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

Category: Politics

  • Anthony Gordon, phony Vietnam veteran

    Anthony Gordon, phony Vietnam veteran

    Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on Anthony Gordon who claims that he was the last Marine to leave Saigon and that only moments before his evacuation, he was engaged in a brutal battle with communist forces in Cambodia.

    He claimed to be in the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit/Force (MEU); not possible according to Military Phonies;

    …the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit was not activated until December 1, 1982. It is and has always been assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, The division is based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and headquartered at Julian C. Smith Hall.

    The USMC doesn’t remember Mr Gordon’s career the way he remembers it;

    The summary sheet and chronological record show that Mr Anthony Tyrone Gordon entered Marine Boot Camp in July of 1973. He was released from active duty on November 9, 1973 and assigned to a Marine Reserve unit stationed in Willow Grove Pennsylvania as a 3371 Cook. Mr Gordon held that MOS until August 7. 1976. at which time Mr Gordon was re-assigned with the Marine MOS of 3531 Motor Vechicle Operator. He served as a 3531 until his discharge on Aug. 5, 1985.

    Yeah, no Viet of the Nam service, no memorable firefights in Cambodia, no lasting bootprint on the roof of the Saigon US embassy. He did volunteer for military service when most of his generation wouldn’t – but that wasn’t good enough. He had to alter the entire history of the end of the Vietnam War by placing himself and his unit in Cambodia while the communists rolled tanks through the streets of Saigon.

  • Is Trump Correct in Calling the Media Biased? Harvard Study Says . . . .

    . . . you betcha.

    And yes, the study was by that Harvard:  the university in Cambridge, MA. The East Coast liberal academic Mecca.

    A group at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy recently looked at media reporting concerning President Trump during his first 100 days in office. They categorized stories in the mainstream media concerning President Trump in two ways: first by primary subject  (e.g., economy, immigration, health care), and second by the article’s overall tone. The stories’ were “binned” into multiple subject categories; the stories’ tone was assessed as either positive or negative towards the POTUS.

    The group conducting the study then did the same for Trump’s last three predecessors. Stories from 10 mainstream media organizations were used – 3 foreign, and 7 US.

    What the study found was IMO quite telling. This Heatstreet article has more details – but here’s the study’s “bottom line” at a glance:

    Based on how they’ve reported on the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, the US mainstream media appears to be biased as hell against the POTUS.  The US media has consistently used far more negative “spin” regarding his Administration than was the case with any of his 3 immediate predecessors during their first 100 days in office.

    It’s been normal over the past 25 years for a new POTUS to get somewhat more negative coverage than positive during his first 100 days.  (The SCoaMF that occupied 1600 Penn Ave, Wash DC, before Trump was an exception to this rule.)  However, the degree of unfavorable “spin” being according President Trump is exceptional – and possibly unprecedented.

    Even more revealing are the actual “splits” for the seven US mainstream media outlets studied:

    • CNN and NBC – 93% negative coverage, 7% positive
    • CBS – 91% negative coverage, 9% positive
    • New York Times – 87% negative, 13% positive
    • Washington Post – 83% negative, 17% positive
    • Wall Street Journal – 70% negative, 30% positive
    • Fox – 52% negative, 48% positive

    In fact, four of the US mainstream media organizations studied – CNN, NBC, CBS, and the NYT – were each more negatively biased against President Trump than 2 of the 3 foreign mainstream media organizations included in the study.  Since Trump has a clear “America first” public persona, one would expect US media organizations to be more favorable towards him than the European ones.  That’s not the case at all.

    Two things stand out when looking at those “splits”. First, based on the study’s results Fox may well be quite accurate in its “Fair and Balanced” claim.  They’re the only mainstream media outlet, US or foreign, of the 10 studied to treat President Trump anywhere near evenhandedly during his first 100 days in office.

    And second: if there’s any “vast conspiracy” in the mainstream media, that conspiracy sure as hell isn’t some kind of “vast right-wing conspiracy”. If anything, the media is skewing even more to the “hard left” today than usual.

    No, the mainstream media doesn’t control the facts behind events they report.  (Well, unless they engage in outright MSU –AKA “Making Sh!t Up”, or creating false or misleading news – though the mainstream media indeed seems to do exactly that as well on occasion.)  However, they do control what facts they choose to report and omit, along with how those facts are presented – AKA “spun”.  And based the media “spin” found by the Harvard study group, the degree of negative bias shown by most of the mainstream media against the Trump Administration during its first 100 days is shocking.

