There’s certainly no shortage of things to kvetch about, so kvetch away.
In the midst of all that’s going on in the world, I’ve chosen to watch some of the Olympic competitions. A lot of happy moments there. I especially enjoy fencing although it’s not often covered. Luckily, a decent amount of coverage is available on YouTube. I started fencing in grammar school. SWMBO still finds it weird that fencing was taught in elementary school as she calls it. I competed in high school which wasn’t unusual. It was a Jesuit prep school. There was no fencing team at RPI, but I had fun in the fencing club and enjoyed our informal competitions. I left the sport alone once I got commissioned. Happily, I found another saber fencer at DIA and we would sometimes fence in the hallways, which bewildered many.
I’ve seen two wonderful moments in Olympic fencing this year. For the first time, the US has won a gold medal in women’s team foil defeating the favored Italian team. The other moment was the Ukrainian women’s saber team taking a gold medal, the first team gold medal for Ukraine in these games. Olga Kharlan, who also won an individual bronze in saber, led the team to a come-from-behind victory over the formidable South Korean team.
TTG
I figure that some high ranking Israeli security officials must be fed up with Netanyahu by now. And I’ve heard reports that that’s true but I don’t know their reliability. If so however it offers a beautiful and simple solution to the Iran – Israel dilemma. Iranian leadership arranges, with help from CIA, MI6 and Mossad (or some special forces outfit, this is not my specialty by any means), to assassinate Netanyahu.
Problem solved. And it has elegant symmetry — leader for leader (Haniyah for Bibi) and if the hit goes down in say Jerusalem, then it’s symmetrical with the killing of Haniyah in Tehran. Otherwise you’re looking at an even more unholy mess than the present severely unholy mess. The world would rejoice in ecstatic celebration. Ding dong the witch is dead ..
The Wizard of Oz – Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!
https://youtu.be/SJw2tA0nqaA
Disagree.
Netanyahu is the best asset to destroy Israel.
aleksandar,
You are not wrong.
The BOJ raised rates. Howls of protest and Wall Street sell off. Fed stays the “higher for longer” course.
Meanwhile the neocons shoved the Biden family out of the way and are preparing for their longed for war with Iran.
Kamala though, still can’t find the courage to hold a press conference two weeks after the “only elite votes mater” election. Kind of election, maybe. But if Jimmy Carter passes away from old age (aka Covid not the vaxx) they will have an excuse to not have an election at all. Just don’t call her Kamala the Koward.
Wow, now you are making up conspiracies on the fly! Carter, Kamala, Vaxx….what an imagination!
Trump and Russia colluding, will declare himself dictator for life…revitalize the KKK……Project 2025 as a blueprint for Trump’s Hitlerian take over……..wow yeah some people make up conspiracies on the fly.
Eric Newhill,
Project 2025 and Agenda 47 are similar plans. Since Agenda 47 consists of Trump video presentations, it would be hard for Trump to deny it as the work of some coffee boy. They both lay out a blueprint for Trump’s “Hitlerian” take over. It’s a conspiracy theory written and recorded by Trump people.
Right…actual written documents. Written by actual think tanks for a Presidential candidate and his proposed administration. NOT a conspiracy theory—an actual set of proposals.
Laura,
Good proposals at that. But Trump has already said he doesn’t agree with them all and won’t be implementing. The idea that he will be using it as a guide is the conspiracy theory, unfortunately.
that’s what makes the Conspiratorial Worldview so compelling, so fun. it’s a hobby-shop for the imagination.
Laura,
Vaxx’es work great – make sure to get the next one, Pfizer needs the revenue. Carter’s 100 years old and thus not immortal. Kamala is a great vote getter. She knows the ones needed are the party elites, not the hoi poloi who think voting in a primary election matters. Neocons aren’t gearing for war, no sirree they love them some peace in the Middle East and with Russia too.
Fred,
How come Biden got Covid a couple weeks ago, right before the DNC canned him? He didn’t get vaxxed after all the [lying] lecturing about how vaxxes prevent contracting it?
As more comes out concerning the Trump assassination attempt, via non-governmental channels, and the USSS and FBI increasingly contradicts known reality and their own statements (when they actually answer questions), it looks to me like there is a fair probability that the FBI/DHS/USSS deliberately left a path open to Crooks to kill Trump. It’s really bad, if you’ve been following the story. There is simply no excuse for the massive screw-ups that led to Crooks firing 8 rounds from that rooftop. So bad that it stretches credulity that it was just incompetence. No wonder the leftist aligned media is trying to memory hole the event.
The BS started in the media, immediately, with the [false] notion that Crooks was some kind of right wing lone wolf. According to a public statement by the owner of social media ap, “GAB”, all of Crooks’ posts were pro-leftist ideology, and there are quite a few posts. GAB says that the FBI has been informed and is deliberately misleading the public. Then the nonsense about it not being a bullet that hit Trump (totally debunked and proven to have been a bullet). This is North Korea level of lying to the subjects, er, I mean citizens + banana republic type power grabbing.
The BS in the federal government, of course, started a long time ago. The hearings have been decent, with mostly bi-partisan evisceration of the fed agency heads/mouthpieces. Local law enforcement who were there have turned on the feds and counter their narrative after the feds tried to scapegoat the locals. Disgusting.
Why no full autopsy results released on Crooks? Why no press conferences held by the feds laying out the timeline of events and known facts? In any other case we would have had such a thing by now. IMO, we don’t have it because there is a frantic massive cover-up attempt and probably a forthcoming criminal investigation by a special prosecutor into the possible conspiracy.
Eric Newhill,
A statement by the owner of Gab is not something I would lend any credence. It still looks like incompetence to me, as if the Secret Service team really didn’t give a shit. I would like to see how other protection details operate. That would show how rampant the rot is in the Secret Service. Given their performance after 6 Jan, when they destroyed all communication records, the rot seems to extend to the very core.
The only other thing I’d like to see from the Crooks autopsy is the tox screen, although whether he was on drugs is really immaterial. What else do you expect from the autopsy? There are several investigations including the bipartisan task force which is not limited by committee regulations. The question is how much will be released before the election.
TTG,
Re; the autopsy – Local LEOs now say they fired at Crooks and it was their shot that caused him to cease firing. Then about ten seconds later the USSS fired. That account squares with what can be heard in audio analysis. Crooks initially fires three shots, slower and better aimed, presumably. One clips Trump’s ear. The other two hit men in the audience. I think the round that clipped Trump’s ear also hit a rally attendee. Where did the next 5 rounds go? How could they have missed hitting anyone?
Maybe Crooks fired those 5 at the one USSS counter sniper team that could see him and who he could see from his position (the other team, that are always depicted in photos on the nooz, had no view of that section of the roof as it was obstructed by trees (very stupid, btw) – maybe Crooks understood the value of suppressive fire. Maybe that’s why it took another ten seconds for the USSS counter sniper team to fire (they were ducking). At the end of the burst of 5 shots, before the final shot tens seconds later and overlapping slighting with 5th shot in the burst, is another shot. Presumably that is the one fired by local LEOs. It is fairly easy to hear with slowed audio. Also, the tenth and final shot – the USSS shot – is really just the sonic crack as recorded by rally goers next to the rooftop Crooks fired from. However, that nineth shot is heard as the muzzle blast, meaning it was from close in.
Anyhow, if the local LEOs fired at Crooks, as they say they did, their shot must be the nineth (the one almost overlapping with the burst of 5 from Crooks), must have been from close. Why did that shot stop Crooks from firing? Why did the local LEOs stop shooting? You’d think they’d keep firing until the threat was over (meaning Crooks down and still) because that’s how it’s done.
The point is that Local LEOs and the USSS have another widely divergent story on this aspect of events as well as others. USSS says their counter sniper shot Crooks, killed him and ended the threat. I’m not so sure that’s true. It appears plausible to me that local LEOs shot and killed Crooks. Then USSS fired a shot ten seconds later that either missed completely or just put another hole in an already dead Crooks.
Finally, as supporting evidence to my little theory, IMO, if Crooks was shot in the head by a 300 winchester magnum – the USSS snipers’ weapon – at 150 yard or so, his brains would have been all over that rooftop. They weren’t. We can see from the rooftop body cam video and photos. If local cops shot him in the head with a smaller caliber of a handgun, it would be more what we see in the pics and videos.
So an autopsy would shed some light on all of the above. Why does it matter? We need to understand the extent of the USSS and FBI lying. We know it’s fairly prolific at this point, but how far would they go? How about the local LEOs? Straight shooters (pardon the pun)?
At a certain point if you’re willing to tell some real whoppers and interfere with public service, then what would you stop at? A conspiracy to eradicate Trump? Would Strzok and his little cheating playmate stop there? Seriously we need to know. A potential coup d’etat in the making is not the time for complacency.
Eric – the more that comes out, seems to me, the more impossible it is that it was any sort of conspiracy.
A cascade of errors, to borrow Walrus’ term, had to occur for the assassination attempt to occur. Orchestrating and synchronising those errors would have been difficult in the extreme. There were too many occasions when, from the point of view of the shooter, things could have gone wrong.
I don’t know, but it looks as if the Russians carried out an assassination recently. A renegade Russian helicopter pilot who was bribed to fly his machine over to the other side and got his unwitting crew killed in the process. He was shot dead in Spain. His killers never found.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68337794
That’s how assassinations get done. I imagine the US equivalents of what I presume was a Russian assassination team are equally capable. If they wanted to kill Trump, though I doubt very much they do, Trump would be dead.
