (b)), but actually, that policy remains effective like it has since the beginning of time. The President explains why;

In my judgment, the previous Administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study is needed to ensure that continued implementation of last year’s policy change would not have those negative effects.

Of course, the community that wants general acceptance of the transgender lifestyle is losing it’s collective mind.

For example, the Victory Institute, which tells me that they “work to increase the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in public office and to provide programming, service, and other support to ensure their success” emailed me;

“It’s disgusting, and an absolute disgrace, that a man who dodged service for his country is now ordering the Pentagon to denigrate those who are already serving it. We have a president who is committed to white supremacist ideology and with each policy action declaring war on equality for all Americans – defending the KKK, blocking Muslim immigrants and visitors, and now banning transgender people from serving their country and pardoning a convicted racist. The time for words and debate has ended. In order to save our democracy from the clutches of bigotry and hatred we must unite and fight back – and fight back hard. LGBTQ people exist in all communities and an attack on us is an attack on everyone. We will not go silently into the night. We will not learn our place and be forced back into the closet. We will march. We will train. We will run for office and reclaim our democracy one election at a time. 2018 is months away and we will remember those that stood silent in the face of abject discrimination. LGBTQ people are fired up and training to run for office so that we can replace those who have turned their backs on our community.”

The Civil and Human Rights Coalition also emailed;

“Just days after President Trump addressed our troops at Fort Myer about the strength of our force, this announcement only seeks to undermine military readiness. He has yet again attacked those brave, patriotic individuals who are serving, and seek to serve, in our military, simply because they are transgender. There is no reason for this move beyond bigotry and politics.

We agreed with the president when he said on Monday, ‘The men and women of our military operate as one team, with one shared mission, and one shared sense of purpose.’ We are hopeful that the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security will exercise the authority granted to them by the president and stand up for the rights of all, including patriotic transgender Americans, who are willing to serve and to protect the security of our country. ”

The Palm Center emotes in my inbox;

“Instead of working to keep the American people safe, our Commander in Chief has taken aim at his own capably serving troops, contradicting the conclusions of the American Legion, former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dozens of retired Generals and Admirals, 18 foreign militaries, and years of research conducted by the military itself and outside scholars. A billion-dollar witch hunt targeting thousands of current service members will not save the taxpayers money or strengthen the military but will cause disruptions and undermine military readiness, just as the failed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy did.”

So now we know how they FEEL, but there is nothing concrete in their conclusions, except that their constituency which plows money into their coffers are unhappy.

Maybe they should get behind the troops and support them as they try to make the world a more peaceful place instead of confusing a Defense Department engaged in the serious business of war.

Apparently DoN decided that 2 collisions at sea with loss of multiple lives in less than 12 weeks was one too many. The Navy has relieved VADM Joseph Aucoin as Commander, 7th Fleet.

Unfair?  Maybe.  But the commander is responsible for everything their unit does – or fails to do.

Fox News has a short article on the matter.  IMO it’s worth a read.

Yeah, it’s great to be the boss.  Until your subordinates let you down.

Was it the January introduction of Lightnings that perhaps bugged the blustery North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to rein in his threats of nuclear annihilation for possible targets ranging from Seoul to San Francisco? I refer to the deployment of a squadron of Marine F-35B aircraft from Yuma Marine Corps Air Station in Arizona to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan back in January of this year. North Korea has long been under the watchful eye of two squadrons of Air Force F-16 Wild Weasels out of Misawa Air base in Northern Japan, planes designed to swoop in at the outset of a conflict and destroy the enemy’s ground-to-air radars and missile defenses and thus deny the enemy any further ability to defend against succeeding attacking air forces.

Those Weasels were a serious strategic threat prior to the arrival of the F-35s. Now, because of the F-35’s incredibly advanced sensor packages that bring their highly enhanced defense and attack capabilities to the fight, as well as their ability to communicate all that targeting data to the Weasels, those F-16s at Misawa represent nothing short of the certain death of North Korea’s air defenses, including her Soviet-era air force. From undetectable standoff positions, the Marine F-35s would be able to provide all manner of aerial defense as well as enhanced target selection for those Air Force Weasels as they chew their way through North Korea’s air defense assets like a bunch of…well, mad weasels.

It’s not as though the Weasels would be the only American air forces streaking in if Kim should go ballistically stupid. Far from it: F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, and other aircraft from bases in South Korea and Japan, as well as from America’s carrier strike groups, would all be vectored in on what is actually a fairly small target, equal in size to a slice of coastal California from Marin County to San Diego going inland a little over ninety miles to include Sacramento.* That’s not much area when you’re able to muster an air armada of that size. And we haven’t even mentioned our strategic bomber forces that would be targeting Kim’s massed infantry, artillery, and armor, which would quickly become defenseless, with their air defenses seriously degraded and their air cover utterly destroyed on the ground and in the air.

