GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Coolest line in history?

I’d say it is, yeah.

What is the coolest line in history?
Battle of the Bulge. Winter. 1944. An entire American armored division flees from a massive German onslaught. Trundling down the road, a tank pulls up to a lone Private First Class in a snow covered foxhole. The commander yells, down to the PFC in the foxhole.

“The entire German Army is headed this way! We’re retreating!”

“Are you looking for a safe place?”, replied PFC Martin.

“Yes!”

“Well, pull your tank behind this foxhole. Because I’m the 82nd Airborne and this is as far as the bastards are going.”

Yep, it’s the coolest for sure, easily putting Tony McAuliffe’s “NUTS!” response during the Battle of the Ardennes in the shade—which, y’know, is really saying something. There’s also a pic, which I had no little trouble trying to figure out how to download for attachment to this h’yar post. But in the end, my Web-Fu proved the stronger. Thus:

82ndAirborneLine

Heh. And now you know why they called ‘em “dogfaces” back in the Big One, WW2. The look on that GI’s mug is about as surly, pissed off, and just all-round fed-up and determined as I hope (n)ever to see. Uncle Adolf would’ve pissed himself if he’d awakened late one night to find a face like that coming in through the bedroom window after his sick, sorry ass.

Update! A bit more interesting schtuff from the above-linked McAuliffe story, which you may or may not have known about already.

IT WAS MID-morning on Dec. 22, 1944 when U.S. troops manning the defences of the besieged Belgian town of Bastogne watched as four German soldiers – a major, a captain and two enlisted men – approached under a large white flag.

The four-man enemy delegation called on all U.S. forces in Bastogne to surrender within two hours or face “total annihilation” by German artillery.

Technical Sgt. Oswald Butler and Staff Sgt. Carl Dickinson of F Company, 327th Glider Infantry, and medic Pfc Ernest Premetz stepped out to meet them.

The men blindfolded the Germans and escorted them to an abandoned house serving as F Company’s command post.

When presented with the surrender demand, the 101st commander, Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, laughed at very notion of surrender. In his opinion his men were giving the Germans “one hell of a beating” and felt the enemy demand was out of line with the existing situation.

“Aw, nuts,” he blurted out.

Nevertheless, McAuliffe realized that some kind of reply had to be made and he sat down to think it over.

After several minutes he admitted to his officers that he didn’t know how to respond.

One officer, a lieutenant-colonel named Harry Kinnard, offered a suggestion.

“You said ‘Nuts!’” he observed, suggesting that be the reply.

The idea drew applause from everyone present. And so McAuliffe decided to send that very message back to the Germans: “Nuts!”

A colonel named Harper eagerly volunteered to deliver it to the German officers in person.

“It will be a lot of fun,” he said.

“I have the commander’s reply,” he said giving the enemy delegates the note.

“If you don’t understand what ‘nuts’ means, in plain English it’s the same as ‘go to hell,’” Harper explained wryly. “And I will tell you something else – if you continue to attack we will kill every goddam German that tries to break into this city.’

At that, the German major and captain saluted very stiffly and turned to leave.

“We will kill many Americans,” the junior of the two officers said as they left. “This is war.”

Historians believed that it was the German high command sent their officers to Bastogne with the surrender demand. Yet in unearthed interviews with Allied interrogators, General Hasso von Manteufel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army, admitted that was not the case. In fact, he was surprised to learn that the ultimatum was even offered.

“Panzer Lehr Division sent a parlementaire to Bastogne without my authorization,” von Manteufel would later say. “The demand to surrender was refused, as was to be expected. I did not authorize the surrender demand which was made of the Bastogne garrison, and I am still not sure exactly who did authorize [it].”

More even from there, all of it damned good. There truly were giants walking among us in those days.

Updated update! I could very well be remembering this wrong, and probably am, but as I recollect it was the 101st AID which was involved in the Battle of the Bulge, not the 82nd. Who knows, though, maybe it was both. NOTE: Upon further digging, it appears that there may indeed have been units from both AID’s at Bastogne. Never mind.

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Shocking news

Saw this the other day and I’ve kinda held off on saying anything about it, just to see if maybe there was another shoe to be dropped. So far, there hasn’t been.

I have long said on this blog that a civil war is the last thing that we need. It is a last resort, because the person that you are, the life that you lead, is over. The cost is quite high, the outcome uncertain, and the pain will be nearly unbearable. Millions will likely die. We don’t take actions like that for light reasons, and we certainly don’t destroy a nation and our lives if there is a hope that we can accomplish our objective any other way.

Stop trying to be a Ray Epps. Put up, shut up, or go fuck yourself. Stop trying to urge others to do what you will not do. Frankly, I’m over it. Comments to this post will not be allowed.

This blog is closed until further notice.

And so it has been. Aesop mulls it over, at some length, and It. Is. Good.

We’ve been under attack for years. Like SAfrican farmers, the body count’s getting obvious to anyone looking, from anywhere.

Some people are going to decide they’ve had enough. The smart ones are going to do something about it, as they can, when they can, to whomever they can. They’re not going to advertise, or cock-a-doodle-doo. 

They’re just going to do what they think needs to be done.