This incident was sloppy work by a team that appears to have been overstretched or short of manpower. No more than that. The image that stays with me is of the USSS people running up at once to shield Trump. They knowingly placed themselves at great risk doing so. They could well have been killed themselves.
That is the ethos of that service, not fumbling around organising the death of the protectee. So not treachery. Just a series of errors.
Nevertheless a bullet’s a bullet and it’s a good thing one didn’t kill Trump. It would not only have been a tragedy for his family. That man’s got a lot of useful work to do, if you Americans ever let him get at it.
EO,
Look at the USSS security perimeter and how that one rooftop was not in it. Any assassin would have expected it to be covered. If I were an Iranian assigned the mission of killing Trump, reviewing the Butler layout, I wouldn’t even consider using that rooftop because it’s too obvious. Sure, I could fly a drone a couple hours prior to the rally commencement, but if the rooftop appeared clear at that time, I would assume that the team covering it either hadn’t taken up its position yet, or it was covered by motion detectors or in some other way that I couldn’t detect from the drone.
Yet Crooks went right there. That is too much fool’s luck for my sensitivities. I’m not saying that is 100% proof of conspiracy, just that it very definitely needs to be investigated, deeply.
But there’s more, Crooks was spotted getting into that position, by rally attendees, at least two minutes prior to shooting – I think it was more like three minutes. He was even seen running across the roof on the camera of one of the wounded men. The fool’s luck had run out – except it hadn’t. Even having been seen on the ground and then on the roof, even with the USSS admitting they were aware of a security issue at the east location Crooks was appearing, Trump was not removed from the stage. Snipers were not aiming at that roof top. The fool enjoyed his luck for a second time. It was rejuvenated. That is way more fool’s luck than I can summarily dismiss. The USSS was responsible for every aspect of the fool’s luck.
My father was a lawyer. He sued all kind of people. He liked to talk about something in Michigan law termed “willful and wanton misconduct”. It’s conduct so contrary to established best practices and even just SOP that it is, de facto, manslaughter if it were a criminal trial and someone had died.
Heads need to roll, at a minimum. But the possibility of a deliberate attempt to allow Trump to be killed must be considered. Not being a conspiracy theorist, I’m not going to say that because something appears to have happened that I don’t understand, it is PROOF of a conspiracy. Just saying that the known and substantiated and agree upon facts support the possibility is there and any sound investigation should scrutinize the possibility intensely.
“I would like to see how other protection details operate.”
Lawrence Cunningham, who ran some during the Reagan presidency,
spends an hour being interviewed on that subject by Larry Johnson here:
https://youtu.be/zjDBqxqtC3Y
“Larry [Cunningham] provides a detailed analysis of where the Secret Service failed.”
That video I cited above, while full of useful information, was made two weeks ago.
Another hour video by the same people was made on Friday, August 2:
https://youtu.be/I1qYifQPHAo
Even more detail about how the Secret Service operates, and also about alleged failures of both resourcing and operations.
Keith Harbaugh,
Another good one. As in many facets of life, the way the Secret service actually works is a far cry from how it should work. It’s probably been that way for a while. The first hint I got was when they failed to preserve the communications from 6 January. That we haven’t had an assassination attempt or even an assassination until now is probably due to sheer dumb luck. The Congressional Task Force needs to investigate Secret Service operations going back for five years or so to see how rampant this incompetency has become. If it turns out that those operations were generally done well until Butler, then I would seriously consider a deliberate conspiracy.
Keith,
Thanks. The second video is even better because the interviewee now has more info to incorporate into his analysis.
I generally agree with TTG’s assessment, but with a caveat. I would be more interested in comparing other candidate’s and other protected persons’ coverage, pre-Butler, to Trump’s as opposed to Trump coverage to Trump coverage. A couple of reasons;
1. If the clear USSS negligence is deliberate with the hope that some nut hopped up on the ubiquitous anti-Trump hyperbole takes a shot, then Trump coverage would always be relatively lax pre-Butler. We need his coverage compared to that of others’ during Cheatle’s reign.
2. As the former USSS interviewee notes, the threat level faced by Trump is significantly higher than that faced by other protectees. There needs to be an adjustment factor applied to Trump coverage levels pre-Butler for an appropriate comparison to be made. For Butler that adjustment factor would have to be even larger because there was a specific Iranian threat on top of the usual domestic leftist terrorist threats at the time of the Butler rally.
To my mind the presence of the Iranian threat makes the piss poor coverage level inexcusable regardless of whatever sloppy standards had been applied previously. At some point, professional gross negligence in life or death situations, equates with willful participation in homicide.
Also, I understand – and the interviewee said so too – that Jill Biden’s coverage, just down the road from Butler, was much better than Trump’s, at least in terms of resources dedicated. That’s a critical data point.
Seems to be that, at best, the USSS and DHS just don’t give care if Trump gets assassinated.
Eric Newhill,
I agree the comparison has to be across the board, all protection details, not just Trumps. They gave RFK zero protection until after Butler.
Keith,
That is a good interview. There are others with different former USSS members. They all pretty much say the same thing. The incompetence was so wide ranging, in scope and scale, that it is it hard to not think there was a conspiracy to allow someone like Crooks to attack. Some of the former personnel talking that way may have a political motivation to call out the worst- Dan Bongino comes to mind – but others do not.
Keith Harbaugh,
I second Eric’s praise of that interview. It was full of useful information. That the agent in charge was a last minute replacement from Pittsburgh and that agents were siphoned off for a nearby Jill Biden detail indicates to me that the Secret Service was half-assing this Trump event. I look forward to the second interview you provided.
TTG,
“A statement by the owner of Gab is not something I would lend any credence.” Have you forgotten to analyze the information, and the source of information, separately?
Did you believe the 51 intel agents who said Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation, or the FBI and other leaders who repeted it; or did you believe the FBI when they used that laptop in court against Hunter two years after the election?
Fred,
If the Gab owner presents evidence of Crooks’ posts, there would be something to evaluate.
The evidence used against Hunter Biden from that laptop is not at all connected with the Giuliani-Trump claims of Biden business dealings with Ukraine that those 51 expressed doubts in.
TTG,
The Gab owner did provide Crook’s posts to the FBI. That’s why he went public. He showed the FBI clear evidence of Crook’s leftist ideologies and the FBI chose to ignore that.
Eric Newhill,
Did the FBI issue a report on this? Remember the fakes/pranks that came out in the hours after the shooting?
TTG,
I’m not clear what the FBI did with the GAB material. I’m not clear on a lot of what is happening with the FBI, USSS or Butler LEOs. It’s very strange and I hope Congress doesn’t give up. Usually, Congress is where investigations go to die after much sound and fury.
Eric, if you were a student of history, you would realize that “shit happens” and it happens more often than you would think. Just because some kid gets up onto a rooftop without being noticed does not require a vast conspiracy of multiple government agencies to be true. Best to relax a moment and pick up a good book…any of Churchill’s historical books would be a good start. Or Bruce Catton’s books on the Civil War. A confluence of unlikely events does NOT require a conspiracy!
Laura,
Ever the government and mainstream finger wagging defender.
First, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. For example, I think the official conclusions about the Kennedy assassinations and 9/11 are pretty much spot on; as accurate as reports get. I think Sandy Hook happened. I think the earth is spherical and we did land on the moon.
Second, I know a lot of military history and I have been employed in actuarial departments for over 20 years. I know all about “odds” and shit happens. So please try – TRY, I know it might be hard – not to be such a reflexive government worshipping super Karen; especially when you have no idea who you’re addressing
This Trump attempt?
Even the secret service has publicly admitted great incompetence. The rooftop that Crooks climbed is a very obvious location for a bad guy to use as a sniper position; arguably the most obvious. Yet, it was placed outside an otherwise rather vast secret service security perimeter that covered a lot less risky turf and features. Local LEOs say the secret service told them to position inside the building and not on the roof Crooks used. One of the secret service counter sniper position’s view of that rooftop was half-blocked by a tree. Crooks managed to place himself exactly where wasn’t seen because of the tree and because the guys in the building couldn’t view him unless they stuck their heads out of the window. Pretty amazing shit happens. Very good luck for Crooks.
On top of that, the secret service inexplicably did not establish comms with local police – or did they? The story keeps changing. Yet more shit happens good luck for Crooks because the locals had spotted him. On the other hand, one of the dummy secret service guys has testified that they were aware that local LEOs were dealing with an issue at Trump’s 3 o’clock. Had they looked to Trump’s 3, they would have seen Crooks running across the roof. One of the victims picked up Crooks moving across the roof and then in firing position on his phone cam and it’s clear as day. But they didn’t bother to look. The accumulation of shit happens is now a mountain.
Then there’s all the contradictory statements by FBI and USSS as well as stonewalling and refusing to answer congress’ questions. Then all of the disagreement with local LEOs statements. If it’s just more of that shit happens, then why not transparently tell a clear consistent account of events? They usually at least make a show of doing so within a couple weeks. But not this time.
