Politics

[AJ Peacock]

Since I had two family members pass from covid related illness. I dont have a problem with vaccines after what uncle sam did to me. Seems you had a choice protect those you worked with or worl somewhere else. To me makes sense.

Too bad about your family members. But "Do as the government says or leave." sounds a bit dictatorial, maybe even fascist

AJ

 

[RLD]

I actually think the Republicans are going quite to the center or center-left. I don't think JFK could get elected today as a Republican. I think 1992 Bill Clinton would struggle to get elected as a Republican today.

What I'd expect from the GOP but do not get: Strong patriotism. Nationalistic pride. Citizen-First policies. Ruthless persecution of criminal actions by illegals and non-US citizens in our borders. Tax/Welfare/Tort reform. Balanced budget. Privatization of Social Security while we still have a chance. Sound money policy. Deregulation. Simplified tax code.

You know how you can tell Republicans have moved to the left? Musk, Tulsi, RFK, and even Bill Maher are supportive of Republican policies even though they were or are liberals. No shade intended being a big-tent supporter, but it shows that the goal posts have moved.

Being a democrat today makes you a far left marxist. Being a republican today makes you a centrist. I'm so, so far further to the right than any party candidate of today. You know? Like Patton to the right, or Milton Friedman to the right, or Adam Smith to the right, or Ronald Reagan to the right? Ron Paul to the right? Yeah, I'm somewhere over in those areas.

That's an interesting perspective. I do get where you are coming from and I think some of those policy ideas are excellent ones (although I would argue tort reform is effectively socialism or yet another abrogation of the free market).

Many of the issues that are important to you (and to me) just seem to be dead in the water in American politics right now. The debt issue is continuously being ignored by literally everyone. It strikes me as bizarre that literally no one is going near that issue. No one is touching entitlements as far as I can tell. Their weight will eventually become crushing.

I don't really think RFK supports Repub policies, he just sold his name to the highest bidder. Kamela wouldn't give him what he wanted so he went to Trump who did. I don't think there was anything policy driven about it. I read one of his books a few years ago and his thoughts on the environment and industry and nowhere near Republican mainline.

The question really is who will succeed Trump and what will they believe in. Both contenders are Catholic (one a more recent convert) and while Vance is more isolationist I think Rubio would be much more willing to engage with the world.

It also depends on what you think about tariffs and trade. Post WWII Repubs have traditionally been free traders while the left liked many tariffs to protect their union power base. Trump has tossed free trade ideas into the toilet, and it remains to be seen if that is one term aberration or more to come.

But politicians who would seem to have any ability of creating any bipartisan consensus seem very thin on the ground right now, making long term change of direction, to the left or right, just about impossible. Trump's policies won't long outlive the end of his presidency if the Dems win, just like Trump engaged in trying to dismantle everything Biden put in place. It's a recipe for short term radical changes that leave no real mark. A country almost stuck in neutral.

 

[RLD]

Too bad about your family members. But "Do as the government says or leave." sounds a bit dictatorial, maybe even fascist

AJ

You can take government out of it and say "Do as your employer says or leave."

Still fascist?

 

[AJ Peacock]

You can take government out of it and say "Do as your employer says or leave."

Still fascist?

No, unless the government is forcing the employer or pulling contracts, then yes.

AJ

 

[Altitude sickness]

My post was about the millions of people killed and the trillions lost from the escaped man mutated virus. Not the MRNA injection.

We the peasants are so easily led by the nose ring. To distraction . There has been zero people imprisoned for killing millions.

You had two family members die from malfeasance. I would think you would also want to see Fauci and his handlers stand trial at an international tribunal. Since the U.S. can’t and won’t prosecute him.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Attempts at accountability collides with ego?

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5939015-trump-cassidy-iran-gop-meeting/

 

[rookhawk]

That's an interesting perspective. I do get where you are coming from and I think some of those policy ideas are excellent ones (although I would argue tort reform is effectively socialism or yet another abrogation of the free market).

Many of the issues that are important to you (and to me) just seem to be dead in the water in American politics right now. The debt issue is continuously being ignored by literally everyone. It strikes me as bizarre that literally no one is going near that issue. No one is touching entitlements as far as I can tell. Their weight will eventually become crushing.

I don't really think RFK supports Repub policies, he just sold his name to the highest bidder. Kamela wouldn't give him what he wanted so he went to Trump who did. I don't think there was anything policy driven about it. I read one of his books a few years ago and his thoughts on the environment and industry and nowhere near Republican mainline.