    Indeed, it almost appears as if the news media is actively trying to overturn the recent US Presidential election.  I guess they must only believe in our Constitution and our form of representative democracy when their preferred candidate wins.

    Then again, the US mainstream media has been overwhelmingly politically liberal since at least the Eisenhower administration (and almost certainly well before then). Given that fact, the media regarding themselves as our “betters” – as well as them believing that “the media knows what is best for the country; the public should just ‘shut up and color’ and take our word for it” – should be no great surprise.

    The Heatstreet article linked above is IMO worth a read. An online copy of at least a short form of the actual study appears to be available here.

    Trump certainly has his flaws.  But based on this Harvard study’s results, falsely accusing the media of being “out to get him” doesn’t seem to be one of them.  That accusation certainly appears to have a basis in fact.

  • Howell v. Howell; USSC rules in favor of servicemembers

    According to Military Times, an Arizona court awarded John Howell’s ex-wife Sandra half of his military retirement pay as part of a divorce settlement. In 2005, John was awarded a disability claim from the Veterans’ Affairs Department of about $250/month. Because the disability was less than 50%, his retirement pay was reduced by that amount, meaning Sandra’s monthly check was reduced by about $125. She went to court to recover that sum and the state court agreed with her.

    John marched the case to the Supreme Court which ruled that the state court couldn’t mandate disability pay in a divorce case because disability benefits are different from retired pay.

    Adam Unikowsky, a lawyer representing John Howell, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in March that Congress intended for veterans to keep their disability pay, as it fills the gap for pay they will no longer be able to make in the future. The goal of protecting a veteran’s pay is not temporal in nature, he said, meaning it has nothing to do with whether the veteran is eligible for disability before or after the divorce.

    He further argued that the U.S. Supreme Court had previously decided, in Mansell v. Mansell, that the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act did not permit state courts to treat retirement pay that had been waived to receive veterans’ disability benefits as something that could be divided.

    Sandra Howell’s lawyer argued that this case was different because her ex-husband hadn’t waived his retirement pay until after the divorce settlement was finalized. But the Supreme Court ruled that state courts did not have the authority to take John’s disability benefits, regardless of its effect on his ex-wife.

    I’m sure Sandra won’t be out on the street, starving, because of her loss of the $125. She can probably get a job at Walmart to supplement the loss.

  • Oscar Lopez Rivera is free

    Oscar Lopez Rivera is free

    Puerto Rican terrorist 74-year-old Oscar Lopez Rivera, the founder of FALN (Fuerza Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, Spanish for Armed Forces of National Liberation) was also a recipient of a presidential commutation of the remainder of his sentence from President Obama. Lopez-Rivera had been sentenced to 70 years in prison and he served about half of that before he was on the street with an unusually large band of supporters. Among those supporters was New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito who has spent years trying to win his freedom from the charges that he had attempted to overthrow the US government and that his organization had set off more than a hundred bombs, mostly in the New York City area. From the New York Post;

    “It’s really sickening,” said former NYPD Detective Anthony “Tony” Senft, 70, who lost an eye while trying to defuse a bomb planted by FALN — or Armed Forces of National Liberation — at the Brooklyn federal courthouse in 1982.

    “They’re making him a folk hero, and he’s a terrorist. They’re making this guy like Robin Hood.”

    FALN has claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings in the Big Apple and other US cities in the 1970s and early 1980s.

    The militant group’s attacks killed six people and wounded at least 130 others.

    Lopez-Rivera will be honored at this year’s Puerto Rico Day Parade;

    Parade organizers said in a statement, “Oscar’s involvement does not endorse the story that led to his arrest or any form of violence. Rather it is the recognition of a man and the struggle of a nation for its sovereignty.”

    Every so often, Puerto Rico has a referendum vote to poll the residents as to whether or not they want to remain a territory of the United States and most want to stay with that favored status. So, I don’t know what exactly Lopez-Rivera was battling, other than the popular opinion of his countrymen.

    So, this terrorist will be free to amble around the streets of New York with his former terrorist pals.

    Thanks, Obama.