I know you just believe whatever CNN and the government tell you and if they say it’s ok, you stop thinking about it. Me? I don’t believe in defaulting to coincidence when there has been a serious crime – and there are too many here. I am sorry that you are so incurious. But hey, some of your exalted democrat congress critter have been joining in the grilling of the FBI and USSS. Are they conspiracy theorists too?
Eric,
You accept the Warren report???
Give me a break. I can’t take you seriously at all if so but I stopped trying months ago.
I think given 1- the availability of guns in the US, 2- Trump’s borderline and hate-inciting tactics and behavior, and 3- the prevalence of mental illness in American society (which is a “Hate culture” according to some psychoanalytic writers such as Ruben Fine in “The Meaning of Love in Human Experience”(1985)) that the likelihood of an attempt on his life was inordinately high. Suicide is epidemic according to what I’ve read (among US veterans the rates are shocking) and shooting at a former President is a suicidal act. FWIW I rate myself as highly conspiracy minded, unlike you, and though the Trump shooting was in many ways shocking it didn’t drive me to believe it must have involved a conspiracy of anything other than incompetence and convenience, though I sure thought about it.
“I rate myself as highly conspiracy minded, “
Me too, that gives us a nice advance of 6 months/1 year on the actual news. 😀
F&L,
Yes, I accept the Warren Report. It fits the facts. The conspiracy theories don’t.
It is possible that Cuba played a role in encouraging Oswald. Oswald, having failed to attain Soviet citizenship was attempting to become a Cuban citizen. That possibility was not in the Warren Report and it is the lingering conspiracy that has been referred to by officials.
I have reviewed all of the conspiracy theories and they are, frankly, really stupid and often based on outright falsehoods and unsubstantiated rumors. The CIA, the Mafia, Angry Cubans, the MIC, the Illumanti….just silly and straight from overactive imaginations and short circuited reasoning.
Oswald was a defective personality of the type that becomes a school shooter today – immature, narcissistic, anti-social, doesn’t fit in, etc. However, he was from an era when a man (or teenage boy) looking and acting like a middle school cheerleader wasn’t a thing. He had been a Marine. He had all of that training. He was obsessed with socialism being the answer (his type of personality tends to neurotic obsession in a low grade effort to present as being intellectually superior). There is ample testimony as to his mindset going back to before his USMC days. He wanted to be famous and to prove himself a valuable asset to socialism in the hopes that he’d finally be accepted as a hero by someone (socialist country leadership).
He had the motive and opportunity and ability to fire a few shots at Kennedy and kill him. He then killed Tibbits, in front of witnesses, during his escape attempt. Of course he said he was a patsy. He wanted attention, to masterfully (his thinking, not mine) manipulate those who would question him while he spouted off about socialism in the spot light.
I have seen no evidence that it was anything but Oswald and his delusions of grandeur. Grassy knoll and all of that garbage that doesn’t fit the facts, are child’s play, book sales material and Holyweird fodder, but have fun amusing yourself with it if it makes you feel good.
I don’t pretend that I can speak for Eric, but it doesn’t require “a vast conspiracy”, nor does it even require that conspirators were in cahoots with Crooks.
There are a lot of gun-toting crazies in the USA, enough that the Deep State could be reasonably confident that if they were slack about security around Trump then, sooner or later, one of those crazies will make an attempt on his life.
For all that you, or I, or Eric knows this sort of behavior was true of all Trump rallies before that one, only it was at that one that a gun-toting crazy turned up.
How you distinguish between a deliberate attempt to make Trump’s assassination possible (my view, btw) or just lazy incompetence (TTG’s view, apparently) is something that is going to be very difficult to tease out.
After all, if someone were planning the former then they would certainly want to do it in such a way that they could claim the latter.
YR,
Exactly. Be as lax as possible and leave avenues of attack wide open. Keep up the hyperbole in the media. Sooner or later an armed nutjob will show up. Hopefully, enough of his gears are still connecting that he recognizes the intentional gaps in security and exploits them.
Or – it wouldn’t be too tough to identify some predisposed nut jobs on the internet. Profile the most competent among them and push their buttons and then aim them at the rally. The FBI entraps “terrorists” this way all of the time. There’s a public record of it. You don’t need to take my word for it.
I don’t like the notion held by Karens who spend too much time at the wine bar, that the federal government and its agency personnel are beyond reproach and criminal activity should never be considered.
“Yeah they’re totally incompetent and corrupt, but they’d never go that far”, doesn’t cut it for me on any level.
Laura,
Which roof was a “kid” up on that did not get noticed? The adult male assassin was noticed by numerous people and in the on most likely platform in close proximity to the speaker’s stage to have an easy shot.
A good book would be one on how the Bolsheviks took power, as a ‘setting the stage’ and ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ primer.
My mother died before the polio vaccine was ready…2 years too late for her. I am a total fan of vaccines as I was left without a mother at the age of 2. Real diseases. Real consequences. And, yes, I have gotten every iteration of the C-19 vaccines…and I have only had a very mild 2 day version of that virus. It works for me!
TTG, you have mentioned a part of your Lithuanian family’s experience with the USSR.
As I recall, at one time you said that you had an uncle who was sent to Siberia, and never returned.
(I may have that incorrectly.)
Have you ever written rather fully about your family’s experience with either Russians or Soviets
(to the extent one can distinguish between those).
You express concerns about the Russia/Ukraine relation.
I just wonder how the Russia/Lithuania relation looked from your POV.
You have written about how Lithuanians resisted Russian domination. I just wonder about the reasons.
Please pardon my obtuseness.
For comparison, in Virginia we don’t complain about being a part of the United States.
Keith Harbaugh,
I have at least one family member who was sent to Siberia and several others who disappeared during the resistance. They presumably were killed fighting. Others were imprisoned. My family was active in both the Lithuanian government and military before the war. They resisted the Soviets with body and soul. One cousin of mine, who fought as a member of the LFA, made his way to the US in the 50s. Together with my father, he taught me to shoot a cut down Moisin Nagant carbine shooting at a caricature of Stalin behind our barn.
Why did they resist? That should be obvious. They were Lithuanian patriots who refused to acquiesce to being dominated by invaders. Virginia’s relationship with the United States is nothing like Lithuania’s relationship with Russia. Virginia was an important part of the creation of the US. Even taking the Civil War into account, this remained so. Russia was an invading, conquering outsider to Lithuania whether it was Imperial Russia or the USSR, and even before that. And now the Russian Federation continues to make noises about Lithuania belonging to Russia.
There was a time when Lithuania regained her independence and the Soviet Union collapsed, I thought Moscow and Vilnius could start to overcome the old animosities and form a more positive relationship. Warsaw and Vilnius got past the ugliness of Pilsudski’s invasion of Lithuania in 1920. Warsaw and Kyiv are now close allies. That wasn’t always the case.
I seriously wonder if what we have witnessed recently in the Middle East isn’t in fact an aspect of the real (and mostly secret) US strategy for taking down China without directly confronting them in a shooting war. To wit — get Iran and Israel into a hot war with possible if not probable direct US involvement — so as to cut off the Persian Gulf oil that China so crucially depends on to power its country and industry. The Persian Gulf oil infrastructure would go south in a big way if serious shooting goes on for an extended period of time.
I seriously doubt it. we’re not as reckless as in the 50s & 60s… or the other more recent decades. I read an interview last week w/ Gen. Wes Clark. he mentioned (as I best recall) that “some people say Iran has around 5 nuclear devices…” that doesn’t mean they actually exist, are tested, weaponized, deliverable. but I hadn’t heard that from anyone at his level of contacts (he said he has no access or direct knowledge). upshot: let’s not overlook the truth… none of the players want to risk ending the game. so… collectively, we will continue the suffering of the innocent, old school.
Interesting. I’d like to mention that those rumored Iranian nuclear devices may be purposeful Israeli disinformation motivated by the desire to gather support for hitting Iran with *real* Israeli nukes. Even if they didn’t originate the rumors which as you correctly point out are old, they are being circulated again. Doesn’t bode well. Hopefully I’m wrong.
At this hour both the Japanese and South Korean stock markets are crashing. When the markets open here later on this morning I would assume that there could be a significant sell-off, hopefully not another 1987. But what is interesting to me at this point is the very real possibility that the Persian Gulf could be shut down by Iran if Israel takes a hit and counterstrikes hard. And I will tell you that Iran has the capability of doing that. (And of cutting the fifteen or so undersea internet fiber optic cables that provide telecommunications to the whole Arab side, including major American bases, such as Al Udeid on Qatar or the NSA on Bahrain. Japan gets 98 per cent of its oil from the Gulf, mostly Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. That would wreck Japan. Just for one. Blocking the strait of Hormuz could actually bring on a world-wide depression. It really could.
Tidewater,
The market was up what percentage YTD as of the end of last week? Did you notice the BOJ actions that drove the market change?
Tidewater,
Thanks. As you indicate, the situation is even more complex than outlined in my brief paragraph.
So far, it looks like a normal pull back and as usual, many theories are offered. Usually, the big broker who do the selling and buying need to add to their inventory, which they now have done. It would not surprise me if we see a continued upswing. But then, we are talking about the stock market and as it has been said, it can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
That seems to have a lot of room for unintended consequences.
Certainly you remember Dirty Harry’s question to the punk while holding a cocked and loaded 457 magnum to his face: Well you have to ask yourself, punk, do you feel lucky?