The question really is who will succeed Trump and what will they believe in. Both contenders are Catholic (one a more recent convert) and while Vance is more isolationist I think Rubio would be much more willing to engage with the world.

It also depends on what you think about tariffs and trade. Post WWII Repubs have traditionally been free traders while the left liked many tariffs to protect their union power base. Trump has tossed free trade ideas into the toilet, and it remains to be seen if that is one term aberration or more to come.

But politicians who would seem to have any ability of creating any bipartisan consensus seem very thin on the ground right now, making long term change of direction, to the left or right, just about impossible. Trump's policies won't long outlive the end of his presidency if the Dems win, just like Trump engaged in trying to dismantle everything Biden put in place. It's a recipe for short term radical changes that leave no real mark. A country almost stuck in neutral.

Excellent food for thought. I appreciate your post.

 

[Pheroze]

Donahue is one of the most respected men in the US Army. Many believed he was destined to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. At his rank, he had unique conventional and special ops experience to include command within 1st SFOD-D. He was asked to retire by the National Guard Major posing, normally in the pushup position, as our SECDEF - something of his antithesis.

If you want to point a finger at Abbey gate, you are picking the wrong target. At the time Donahue commanded the 82d Airborne - period - an Army division. Overall command was vested in Rear Admiral Peter Vasely - the Joint Commander on the ground. Brigadier General Farrell Sullivan, USMC, commanded the Marine Corps unit (24th MEU) at the airport to include Abbey Gate. Any direct engagement requests from marine snipers went through their tactical command authority.

The CENTCOM review, about which neither the Army nor MG Donahue had any influence other than testimony, found that the individual spotted by the Marine sniper team earlier in the day did not match the description of the actual suicide bomber, Abdul Rahman al-Logari, and that the bomber was not identified in the crowd prior to the detonation.

Secondly, the review confirmed that the local on-the-ground commanders always retained the inherent right to self-defense and the authority to engage an imminent hostile threat under existing Rules of Engagement. There was no overarching order from General Donahue or high-level joint command preventing troops from neutralizing a verified threat.

I have no idea what you think you mean by "not a group thinker," but in my world that is compliment and certainly applies to Donahue. Throughout an impressive combat focused career, he had a reputation for offering his best and highly experienced professional advice regardless of the audience. If anything, I suspect that competence and assurance is what likely threatened Hegseth.

I was hoping you would chime in with the context, thank you. I assumed that General Donahue was very competent if Major Push-up removed him. The apparent purge of very qualified senior members of the armed forces appears, to this outsider, as a destabilizing exercise.

 

[cwpayton]

Donahue is one of the most respected men in the US Army. Many believed he was destined to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. At his rank, he had unique conventional and special ops experience to include command within 1st SFOD-D. He was asked to retire by the National Guard Major posing, normally in the pushup position, as our SECDEF - something of his antithesis.

If you want to point a finger at Abbey gate, you are picking the wrong target. At the time Donahue commanded the 82d Airborne - period - an Army division. Overall command was vested in Rear Admiral Peter Vasely - the Joint Commander on the ground. Brigadier General Farrell Sullivan, USMC, commanded the Marine Corps unit (24th MEU) at the airport to include Abbey Gate. Any direct engagement requests from marine snipers went through their tactical command authority.

The CENTCOM review, about which neither the Army nor MG Donahue had any influence other than testimony, found that the individual spotted by the Marine sniper team earlier in the day did not match the description of the actual suicide bomber, Abdul Rahman al-Logari, and that the bomber was not identified in the crowd prior to the detonation.

Secondly, the review confirmed that the local on-the-ground commanders always retained the inherent right to self-defense and the authority to engage an imminent hostile threat under existing Rules of Engagement. There was no overarching order from General Donahue or high-level joint command preventing troops from neutralizing a verified threat.

I have no idea what you think you mean by "not a group thinker," but in my world that is compliment and certainly applies to Donahue. Throughout an impressive combat focused career, he had a reputation for offering his best and highly experienced professional advice regardless of the audience. If anything, I suspect that competence and assurance is what likely threatened Hegseth.