  • School of Dirty Tricks

    Before and during World War 2, the countries involved all had covert operations in play led by some very creative folks. Germany had the Abwehr, a military intelligence organization whose purpose was defense against foreign espionage by gathering domestic and foreign information, most of it in the form of human intelligence. The Brits used the Special Operations Executive, formed by Minister of Economic Warfare to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe (and later, also in occupied Southeast Asia) against the Axis powers, and to aid local resistance movements. Japan fielded The Kempeitai (Military Police Corps) a military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army. It was not a conventional military police, but more of a secret police.

    The US, of course, had “Wild Bill” Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a wartime intelligence agency and the predecessor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Few could top the OSS in the dirty tricks arena.

    In 1942, the OSS recruited George Kistikowsky, a Ukrainian chemistry professor at Harvard University. There he developed an explosive powder for clandestine use. He created “nitroamine high-explosive” or HMX, that could be mixed with regular flour and cooked into innocuous baked goods.

    The HMX would be blended with a popular pancake mix, packaged into ordinary flour bags, smuggled through Japanese lines, and delivered to Chinese resistance fighters. It was identical to your usual non-explosive pancake mix, and if necessary was safe to consume if forced by a suspicious Japanese border guard, with no ill effect other than slight stomach discomfort.

    Once delivered, the weaponized mix was baked into muffins, and a blasting cap was added to give it the necessary kick.

    Reportedly, some 15 tons were successfully delivered without detection.

    No, really.

  • Comey canned

    Comey canned

    The New York Times reports that the president has fired James Comey, the F.B.I. director.

    “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Mr. Trump said in a letter dated Tuesday to Mr. Comey.

    “It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission,” Mr. Trump wrote.

    […]

    Memos released by the White House show that Rod Rosenstein, the newly sworn-in deputy attorney general, that recommended Mr. Comey be fired over how he disclosed the investigation into Mrs. Clinton.

    Mr. Comey broke with longstanding tradition and policies by discussing the case and chastising the Democratic presidential nominee’s “careless” handling of classified information. Then, in the campaign’s final days, Mr. Comey announced that the F.B.I. was reopening the case, a move that earned him widespread criticism.

    Democrats are calling for Comey’s testimony on that elusive investigator into the Russian question before he leaves office hoping for a smoking gun. Honestly, I don’t think Comey hurt Clinton’s campaign at all before the election. Not as much as her name and her personality and the general behavior of the Democrats.

    I will read Comey’s book…if he lives long enough to write one.

  • The Pope doesn’t like MOAB

    According to the UK’s Independent the Pope doesn’t like that we call the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) the Mother Of All Bombs;

    The pontiff’s comments — referencing the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB), the largest bomb in the American arsenal — came during a speech he gave to an audience of students, and just weeks before he is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump.

    “I was ashamed when I heard the name,” the pope said. “A mother gives life and this one gives death, and we call this device a mother. What is happening?’

    I guess the pontiff is joining in with the snowflakes who see secret hand signals and “dog whistle” meanings everywhere.

    The nickname for the bomb came from Saddam Hussein who called the first Persian Gulf War the “Mother of all Battles” when he thought that he was going to triumph over the allies arrayed against him.

  • Mattis Ends Military Academy Athletes Immediately Turning Pro

    Before considering offers from the professional sports leagues, all graduates of the Military Academies and Reserve Officer Training Corps must serve two years of active duty.

    “The military academies and ROTC exist to develop future officers who enhance the readiness and lethality of our military services,” Mattis said.

    “During their first two years following graduation, officers will serve as full-fledged military officers carrying out normal work and career expectations of an officer who has received the extraordinary benefits of an ROTC or military academy education at taxpayer expense,” he said.

    This comes on the heels of Air Force Academy grads requesting waivers to join the Ready Reserve, and pursue careers in the NFL.

    The policy will take effect this year, according to Pentagon spox Danna White. She also noted the Defense Department “…has a long history of officer athletes who served their nation before going to the pros, including Roger Staubach, Chad Hennings and David Robinson.”

    Some academy grads have been allowed to enter the NFL draft prior to completing their two-year obligation, with Navy’s quarterback Keenan Reynolds being the most recent.

    Personally, I’m all for it. My tax dollars aren’t supposed to be used to further professional sports.

    More Here