Ok then, now that that’s settled, ask yourself what the Iranian government thinks of the wisdom of hitting the Israelis hard is — assuming that they watched this video clip. Enjoy. (Handy guide: Netanyahu is Dirty Harry and the magnum is the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Extra credit question: who is the punk?)
How Would Israel Fight a Nuclear War?
https://youtu.be/PxcYvNbg_RE
I really appreciate your reference to Dirty Harry. If I recall the scene correctly it was only the Dirty Harry and the Punk facing each other though there were onlookers. However I don’t recall Dirty Harry inviting / asking them all if they feel Lucky. Just saying
I guess my point was that Israel is much more likely to use its nuclear weapons than most people suspect. In fact they may want to or think they will need to. The video had a chilling effect on me. I think they are lunatics suffering from severe narcissism. Iran may feel obligated by reasons of pride to strike them hard — as much as that might be pleasing to me on a purely emotional level it would be a big mistake in the short to medium term. The middle east may suffer another overall depredation like the one inflicted on them by the mongols from which they never recovered many centuries ago. And that would be on top of the really significant beatings administered by the Americans during their GWOT where death estimates have gone as high a 4.5 million.
Haven’t seen the movie in a long time, but if I remember correctly there were TWO times when Harry Callahan posed a question to some punk.
The first during the aborted robbery, when the punk in question had a failure of nerve.
The second at the climax, when the punk actually snickered out loud as he reached for his gun.
With that out of the way, the answer to your question is that it can play out either way. Iran might blink, or it might not. Either event played out in the movie, either event could occur this week.
I will note that the movie doesn’t show all possibilities e.g. what if the punk DOES reach for his gun only for Dirty Harry to realize his magnum is empty?
Yeah, Right —
Here’s the two scenes for reference. A question I have yet to settle for myself is whether there’s a third. Possibly I confuse the “Go ahead, make my day” scene with a “Do you feel lucky, Punk?” scene.
“Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?” — Dirty Harry.
https://youtu.be/38mE6ba3qj8
Dirty Harry – Do I Feel Lucky?
https://youtu.be/abmULTYJJEg
This is just Doom Porn, what’s your point?
jld,
Thanks for asking. I think my point was to get people here at turcopolier to watch that silly video I linked to. Unfortunately my introduction by way of an unforgettable movie scene served as a distraction. Many of you guys here are former military and may ignore videos like that, assuming you know Israel’s nuclear capabilities full well. I thought I did too but watched it anyway and was particularly impressed by the numerous targets they have planned (in detail, and years ago) to hit.
F&L,
The punk had already been shot and was going to jail, unlike in today’s Soros DA California.
Fred,
Oh you mean that stealing $1,000 worth of merchandise no longer leads to arrest or imprisonment? Hmm. Pot is sold legally on every street and corner of NYC now for over a year. (The prices are absurd and none of the stuff gets me high, my luck). Casinos and prostitution are next I guess.
F&L,
NYC, a mostly peaceful paradise where you can self-medicate your future away. Morals brought to you by the party of the big D.
“Morals brought to you by the party of the big D.”
What explains the epidemic of drug abuse, overdose deaths and suicide in red state America? Must be the morals and hopelessness brought to you by the GOP. It is okay, blaming it on immigrants and another tax cut for the rich will solve everything.
I live in the rather blue area of Northern Virginia. 30 minute drive away and you are deep into Trump land. Amazing to see the “Make America Great Again” signs in front of a single wide trailer, falling apart and looking rather 3rd world in nature.
The trailer looked the same before, during and after Trump’s first presidency. The whole Trump cult is an opiate for a certain section of the masses. I guess their opiate of choice when their dealer of their physical opiates are out.
Back in the day the opiate heads would take some pills, mainline some heroin and watch Pink Floyd The Wall to sooth their authoritarian tendencies. Now they pop the pills and digest their Trump authoritarian pipe dream from their Trump supporting media outlet of choice.
Stefan,
A lot of condescension and ignorance in that comment. Maybe you should get out of NVA a bit more often and see something besides a single single-wide trailer upon which to judge million of voters.
1982 is a couple generations ago. Might want to catch up on what the newer generations are doing.
Drug decriminalization, not a read wave trend:
https://ubique.americangeo.org/map-of-the-week/map-of-the-week-decriminalized-possession-of-controlled-substances-by-state/
A very interesting video.
For me the key point is this:
Yes, Israel by itself, or in conjunction with the U.S.,
can deliver devastating destruction on those in the Arab world it chooses to attack.
But the response will be asymmetric.
There are many Muslims in the U.S.
How would they respond to such an attack on their fellow Muslims?
Not all would be desiring revenge.
But for sure some would.
I think the result would be terrible things happening in the U.S.
The Middle Eastern conflict being brought to America.
And I am sure 9/11 did not exhaust the list of U.S. vulnerabilities.
And it is not just Muslims who would be outraged.
We have seen a large number of Americans showing their sympathy for the Palestinians, in various ways.
How would they respond to an all-out attack on Iran?
Of course some Americans would be delighted with such an attack.
But even more, in my opinion, would be outraged.
Talk about a divisive issue!
Keith,
There would be terrorist attacks in the US – and across Europe – for sure. But you know what? There are going to be terrorist attacks by the same people more or less anyhow. Those people are never happy and always ready to use violence unless they get their way 100% all the time. In fact, they will use violence even when they do get their way. They will just keep pushing until they control the world, which isn’t going to happen and would be a terrible thing if it did. So it’s just going to be war and terror. The reaction of some people that we should have never allowed into the country in the first place can’t hold us hostage. Maybe at some point we’ll get smart and deport those that can’t cope with a secular republic and be loyal citizens; that and build more cages at the GITMO.
Looks to me like history’s getting turned on its head. The Steinmeier quote shows that.
“Steinmeier also drew attention to the war in Ukraine. “Today, nobody in Europe is fighting as courageously, as heroically as the Ukrainian people. They are fighting for their freedom and their autonomy. They are fighting against a brutal and contemptible aggressor. We, Poles and Germans, stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and will continue to do so,” Steinmeier said.”
From 2014 on that’s precisely what the people of the Donbass were doing. Fighting against a brutal and contemptible aggressor. The record’s clear enough on that.
Steinmeier’s country was not helping the people of the Donbass though it was contracted to. On the contrary, it was putting its full weight behind the “brutal and contemptible aggressor”. From 2014 to the present day. The country pretending to be ashamed of the atrocities it had committed in the past assisting in the perpetration of exactly the same atrocities today. Right down to the symbols used by many of the perpetrators.
It’s risky to mention those facts in Germany today. Enough Germans are happy with the fact they’re living in a country that’s starting to resemble a police state.
More fool them. Heading back to the Third Reich but without the military clout of those times will leave them in no good place.
More fool us, too. Because most in the West swallow Steinmeier’s fake history as well.
A relief to turn to a non-controversial subject. Been reading, belatedly, one of my Christmas presents. Dominic Lieven’s “Russia against Napoleon”. Googled up a review that says more or less what it’s about.
https://minervawisdom.com/2020/07/23/russian-genius-without-crediting-winter-or-stalinist-hagiography-a-review-of-dominic-lievens-russia-against-napoleon/
We have some very fine historians in England. Another Christmas present was a very sharp and perceptive study of the partition of India – written by, unexpectedly, the Chief of Staff in Iraq way back, Barney White-Spunner. Crammed with accurate detail and an assured grasp of the big picture. Plenty of other such brilliant historians about. Lieven is of their number. Very much so.
So I looked around and found an old video – very old now – of Lieven explaining his book in a lecture. Seemed to be a lecture to fellow-academics, Sleboda surfacing in the Q&A session afterwards. Which was a nice surprise too. There were some necessary but here not so relevant introductory remarks so set to start at 6.38. If the setting holds.
https://youtu.be/UzElqomAATI?t=393
And at around minute 40 I immediately thought of you, TTG. Not in your SF capacity but in your subsequent role. Running agents into hostile territory. I reckon you’ll be green with envy at how the Russians ran agents into Paris, and the haul of information they came away with.
A piece on Zerohedge says:
“Russian military intelligence officers are believed to have been deployed to Yemen to assist the Iran-backed Houthis with targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea, Middle East Eye can reveal. Members of Russia’s GRU military intelligence are operating in the Houthi-controlled territory of Yemen in an advisory role, a senior US official told Middle East Eye.”
To me this looks like Iran and Russia bolstering their cooperation – the Houthis are a short term proxy for Russia but Iran is a long term ally.
The GRU and IRGC are working together in Yemen to close Bab al-Mandab. Everything that the IRGC learns they will be able to use in future conflicts to close the Strait of Hormuz.
James,
You once asked for a list of bad actors with whom the Russians are chummy. I got the sense that you were insinuating that Russia is innocent of such alliances.
Well, there go. You can now add the murdering low grade pirate Houthis, to a list that includes North Korea and Iran.
I’m waiting for it. I know it’s coming; a story in which you learned that Houthis are actually super nice people because you spent a couple days there and sat around a camp fire enjoying some shish kebab with some rebels who’s talk you didn’t understand, but they laughed heartily and seemed like swell guys.
Shish kebab (Turkish) in Yemen. Someone hand Eric a map. As typical Eric opines on an issue he knows nothing about. Now, if the Houthis sat someone down and served them some haneeth, shafoot with roma on top, with a nice spicy sa7aug, that would be Yemeni. But instead Eric talks about shish kebab, not a Yemeni food.