The F-35s, communicating with many of those squadrons of other U.S. aircraft, would enhance the performances of many of those older weapons platforms. And the F-35s are able to strike important targets themselves. With their futuristic target acquisition capabilities, these F-35s can locate and strike any objective in North Korea without Kim and his high-hatted marshals ever knowing that death and destruction are on the way until they’re vaporized. North Korea’s air force, while large, is essentially an outdated, outmoded force that will require some luck to outlast Saddam Hussein’s if we go in after it. The addition of the F-35 Lightning to that battle plan just makes the reality of such swift destruction all the more certain.

I think, perhaps, that young Kim has noticed the flickering Lightnings on his narrowing horizons. If not, he will at some time in his future likely experience the Lightning’s strike, blasting, burning, and roiling his country into senseless rubble. Unfortunately, that decision is his. Kim has shown some past ingenuity in killing those who anger him, by anti-aircraft gun or feeding them to starving dogs. Rather than yield his absolute power, he just may decide on a novel method of suicide: by Lightning.

So be it…

*No, it’s not possible to get the commander-in-chief to consider that option, no matter how desirable it may be.

Crossposted at American Thinker

Seventy-five years ago today, more than 900 Canadian soldiers died on the beach at Dieppe, France in the precursor to the Normandy invasion, on what CTV News calls the bloodiest day for Canadians during World War II. Of the nearly 5,000 Canadians who took part in the raid, 916 were killed and more than half were injured.

The mission depended on stealth. But by the time the Canadian troops landed on the shore that morning, they were 17 minutes late. The sun was already up, and the soldiers were barraged by German gunfire from the cliffs above. Hundreds of bodies were strewn across the beach.

A few small contingents of soldiers were able to make it into the town of Dieppe, but they quickly retreated once it appeared the raid had failed.

Evidence is turning up from, of all places, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as Breitbart and others, that this character, Jason Kessler, who organized the suspicious and supposed Alt-Right demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. that blew up in everyone’s face, is a cunning lefty holdover from the Occupy Wall Street movement and a former Barack Obama supporter. I smell Soros money, sabotage, and Democrat dirty tricks here.

I’ve been suspicious of the nature of the violence at this supposed Alt-Right demonstration since the news first began breaking. It is no secret that radical elements in the Democrat left have been routinely utilizing violence when it suits their purposes. We also know via secret tapings by Project Veritas that the Democratic Party has a semi-official director of dirty ops, Dick Creamer, who hires, trains, and emplaces professional disruptors to encounter, engage, and infiltrate conservative demonstrations to foment violence, assuring that the demonstrations then become the targets of negative media attention – naturally, against the conservative side. Creamer was caught on videotape boasting about his nefarious capabilities when he thought he was in friendly company.

So here we now have another blown supposedly conservative demonstration, where violence erupts and people are killed, and guess who just happens to be a ringleader of the various ultra-right to Alt-Right organizations ranging from KKK and neo-Nazis to the kind of patriotic folks who might go to a Flag Day celebration! Um, that would be our vaporous political will o’ the wisp, Jason Kessler, whose Occupy activities may well have put him in operational cahoots with high-level Democrat operatives. And owing to the leniency of Virginia open carry laws, too many of Jason’s followers just had to parade their personal armories in all their camo combat gear, showing off their minuteman firepower. My first reaction at seeing those clowns strutting down the street like they were in Mosul was, like that of many of my fellow NRA members and military veterans, shaking my fist and yelling at the TV, “No! No! No, you idiots! No!” And that kind of award-winning stupidity makes me wonder if the head planner for the event, Jason Soros…er, Kessler, didn’t have that firepower demonstration all lined up and ready to go precisely to make those right-wing tools look just like the fools they were being, while scaring the bejeezus out of the lefties, blacks, and MSM twerps.

There’s still not enough evidence on the actual violence, other than the schizophrenic kid who ran over the woman, to make any kind of assessment as to who did what in the confrontations between the right-wing demonstrators and the surprisingly strong counter-demonstration. I have to wonder if this Kessler fellow, strong Barack Obama-supporter that he is, had a hand in making sure his Alt-Right marchers were clearly guaranteed to encounter a strong crowd of riled up counter-protesters as well. The reporting of Kessler’s background, as well as that of Charlottesville mayor and Democrat activist Mike Signer and Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy, has convinced me that Charlottesville was a Democratic Party black operation, planned, organized, and carried out to its successful conclusion, to make the media portray all these conservative whites as stupid, racist, and violent. I believe that it was done by this soulless young man, who succeeded in selling himself to the dumb-bunny right-wingers as one of them.

Crossposted at American Thinker