Thanks for the more complete report , First thing to get off my chest is " group think" which to me means a Go along to get along attitude. A don't make waves, don't cross the big guy , If you wanna make retirement keep your mouth shut, thats what it means. Ive been in that circumstance. thinking that way gets people killed, but those people dont complain.
Not BLAMING General Donahue ,but something going on , you just dont resign a command like that, you know. Point a finger yes , someone needs to , that debacle was shameful and yes It was alot like Vietnam withdrawal from the top of the American embassy.
The testimony of the Marine ,"who lost leg and arm," before congress was quite moving and He said he could not get an order to shoot from anyone up the chain, { an NCO} I would have trusted his own judgement ,less lives would have been lost, including our own marines. the id,d terrorist was in the dress garb as described and it wasn't normal wear for the Afghans. my last jab , is it possible Centcom would protected someone in the chain ?

 

[Red Leg]

With the Russians suddenly suggesting that negotiations with Ukraine should recommence, but only under the conditions of the Anchorage "agreement" which at the time, Putin immediately discounted, a review of Russia's and particularly Putin's situation would seem relevant. With respect to Anchorage, both Ukraine and Russia's battlefield and strategic conditions have changed dramatically - so much so, even Trump seems to be forced to acknowledge it - however uncomfortably.

On the battlefield, conditions have evolved dramatically since 2014 when a truly woeful Ukrainian Army could do little to oppose Russian destabilization operations in the Donbas or the overt invasion of Crimea. That change became obvious with the successful defensive struggle Ukraine waged during the first three years of the war. Like Fabius's long campaign against Hannibal, the Ukrainians limited Russia's successes and inflicted growing casualties. In Rome's case, it was to buy the time necessary to field and train a new army and leadership. For Ukraine, now after nearly 1600 days of war, it was to buy time to build its own advanced arms industry while solidifying European support.

Therefore, however unwittingly, the strategic genius in the Kremlin not only failed to achieve a toothless buffer zone on his western flank filled with a subject population terrorized to further look West, but by being unable to either win or unwilling to cut his losses, he has created the most tactically innovative and lethal enemy in Europe.

Ukraine is flying more than 10,000 domestically produced attack drones against Russian troops and materiel daily. Most of these are now fiber optic guided, with a new generation of independent AI models reaching the field as I type. Those tactical drones are inflicting 70-75% of Russian casualties and due to video, the counts approaching 40,000 per month are very accurate. At the operational level, mid-range drones are closing off resupply across the front, but particularly to forces in Crimea. Strategically, that war on logistics is complemented by continuing effective strikes on Russia's petroleum industry, where now Russia is being forced to sell crude below market to China and buy refined products at market from them. Mechanized warfare has ground to a halt for lack of fuel as the regime struggles to simply keep fuel available to the population in the Moscow region. And winter is coming.

Not only did the buffer zone strategy fail spectacularly, but Putin actually managed to create nearly a thousand miles of NATO/Russian border by driving Sweden and Finland into NATO. The Kaliningrad enclave which was once a thorn in NATO's side, is now an indefensible Baltic pimple on what has become a NATO lake. Moreover, the US is unlikely to maintain is current dismissive NATO relationship indefinitely regardless which party succeeds Trump.

This new reality is expressing itself in a host of new murmurings emerging from Russian web services. As that has risen, so has the apparent paranoia of Putin and his inner circle. That has accelerated with American and Israeli decapitation operations in Venezuela and Iran. Not that Putin fears a US strike, but to remind, it is Ukraine that demonstrates ever more sophisticated targeting and reach with its domestic capabilities.

Where this leads, I am not sure, but the parallels to 1917 are ever more glaringly obvious when another Russian army suffering defeat and staggering losses eventually had enough. That outcome seems ever far more likely than the triumphant Red Army of 1945. Then, like now, a despot could not figure out how to end what he had begun.

 

[Red Leg]

Thanks for the more complete report , First thing to get off my chest is " group think" which to me means a Go along to get along attitude. A don't make waves, don't cross the big guy , If you wanna make retirement keep your mouth shut, thats what it means. Ive been in that circumstance. thinking that way gets people killed, but those people dont complain.
Not BLAMING General Donahue ,but something going on , you just dont resign a command like that, you know. Point a finger yes , someone needs to , that debacle was shameful and yes It was alot like Vietnam withdrawal from the top of the American embassy.
The testimony of the Marine ,"who lost leg and arm," before congress was quite moving and He said he could not get an order to shoot from anyone up the chain, { an NCO} I would have trusted his own judgement ,less lives would have been lost, including our own marines. the id,d terrorist was in the dress garb as described and it wasn't normal wear for the Afghans. my last jab , is it possible Centcom would protected someone in the chain ?

He was ordered to retire. The position is being downgraded to a three-star billet, and Hegseth stonewalled efforts to move him to another four-star billet. All three and four-stars are promoted and assigned against specific billets. That downgrade is part of the administration's continuing effort to marginalize its commitment to Europe and eliminate anyone that doesn't participate in the particular group think.