Nothing like assuming that all Arabs/Muslims eat the same food. lol But it is all Eric can do is operate on gross generalities when it comes to the Muslim and Arab world….he doesnt know enough to actually operate in specifics.
Stefan,
They can call whatever weird meat – when they actually have food – they eat with their hands whatever they want to call it, they’re still murders of their own people, racist haters, terrorists and scumbag pirates – who declared war on my country; “Death to America” to be more precise.
Great friends you have there. It is said you can assess a man by the friends he keeps.
Nothing weird about shish kabob. I’ll be heading up north next month to hopefully score some kabobs at Seattle’s annual Armenian festival.
Leith,
If there are pastries, ask for some hurabia. That’s a phonetical spelling. It’s a bite sized ( two bites if you’re polite) light sweet thing that, if made correctly, melts in your mouth almost immediately. A bouquet of anise and vanilla should be present.
If the Seattle Armenians are from the former Soviet republic, then their cuisine is more Russian and heavy. If they are from Lebanon or torch bearers from previous generations’ immigration out of muslim turk occupied Armenia or Syria, then you get the best of middle eastern cuisine – including hurabia.
Enjoy! Let me know what you found.
Leith,
Nothing weird about shish kabob at all. I used to eat one every Friday when I lived in England. There was a Turkish place on the way to my home from the pub. Best shish kebob I have had anywhere in the world. It just isnt Yemeni food and anyone who knew the first thing about Yemen would be aware of this.
Weird where you can get really good ethnic food. The best Chinese food I have ever had was in a place in Gorey, Ireland.
Stefan,
I was in Paris once and had a delicious steak and French fries.
Oh excuse me, uncultured Trump supporting ignoramus that I am. The French don’t eat steak and fries, they eat something usually called “steak frites” on their menus.
I had a beer with it – oh shoot there I go again, it wasn’t beer at all, it was biere. Totally different thing.
Eric Newhill,
I have not been to Yemen but as I think someone here mentioned the Colonel held the people of Yemen in high regard.
The Houthis don’t like you and you don’t like the Houthis. The difference is that we have killed hundreds of thousands of their children using the Saudis (who used to be our proxy) and they have not killed any of our children.
As for the Russians being chummy with bad actors. You consider North Korean and Iran to be bad actors because they won’t kiss your boots. You just hate everyone who refuses to be your bitch. Sic semper tyrannis.
James,
You and others throw around the term proxy fairly often. The Saudis went after the Houthis on their own or with other Gulfies. We never asked them to do it. Sure we sell them weapons, but that because we wanted their oil and now don’t want them to turn to either the Russians or Chinese. I think it more likely it’s the Saudis using us.
James,
If you think North Korea is wonderful, you have a real problem with making sound judgments about reality.
Also, The Houthis are hardly decent actors. That should be obvious. They caused the deaths of huge numbers of their countrymen. But yes, the desire to indiscriminately kill Israelis and Americans is problematic. I don’t like them because of that typical Islamic attitude. If they dropped it and restrained themselves to only killing their own kind, I wouldn’t care one way or other. I’d be happy to leave them to their barbarous ways.
You really should consider that there is right and wrong and everything isn’t relative. North Korea really is an evil dictatorship and hell on earth for most who live there because of it.
Moral equivalency is an easy way to go through life because you never have to stand for anything, but you seem to be a bit lopsided in that anyone going after the USA or Israel is a little more equivalent than the rest. There is a big blob of people with that thinking. Moon of Alabama types, Sonar21 types, stupid college protesters. I get that it must be reinforcing to have an anti-USA “community”, but you’re not cutting it with normal hard working people. Even a lot of Democrats are turned off by your mode of thought and associated politics.
I think Russia and the PRC have both embraced Iran as a proxy against Sunni Extremists. I think both Russia and the PRC think Sunni Extremism could unite the Ummah where Shia Extremism can’t,
I have two thoughts: 1) Russia and the PRC are right; 2) because of this keeping Iran a viable second-tier power has strategic importance for Russia and the PRC.
Some thoughts on recent market turmoil for those who may be interested
The Fed is poised to cut rates in September, very likely by 50 basis points (bps), which is very close to what is currently priced into interest rate futures markets. This is more than what was expected following last week’s fed meeting, which left us with 25 bps of cut expectations. I’m sure they wish they could have cut 25 last week but this is a hard job and it is what it is.
The market may want what’s called an intermeeting cut, an action taken between scheduled meetings, but it is very unlikely to get it, especially given the strength of economic data this morning. Following this data markets for both interest rates and risk assets (stocks, corporate bonds, crypto, etc.) reversed their course somewhat, and risk assets look relatively “cheap” vs where economic fundamentals seem to be, which at least for the near term does not seem to be recessionary.
Also the bank of japan increased interest rates which has a number of elements but maybe too much to go into now (unless there is particular interest) aside from it causing a very strong negative reaction (around -12%) in japanese stocks and go against the grain of the fed which is moving towards cutting. Obviously the japanese economy has its own foibles.
Landis,
“risk assets” funny what you can label with that phrase. Windmills, solar panels, EVs, etc. you know, “risk assets”.
The Dow went down less than 3%. Not a crisis. The yen carry trade went poof when the BOJ went from 0.1 to 0.25 % on rates? “kek”. A strong yen means they can buy oil and natural gas with yen rather than dollars.
Kamala will have it fixed in no time. Just kidding. Biden, though not qualified to run for office, is still president. Bidenomics baby. The left loves it, that way they can blame him for everything as Kamala dinna know nuff’n man.
who is “they” ? Yea I think way too much talking about this carry trade, this is about the BOJ waiting 3 yrs to hike and then doing so after a very lackluster US jobs report that signaled the fed should have already cut.
The economy follows long tracks, that often span presidencies, this is really just another act of a long saga, can’t really blame the last few days on any particular biden policies. Most especially because he has no control whatsoever on what the Fed does (or doesnt do). This is to say nothing about biden, same would be true of Trump or Washington were in the white house.
Seymour Hersh gives Biden (and Harris) both barrels on their cruddy handling of the Netanyahustein Monster. If she has a femtogram of functioning brain material she will pick Waltz or Kelly but the morning line seems to favor Shapiro which will lose her my vote as well as many others. It also might conceivably lead to a Jewish president of the United States. Big mistake, especially for the Jews.
https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/netanyahus-assassination-spree
F&L,
Maybe you don’t know it, but Harris is even married to a Jew as well. She is under “Thier” control.
And OMG!!!!!!! A Jewish President – and surely that’s what it would be because “they” would bump off Harris as soon as she is sworn in. No doubt her husband has been waiting for that day, patiently, crafty and shrewd like “They” all are. He will proudly carve out her heart on an alter and present it in a golden box to Netanyahu. Then there is nothing stopping “them” from unleashing of nuclear war on all of those innocent wonderful Muslims and anyone else resisting “Their” wicked machinations. Oh and so much blood of Goyim babies available to be drunk endlessly at “Their” secret rituals.
Yes, your conspiracy theories have been correct all along. Hitler had it right! “The Tribe” is everything everywhere, pulling all of the strings. Satan has given them so power that it appears there is no way out of “Their” tentacles.
LOL
But hey, no mean tweets. You’ll vote for all of that enslavement to “The Tribe” Armageddon stuff over Trump because Orange Man Bad!
Or maybe not. Maybe you should sit out this election as a protest and signal of virtue. Encourage all of your fellow travelers to do the same. It’s the right thing to do 🙂
It would be good to get an old Sergeant Major as VP. If she picks Waltz, I’ll send in a campaign donation.
You got your wish. Now pay up 🙂
Walz seems like a good choice and checks all the boxes: Military, Congress, Governor, successful law creator.
In the meantime, like Fat Elvis, Donold Trump is relying on old hits that did not work all that well the first time.
Lars –
Quite so. He’s an incarnate nitwit. His assassination sympathy phase is well past. Since you do the Times crossword daily maybe you chanced on this. Vance initially recognized Trump for what he is. Then he fell in love with Peter Thiel.
JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/opinion/jd-vance-fascism-unhumans.html
In a normal political environment, there would be little need to pay attention to a new book by the far-right provocateur Jack Posobiec, who is probably best known for promoting the conspiracy theory that Democrats ran a satanic child abuse ring beneath a popular Washington pizzeria. But “Unhumans,” an anti-democratic screed that Posobiec co-wrote with the professional ghostwriter Joshua Lisec, comes with endorsements from some of the most influential people in Republican politics, including, most significantly, vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.
The word “fascist” gets thrown around a lot in politics, but it’s hard to find a more apt one for “Unhumans,” which came out last month. The book argues that leftists don’t deserve the status of human beings — that they are, as the title says, unhumans — and that they are waging a shadow war against all that is good and decent, which will end in apocalyptic slaughter if they are not stopped. “As they are opposed to humanity itself, they place themselves outside of the category completely, in an entirely new misery-driven subdivision, the unhuman,” write Posobiec and Lisec.
Unhumans is just cover up for the term “Untermenschen”. We know what happens after that. There is a VERY unhealthy obsession in a large section of the right in this country with Nazis, WW2 and Nazi ideology and wording.
His lies about Satanic child abuse rings caused a real life place to be shot up in DC. No matter how low your IQ must be to believe these various conspiracy theories….there has yet to be a law passed that bans firearm ownership for those with IQs below 80.
Dodged deployment to Iraq by retiring early, put tampons in the boys bathrooms in schools, watched Minneapolis burn.
Walz took retirement from the NG because he was asked to run for Congress. So he was still serving America. He won because he is pro farmer, pro business, pro hunting & pro balanced budget. Vote Vets endorsed him then and they endorse him now. Guess who they don’t endorse?
Meanwhile Trump got his Viet-Nam injuries at the Studio 54 nightclub. Probably got himself a dose of STD. Let’s hope he didn’t pass it on to his three wives. JDV, the suburban hillbilly, got a plush job as a reporter for the air wing. Tough duty. Now he wants to regulate your granddaughters menstrual cycles. Whatever happened to the real Grand Old Republican Party that wanted less government on Main St.
So no thanks, I’ll stick with Tampon Tim over Bone Spurs and the PR hack from Yale.
Tampon Tim sounds like a great trending tweet. Ought to last at least an hour.
Get your checkbook. She picked him. I didn’t know he was a non-commissioned offer. Even more pleased with the pick now.
F&L –
Already donated this morning via the internet.
He was also a high school football coach whose team won the state championship. Maybe Trump should have made him a general?
F&L,
Held Command Sergeant Major status for about 8 months. Creme de la creme.
the swiftboating has been launched. in fact, the pol who ran that effort for W vs Kerry is now working for the Orange Campaign.
a guy does his 20 yrs in the Guard, signs up for 4 more, decides retirement is the best course of action. for him? his family? his nation? who knows. doesn’t matter. “it’s Chinatown, Jake”
meanwhile, from the Elderly Orange One…
” What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. … He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!! ”
awwww… how cute… he misses Joe.
Ked,
Upon learning his unit is deploying he decides retirement is the best course of action. The rest is history.
Ked –
Someone needs to dig up Chris Lacivita’s Gulf War service. What unit did he serve with?
Leith,
It’s all good. Socialism is just “neighborliness” and Maduro merely wants to be neighborly and set up re-education camps, because education is a good thing, right?
I don’t care if Walz single handedly stormed Al Qaeda HQ with a K-Bar between his teeth and a blazing M-9 in hand, he’s a scumbag of the first order simply for being a blatant socialist competing to first out-socialize California and then Venezuela. The more I learn about this guy, the more he stinks.
You guys are done. No one in every day America wants that crap. You’re going to have to set the vote cheating machine to 11 to win this one.
Fred, your bias got you ahead of the facts, so you missed out on the truth. he turned in retirement papers prior to his unit being called up. from a report in ’07 & revisited a day ago:
“… records show Walz officially filed paperwork for his congressional run with the Federal Elections Commission in February 2005 … three months before he retired from the National Guard and five months before his unit received its deployment order.”
” According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz retired in May 2005, two months before his unit received its alert order for deployment to Iraq.
” Walz’s combat team received its alert order on July 2005, mobilizing in September of that year and deploying in March 2006. That’s outlined in a news reported published by the National Guard in October 2007. ”
it may be necessary to point out that weeks or even months may transpire for processing retirement papers… from filing to official status.
decides … is the best course of action
Well, yes, those horrible, fearfully worrying SWAMBO’s?
What about ballsy & daring Vance, who did Public Relations for the US army in Iraq? Impressive?
But interesting, he opted out of duty in Iraq.
LeaNder,
I found the timeline of events.
– He filed to run for Congress on Feb 10, 2005
– May 2005, Tim Walz retires from the National Guard
– July 2005, his unit receives alert orders for deployment
– September 2005, unit goes to Camp Shelby to prepare for deployment
– March 2006, unit deploys
He opted out of doing more than 24 years in the Guard. By not going to the Sergeants Major Academy, he lost out on retiring as a Sergeant Major and reverted to master sergeant. He probably was serving in a sergeant major billet and was getting paid as such. The National Guard works differently than the active Army in these matters.
TTG,
His unit received the Warning Order in March, his campaign even issued a statement saying he would serve is activated. He put in his retirement papers after that, which was two years early from what he had reenlisted for. Which avoided that deployment. There’s no prohibition on members of congress serving in the NG.
Fred,
“The Minnesota National Guard told CBS News that Walz’s unit — 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery — received an alert order for mobilization to Iraq on July 14, 2005 – two months after Walz retired, according to Lt. Col. Ryan Rossman, who serves as the Minnesota National Guard’s director of operations.”
There is also no prohibition on retiring from the NG after 24 years. With two young kids, I’m not surprised Walz hung it up after 24 years and the good possibility of deployment to SWA. he retired before he was stop-lossed.
TTG,
“he retired before he was stop-lossed.”
Bingo!
and unlike lots of junior enlisted with wife and young children. A matter of character.
Important Announcement to those considering enlisting in or now serving in the Armed Forces… New Rule:
IF you MIGHT fall under a Stop Loss order in the future, you cannot retire, regardless of circumstance, under pain of being named OQC (Of Questionable Character).
Fred,
“Bingo!
and unlike lots of junior enlisted with wife and young children. A matter of character.”
Not a matter of character. It’s matter of life. I worked with many retired officers of all branches. Almost all of them have family, a damn good reason to retire after serving for many years. Were you in the Navy and now retired? what was your reason for doing so?
Switf boating an old veteran is pretty low in my book.
TTG, this reminded me vaguely of an exchange between you and PL on your military careers, where PL’s uncle surfaced again …. and I was censored. RIP PL. 😉
and the good possibility of deployment to SWA. he retired before he was stop-lossed.
deployment to SWA?
Hmm, stop-lossed, that new:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy
********
Good developments, I thought I watched the last US presidential debate a while ago. But now I have decided to follow F&L advice and get myself popcorn before 10/10/24, was it?
LeaNder,
Yes, SWA = Southwest Asia. Afghanistan is part of SWA, but the term was also expanded to deployments to Iraq, Kuwait and the rest of the Saudi peninsula.
and the good possibility of deployment to SWA
hmm: switched on some extra synapses. Deployment to Southwest Asia?
TonyL,
Look in the archives. Skipjack class submarines. Second honorable discharge with a VA disability rating that pays the phone bill. Last century. Walz was in a command billet and left before the battalion went overseas and did so by avoiding the remaining years of his enlisted obligation and taking a reduction in rank from E9 to E8. Yes character. There a plenty of men in that unit that were stop lossed for close to two years (which wouldn’t have affected the man with that many years left to serve).
Walz retired as Master Sergeant “because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.” MN NG statement. Look it up. He still claims a CSM title for political reasons.
https://www.newsweek.com/national-guard-disputes-tim-walzs-military-biography-1936038?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Others who served in actual combat with the unit are not impressed with Tampon Tim the Lockdown Governor of MN. Kamala either got told NO by a lot of other democrats or she’s even worse at judging people than you know who.
https://x.com/SRAlsultani/status/1821681093868912910
Fred –
Bless you for your tours as a submariner. Shame on you for lying about a fellow veteran who served honorably. Walz put in his request for retirement back in February long before the alert. You know yourself that you can’t just one day decide to leave the military and then have it happen, it took months for the paperwork to go through. He was definitely a Sergeant Major and is entitled to say that he was. He did not put Tampons in boys bathrooms either.
Despite the slander I’m sticking with Tampon Tim. Better him than the Eyeliner-Wearing-Hillbilly that Dementia-Donny picked. The swiftboating is not working. There is no honor in passing on vicious smears from a draft dodger and says wounded soldiers and KIAs are “losers”. Those lies are actually having the opposite effect and firing up support for Sergeant Major Walz.
Leith,
Call me a liear all you want, it does not change the fact that he reenlisted for the CSM school and assignment. It wasn’t an eight month extension. The man who had to fill his assignment after his giving up E9 and leaving before the time he had voluntarily entered into doesn’t agree with the political spinmasters characterization.
Don’t bother thanking me for my service, I didn’t do it for you and never cared for Air National Guard pilot GW Bush’s creation of the phrase, for political reasons after getting us into that needless war against the country that did not attack us on 911 or have wmd.
Isn’t he the guy that cities burn – along with police departments – during the 2020 riots? And played along with defunding the police?
Good luck with him.
Eric Newhill,
Minneapolis definitely was ground zero for the riots and the burning of the police station was oddly appropriate but still destructive to the community and illegal. The police reform bill signed by Walz included an extra $3 million for the reforms and extended $6 million in training funds to 2024.
TTG,
Burning the police station was appropriate? You left out the democratic party running the city, and the police force, for decades.
Fred,
And the Boogaloo Bois who came into Milwaukee and burned down the police station. Ivan Harrison Hunter from Texas admitted to the arson and shooting at Milwaukee police. He was charged, plead guilty to rioting and got a four year sentence.
TTG,
Boogaloo Bois? Really? I saw the rioters looting everything, especially liquor and drug stores and then setting buildings on fire. I saw the videos of the police station under attack. No whites involved. That’s the thing about modern events. There are recording devices everywhere.
Suddenly you’re a conspiracy theorist. Stefan says it is the sign of a low IQ. I always thought you were pretty smart.