Both the Army and members of the senate wanted to move him to another four-star billet. He is very highly regarded. His primary sin seems to be aggressively working to modernizing US Army Europe and US efforts in Africa by incorporating lessons learned from Ukraine and solidifying cooperation with our NATO allies in particular. That effort apparently clashed with the administration's desire to downplay such cooperation.

As a result of the negative publicity, some of Hegseth's munchkins have tried to portray him as some sort of Miley acolyte which has gained some traction among the MAGA faithful on the web. That is patently ridiculous as they arose in two very different parts of the Army, and one would be hard pressed to find less woke environments than the airborne, SOF, or DELTA.

 

[jruby]

My post was about the millions of people killed and the trillions lost from the escaped man mutated virus. Not the MRNA injection.

We the peasants are so easily led by the nose ring. To distraction . There has been zero people imprisoned for killing millions.

You had two family members die from malfeasance. I would think you would also want to see Fauci and his handlers stand trial at an international tribunal. Since the U.S. can’t and won’t prosecute him.

How do you figure malfeasance. We / they did the best they could at the time. It was from at least in my BILs case from a punk that went to a wedding and brought it to work with him. He was too good to get vaccinated to protect others. It was a hell of a lot better than bleach or onvermecten. History has been written I accept it as is.

 

[Altitude sickness]

Hopefully Rubio knows that the only way we eventually line up evenly against China, North Korea and Iran is with NATO by our side. The NATO countries politicians are not representative of NATO military’s.

 

[Altitude sickness]

How do you figure malfeasance. We / they did the best they could at the time. It was from at least in my BILs case from a punk that went to a wedding and brought it to work with him. He was too good to get vaccinated to protect others. It was a hell of a lot better than bleach or onvermecten. History has been written I accept it as is.

Malfeasance is lying to Congress that the U.S. taxpayer was not funding Gain of Function experiments in Bio labs around the globe.
It’s a whole thing, you might wanna look into.

 

[jruby]

Malfeasance is lying to Congress that the U.S. taxpayer was not funding Gain of Function experiments in Bio labs around the globe.
It’s a whole thing, you might wanna look into.

There is a whole lot of things no one has a clue about. You going to chase everyone of them. You will end up looking like Don Quiota (sp?) Chasing windmills. I guarantee you others knew what was going on until it became a problem and everyone that knew became Sargent Schultzs. As I understood it Fauci was getting funding from somewhere. You going to take them all down as well.

 

[Houston Bill]

How do you figure malfeasance. We / they did the best they could at the time. It was from at least in my BILs case from a punk that went to a wedding and brought it to work with him. He was too good to get vaccinated to protect others. It was a hell of a lot better than bleach or onvermecten. History has been written I accept it as is.

Wow, your statement assumes that had said "punk" been vaccinated he would not have affected anyone at the party. It has been proven and admitted by the vaccine manufacturers that getting the vaccine did not prevent transmission. Also, in my own case, I was vaccinated and still got a very bad case of Covid, and I am fairly healthy person and I had no comorbidities. I was about to be put into the hospital but a somewhat famous lung doctor in Houston prescribed ivermectin and I immediately got better and did not have to go into the hospital. So I completely disagree with your premiss that the vaccine was better than the ivermectin.

 

[Altitude sickness]

No I am not. Hence my first post you may need to
Read again.

I said where are the Nuremberg like trials to hold them all accountable.

 

[Killingtime]

How do you figure malfeasance. We / they did the best they could at the time. It was from at least in my BILs case from a punk that went to a wedding and brought it to work with him. He was too good to get vaccinated to protect others. It was a hell of a lot better than bleach or onvermecten. History has been written I accept it as is.

The vaccine didn’t stop transmission so your statement makes no sense

 

[Houston Bill]

There is a whole lot of things no one has a clue about. You going to chase everyone of them. You will end up looking like Don Quiota (sp?) Chasing windmills. I guarantee you others knew what was going on until it became a problem and everyone that knew became Sargent Schultzs. As I understood it Fauci was getting funding from somewhere. You going to take them all down as well.

No but Fauci should absolutely be held accountable and no punishment is too severe for him

 

[Tanks]

With less than 3 years in grade (O-10 or 4 star general), he'll likely be drawing a lower retirement pay.

Unless Trump does an exception in his case. Considering Hegseth ordered him to retire I doubt that will happen.