Eric Newhill,
Those white Boogaloo Bois must have stuck out like sore thumbs on videos for the FBI to identify and arrest them. Two other Boogaloos were arrested elsewhere for killing a Federal Security Officer during those riots and are serving long prison terms. The jackasses ought to stop wearing their Hawaiian shirts.
And I know BLM rioters did almost all the looting and burning or at least thugs under the cover of BLM rioters.
TTG,,
LOL. Yeah sure. The FBI, the most honest and effective institution in the US.
Some might imagine that the FBI cocked up a case against the Boogaloo bois – your bête noir – and they copped a plea lest they be rail roaded even worse.
I think your days of honoring your peculiar world view, via federal government complicity, are coming to an end (‘Gladiator’ reference)
Eric Newhill,
Those particular crimes were caught on camera and then the idiots bragged about their crimes on social media. They weren’t tricked into their crimes by the FBI. Or maybe they were FBI. Maybe the entire MAGA movement is an FBI scheme to tear the country apart. Trump must have an FBI badge just like Elvis.
There are definitely different narratives concerning the death of George Floyd and the subsequent events in Minneapolis.
There is a counter to the left-wing narrative:
https://nypost.com/2023/11/20/opinion/real-truth-aid-the-floyd-lies
“for the people of that fallen city, and for all the cops across the nation who were abandoned and betrayed by their feckless political leaders, the pain still burns bright.”
That should be borne in mind.
TTG,
The Democratic party ran Minneapolis and still does. They are responsible for the hiring, training, and conduct of the police force. The criminals from elsewhere arriving after St. George Floyd died of his drug overdose are irrelevant to that reality.
One of the most revealing comments by Eric. Definitively.
Congratulation F & L. 😉
Leander –
Thanks. She picked Walz. That’s congratulations enough for me for now.
Leander,
I guess I should have used a sarcasm tag. I’m pro-Israel and have nothing against Jews – unlike all the progressives here, F&L being just one, who don’t like Jews and express ideology that is like thinly veiled ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ crap – all the while calling others “racist”.
Eric,
Solzhenitsyn thought the Protocols displayed uncanny wisdom and accuracy to the point that even though he was a highly educated and intelligent man who knew they were considered fabrications by polite society he said he was baffled that they could possibly be anything other than the truth. Unfortunately Hitler and the third Reich gave “anti-Semitism” a bad name. If you ever read the Talmud you would not find the Protocols the least bit crazy or even slightly untrue. Read Israel Shahak’s “Jewish History, Jewish Religion” and or “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel” and you’ll understand. Shahak was an eminent professor of Chemistry at a prominent Israeli university and an Eastern European refugee from WW2 (which will disqualify him in your eyes as you already revealed your disdain for education and learning in an earlier reply to a comment of mine in which I cited an eminent Harvard psychoanalyst). But you won’t read either book and you wouldn’t know what to do with a translated Talmud. Maybe you know that Einstein wrote eloquently describing the leaders of Israeli Zionism in the early 50s as criminal terrorists. Oops, Einstein was one of the most brilliant and highly educated men who ever lived so you have nothing but disdain for him. Can you understand that you might be accused of anti-Semitism if so since Einstein (and Shahak and the Harvard prof I cited) was Jewish? The Talmud teaches Jews to flat out hate, loathe and despise gentiles – to swindle them guiltlessly,and to kill them without expectation of punishment. I am 50% Jewish by the way, with a Nobel laureate in my Jewish family and my dad (Jewish) was considered for one in physics. I fought gangs of anti-Semitites hand to hand as a child in America and the UK. I grew up surrounded by Jews. I know more about anti-Semititism personally than you could ever know if you lived ten thousand years. You are in my opinion a thug (should I say “ruffian”, TTG?) and a thug who imagines he sticks up for the Jews and the only people who find them defensible these days are in fact thugs such as Tommy Robinson of the far right UK English defense league. Oh – and the psychotic rapture seeking nitwit holy roller Christian Zionistas of the USA. There was never any need for the state of Israel to be founded and at the time the Jewish community in general was not of one mind at all about the wisdom of doing so but you wouldn’t know that and if I cited sources you wouldn’t read them or look them up because many were written by highly educated people who you are on record as disdaining. In my opinion the criminals leading Israel (and America) now are leading the Jewish people to a place, soon, where they will be hunted down even more relentlessly than they have been for the last two millennia. Netanyahu is intent on utterly destroy Iran for which he will have to use and will use nuclear weapons unless he can blackmail (Epstein Island) US leaders into doing it for him. Did you know that the dream of the religious psychotic racial supremacists who run Israel is to fulfill the prophecies of the biblical book of Esther? It’s the final book of their bible, the Tanach and it foretells the genocide of Persia (Iran) by Jews and henchmen they deceive into doing so. Uh oh. Scholarship. Eric Newhill can’t tolerate that.
Netanyahu arranged for Oct 7 to happen. How did you become so stupid as to not see that? Israel’s intelligence agencies missed that? You can’t be serious if you believe that unless you are insane, stupid or lying, which you aren’t. He planned it, probably with elements in the US and UK for several reasons.
1- To produce a causus belli so that Gaza could be eradicated – this is a long-term goal of the Israelis. Genocide pure and simple. Ethnic cleansing.
2- To seize the Gazan oil.and gas in the Mediterranean next to Gaza. Rishi sunak’s family and the fossil fuel industry are likely collaborators imo.
3- Real estate and beach front development once Gaza is depopulated – Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner already spoke about this.
4- Then onto Iran, their other goal, who they will utterly destroy with nuclear weapons and try first to get the Americans to do it, but they will nuke Iran anyway if not.
F&L.
It must be terrible to loath your own background so much. Also to be locked into such grim conspiracy theories, like the Israeli govt killed its own citizens on Oct 7th.
Of course, the Trump near assassination, well that really was just a big screw-up. Vote fraud? Nah. Just bad analysis or hyperactive IT guys.
Protocols of Zion accurate, eh? So my parody of you was pretty accurate. As I’ve said before, at least your honest about it, which is more than I can say for the other cynical, yet moral posturing progs we hear from.
I have read the Talmud, but you proactively weaseled on that possibility by saying that a translation doesn’t count. Funny, though, that what you say of the Talmud is exactly what the Koran says, but substituting Muslims for Jews (and much worse prescribed treatment for non-believers is in it), but you’re fine with Muslims. Oh, and those crazy Brits getting upset over all of the stabbings and grooming gangs. How dare they!
You have just added a little more – another data point – to a mountain of accumulated evidence proving that adherence to “Progressive” political thought is a mind disease with symptoms and a prognosis very similar to Kuru.
Eric,
Your logic escapes me. Because I strongly dislike many elements of classical Judaism doesn’t mean I look upon Islam favorably. Shooting concupiscent 15 year old teenage girls violently repulses me.
Someone once accused Stalin of anti-Semitism. But there really was no way to determine that one way or the other because he was a man of intense hatreds generally. You yourself are a hearty hater as your many vigorously negative screeds against the left, progressives and Muslims attest. But since I dislike Jews I need to be admonished? I don’t dislike them in a vacuum. They are brutal indiscriminate mass murderers recognized by the world as conducting a genocide in open view. You’ve never objected to any of that. But since I express disapproval of mass murder of civilians I am criticized – by you of all people. And if you’d read the Talmud and understood it you’d see where much of the material in the protocols comes from.
Eric,
“It must be terrible to loath your own background so much. ”
I rarely laugh out loud but this one did it. Coming from the man who outright HATES his Middle Eastern background.
Shukran ya Eric for the laugh!!!
Stefan,
You know better. I am a Christian. It is Muslims I don’t like. It has nothing to do with the geography (though possible exception for Philippine Muslims, who may be more SE Asian than true Muslim)
Eric Newhill,
Don’t forget Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country in the world.
TTG,
I am aware of Indonesia. I deliberately excluded them from the exception list b/c they have occasionally mobbed up on Christians and Buddhists in terrible ways.
Eric –
The Moros, who are Filipino muslims, have mobbed up and murdered lots of Christians on Mindanao. They also have killed a few Buddhists there in the past.
Stefan,
““It must be terrible to loath your own background so much. ”
I rarely laugh out loud but this one did it. Coming from the man who outright HATES his Middle Eastern background.”
Yeah 🙂 a traitor to his heritage and a hypocrite. JD Vance is another example.
In case any of you are wondering, Debby really got to Larry Johnson:
“Hurricane Debby dumped more than a foot of rain on us and my street is flooded. Fortunately, the house stayed dry. However, my wife, who is a nurse, was called to the hospital but did not make it out of our street. The car exhaust pipes got under water and the car shutdown. I am waiting for a tow truck to pull me to dry pavement. The trek up the street in knee deep water is quite an adventure. I met four snakes during my last trip, which included three water moccasins. Sweet.”
https://sonar21.com/talking-terrorism-ukraine-and-iran-with-the-judge-and-nima/
He should have called the Russian or Iranian Navy to help him and his wife out. I’m sure they could send an inflatable rowboat to evacuate a key asset in the US.
Touché! A well-deserved smack in the face.
Maybe better not to demonise LJ, Leith. An American patriot and to be respected for that. And for his breadth of knowledge. Particularly of a world few of us know much if anything about. TTG’s world too, and the Colonel’s.
He’s here listening to Alexander Dugin. Who seems to be rejecting an exclusively Russian Orthodox exceptionalism and, by extension therefore, the exceptionalism of Borrell’s “Garden”.
Also rejects what we now term “woke”. And examines the default phobia of most Westerners, our near automatic Russophobia. Our European knee-jerk Russophobia anyway – doesn’t seem to be quite so prevalent in the States, that, except in the Beltway.
Even there one can’t be sure they’re Russophobes. Just, as in the European capitals, a bunch of scared psychos. Scared that history is slipping way from them, and the posturing and the bragging and the slaughtering seems no longer to work as well as it did.
“Why Does the West Hate Russia: Interview with Alexander Dugin.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDmnSk5g0NA&t=18s&ab_channel=CounterCurrents
On Dugin, the Russian scholar Paul Robinson dismisses the notion that he’s “Putin’s brain”:-
” The idea of Dugin as “Putin’s brain” dates back to a 2014 article in Foreign Affairs with that title, by Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn.
“Since then the claim has been repeated so often that people assume it to be true. In fact, there is no evidence of any connection between the two men. Until he issued a condolence message this Monday, the Russian president had never mentioned Dugin, let alone cited his words or given any indication that he has read his work.
“Furthermore, in 2014 Dugin lost his job at Moscow State University and ever since has found himself without any opportunity to speak in the mainstream Russian media. He has in effect been blacklisted as too radical.”
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/putins-ally-a-case-of-misreporting
Dugin himself is reported as saying – “I have no influence. I don’t know anybody, have never seen anything. I just write my books, and am a Russian thinker, nothing more.”
So not “Putin’s brain”. Not much of a brain at all, my uncharitable view. But worth taking note of, as I suggest below that Cavoli is beginning to do.
He jumps to conclusions, Dugin – “The assassination attempt on Trump was quite predictable. There is no doubt that everything is organized by the globalists with the backing of the part of the Deep State that supports them. The only way to keep the grandfather dementor in power is to kill Trump, who otherwise would almost certainly win under the circumstances. The shooter (after letting him fire about ten shots) was eliminated by a secret service sniper to make ends meet. Essentially, there was an attempted coup d’état in the US.”
https://www.thepostil.com/that-which-does-not-kill-trump/
That’s a quite unwarranted conclusion, especially since I doubt Dugin spent time looking at the details of the attempted killing of Donald Trump as most Americans have. Dugin is merely saying that it must have been the “Deep State” that attempted the killing because the “Deep State”, whatever that is, does that sort of thing. So too, implies Dugin, with the attempt on Fico’s life.
But I’ve not seen in that case either any serious suggestion that the attempted Fico assassination was a deep laid plot. Certainly not from Fico himself. Fico only went as far as suggesting that in the current overheated political environment we’re going to see more lone wolf attempts of that nature. I’d guess that’s about as far as it’s safe to go when considering the Trump assassination attempt too.
Here’s Dugin, oprichnina and all, going overboard on another affair, the Prigozhin episode:-
https://www.thepostil.com/the-wagner-factor-and-the-fairness-principle/
Not the sort of thing anyone wishing to be regarded as “Putin’s brain” would write.
An amateur’s judgement, mine, is that at most Dugin gives expression to the general desire in Russia for a transformative change to come out of the present apocalyptic conflict with the West. The recent corruption clear-out in Russia might indicate that’s getting underway.
But on Dugin as “Putin’s brain”, neocons too dismiss that journalist’s cliche:-
“Furthermore, while Dugin is reported to have connections and ties with Russian officials, including the Russian military leadership,22 and although Russian leaders may cite his work or ideas, it does not appear that he is directly influential in Russian policymaking.
” He is perhaps best thought of as an extremist provocateur with some limited and peripheral impact than as an influential analyst with a direct impact on policy. He does not appear to have direct involvement with the major political parties—such as United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Rodina—advocating antiWestern and aggressive regional policies.23 He was also removed from his position at Moscow State University after calling for the killing of Ukrainian nationalists, and he has offered significant criticism of Putin’s policies in Ukraine24.”
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1800/RR1826/RAND_RR1826.pdf
………………………..
The death of Darya Dugina, however, must be considered in a quite different light. She is the young woman looking out at us from behind Dugin’s shoulder in the Larry Johnson interview.
She was killed by Budanov’s people. So Budanov claims. Those people working out of a group that, the NYT tells us, was founded and financed by the CIA. From events way back in 2014 to the suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Crocus killings, from the incitements to atrocity in the Ukrainian state backed media to the shelling and drone attacks on the ZNPP, the Russian people are aware that in the West they have a determined and unscrupulous adversary. In losing his daughter Dugin moves from being a wild and woolly fringe figure to being central to the Russian response to this war.
There, at least, Dugin is at one with his people. As we may infer from Cavoli’s recent remarks, we have raised up against ourselves a mighty and now vengeful adversary:-
“The outcome on the ground is terribly, terribly important,” said U.S. General Christopher Cavoli, who heads U.S. European Command and serves as the supreme allied commander for NATO.
“But we can’t be under any illusions,” Cavoli said. “At the end of a conflict in Ukraine, however it concludes, we are going to have a very, very big Russia problem. …
“We are going to have a situation where Russia is reconstituting its force, is located on the borders of NATO, is led by largely the same people as it is right now, is convinced that we’re the adversary, and is very, very angry.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/threat-to-us-europe-will-not-end-with-ukraine-officials-warn-/7703923.html
So we see it as a big big Russia problem. They see it as a big big Combined West problem.
I’ve made it clear, TTG, that I don’t like Dugin the Philosopher. I’ve always seen him as a down-market version of Brzezinski, to be truthful. But Dugin, the father who has lost his daughter to Budanov’s spite, Dugin, the quiet and resolute Carlson interviewee, is a different matter. In that Dugin, and in all Russians who have experienced or seen what we and our proxy are capable of, we may see the Russia that is going to be our “very, very big Russia problem”.
Keith,
Transplanted Yankees sometimes only learn the hard way. East of I75 got 16 inches of rain. I only got a foot. Climate Change of course. One of my neighbors ignored advice to pull hiss glorified john boat out the water before the storm. Jury rigging a portable bilge pump at midnight then going home for a good night’s sleep cost him a capsized boat and a couple grand, which Sea Tow was happy to collect.
In other news, amidst the ambient shitstorm our knowledge of fundamental topics still goes ahead.
What life mechanisms are really about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aELkemLP6XQ
It is both exhilarating and a bit depressing, natural complexity is overwhelming!
jld,
I’ve only just started watching the video. In ten minutes, Denis Noble has thoroughly intrigued me. Once I watch and read more, I’ll do a post on his ideas. Already I’ve thought about the mysteries of a forest, both above and below ground level, and the ideas of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Dr. Noble’s ideas about there being much more to life than DNA intrigues and excites me. Thanks for posting this link.
A complementary view of the same question.
It is indeed NOT the genome which is the most important, it is some some sort of “algorithmic competency” of cells and the whole organism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_5AmPK2q4
What has absolutely gone wrong in the West?
I suggest you read this article:
https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-hollow-kingdom
So accusations of “racism” are being used to inhibit talking about reality.
Keith,
Have been for a while.
For some people the word “racist” is supposed to be rhetorical equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. I suggest that we don’t buy into it. Unlike a real hydrogen bomb, name calling can’t hurt us unless we let it. We should just feel comfortable being “racists”.
Everyone is a racist/bigot anyhow. There is no group that doesn’t dislike entire other groups. Everyone justifies the dislike by claiming it’s for good reasons. Everyone thinks their particular good reasons are real and justified and the other groups’ are not. It’s a silly game for hypocrites and mid-wits.
Keith,
Just read the comments section of the article. Some smart people there. Truth tellers and common sense.
Among all the other problems in the world, shipbuilding for the U.S. Navy is in terrible shape:
https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/u-s-navy-faces-worst-shipbuilding-struggles-in-25-years-due-to-labor-shortages-rising-costs/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-navys-warship-production-worst-state-25-years-112754916
Keith,
Obama gave us the great LCS class ships. Lots of profit there. No war Big O wanted to win on the horizon either.
What William Calley has said, in the last 50 years (up until his death this April):
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/08/07/soldier-my-lai-massacre-lived-quietly-georgia-decades.html
Real old-timers will remember him.
Keith Harbaugh,
I was still in high school at the time, but I remember it well. Did his company commander ever face any discipline?
Calley was a dirtbag. Should have spent his life in prison. Nixon gave him three years of house arrest.
His CO, Captain Medina was court martialed but a slick lawyer got him acquitted on all charges.
It appears Ursula is covering for her Minister by issuing a ‘we didn’t approve that’ memo after the fact.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/eu-commission-denies-involvement-in-letter-threatening-musk-before-trump-broadcast/3303412
Another reason to leave NATO. Hope the FED rewards this was another 1/4 point increase in rates.
Jeez, they’re going fast.
I have refrained from commenting on this in the past,
because it didn’t seem worth bringing up.
But yet another instance causes me to mention the issue.
So many senior military leaders, both commissioned and non-commissioned, are being dismissed.
For the most recent example, see
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/08/15/another-army-command-sergeant-major-dc-area-fired-second-week.html
Last week there was
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/08/13/top-enlisted-leader-of-armys-washington-dc-branch-fired-after-investigation.html
Sheesh, what is going on?
Keith,
Distracting guys like you from the lack of leadership in the general officer corps. Gaslighting about AWalz not being so bad too.