They’re going to Shoot. Shovel.* And Shut Up.

Eventually, that may become noticeable. Whether it does or doesn’t, everyone is going to have to decide to get in that game, or just watch.

That’s a you problem, not a me or an us problem.

Because if you do it, I don’t want to know. And if I do it, I’m not telling. Not you, not anybody, not ever.

Anybody who does is a pure Grade AAA Idiot.

But It’s. Going. To. Start. Happening.

Exactly, precisely so. To coin a phrase, the first rule of Revolt Club is, or surely ought to be, you never talk about Revolt Club. Plenty more at the link, of which you should read the all. If you can’t see how that relates to what Divemedic was on about, then you got some more thinking to do, I’m afraid.

I’ve contended for a long time here that when/if the Rebellion does get cranked up in earnest, Jurassic Media and TPTB will do their level best to keep it hushed up, for as long as they possibly can, after which point all bets are well and truly OFF. I do hope Divemedic will be back at some point; Our Side needs all the strong, uncompromising voices it can possibly get in this struggle, and DM was certainly one of those. But in any event, I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors, whatever they may end up being.

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Big gay orgy at sea

An Army of one none, a Navy of the Village People.


Story:

Is this the Navy’s Dylan Mulvaney moment? Drag performer Harpy Daniels is Navy’s new ‘digital ambassador’ in bid to boost recruitment that’s set to fall short by 8,000

Baffling, that recruiting shortfall, innit? As with the FBI regarding the opaque, unknowable motivation behind each new jihadist terror attack, I just can’t imagine why it should be, I really can’t. Why, one would think ALL red-blooded American young men would fairly well leap at the chance to scrape barnacles, swab decks, spend long months at sea away from their loved ones, and prance about on the main deck in spike heels and a little black cocktail dress amongst their similarly-fabulous fellow swabbies. All in the course of Defending Freedumb, right? Of course it is.

The United States Navy has turned to a drag performer in its efforts to reach younger recruits on digital platforms and social media.

Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, announced on TikTok in November that he would be the Navy’s first ‘digital ambassador,’ highlighting his journey from performing on board beginning in 2018 and growing to become an ‘advocate’ for those who ‘were oppressed for years in the service.’

Kelley, who identifies as non-binary, was one of just five active sailors to participate as ‘digital ambassadors’ for the Navy in its ‘efforts to reach a wide range of potential candidates,’ a spokesperson told Daily Caller.

None of the digital ambassadors were paid, the spokesperson said, and no promotional or recruiting materials with the ambassadors exist.

The campaign is reminiscent of Bud Light’s partnership with trans-star Dylan Mulvaney which led to an immediate backlash, cost billions and caused the brand’s sales to plummet.

Anybody remember the Olden Thymes, when we were sternly and constantly admonished that nearly all transvestites were actually straight men who got no sexual charge at all from dressing up as their great-aunt Tilly? Nah, me neither. Musta dreamed it, I reckon.

Update! Meanwhile, the Woke Model Army isn’t interested in retaining guys like this admirable young man.

What made your military career unexpectedly short?
Can I comment for my son, please?

Kenny’s dream was to become a helicopter pilot for the US Army. So after 4 years of JROTC in high school it was off to Fort Jackson for basic combat training. He then completed AIT as an AH-64 Apache mechanic. He had told me, “Dad, if I’m going to fly the silly things I figure I ought to know how they work!”

Thankfully, Kenny was assigned to Fort Hood, only a 2 hour drive from home, where he perfected his abilities as an Apache wrench.

He was deployed to Iraq with the 4th ID in November 2005 to one of Saddam’s big helicopter bases, Camp Taji. (I was in theater teaching Iraqi Police Service cadets in Baghdad, but took a position at the Iraqi Highway Patrol Academy at Camp Taji about a week after the 4th Infantry arrived, but that’s a story for another posting.). He did his year, and came home to Fort Hood.

4 months after his redeployment Kenny started working on a helicopter that everyone had told him was all set to go, and that the batteries had been turned off. Unfortunately, he trusted his coworkers and didn’t double check. He managed to touch a metal tool to a positive connection. It was only about 24 volts, but was around 1,500 amps, and the electric shock blew him across the hangar. When he woke up in the hospital the electric conduction system of his heart was screwed up, causing him to have upwards of 14,000 extra heartbeats a day. Needless to say, he was removed from deployable status, and was sent to a medical rehab unit.

The Army futzed around with him for two years, sending him to civilian cardiologists and the Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio. But they never did anything to correct his malady. Personally, I haven’t been an active paramedic since 1990, but even I knew that a 23 year old US Army soldier with no other resident health problems presenting with 14,000 extra heartbeats a day means you have an injury to the Purkinje conduction system of the heart, which can be easily corrected.

Finally the Army called him in. “Specialist Rogers, we have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that you are being promoted to E-5. Congratulations, Sergeant Rogers! The bad news is that we are done here. You’re being medically discharged. We’re going to let the VA Hospital fix you. Have a nice life.”

Kenny was crushed. He had all his paperwork ready to enter the Warrant Officer program and begin his pilot training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He was going to spend the next 30 years flying for the Army, and now they didn’t want him.

About 6 months after first contacting the Dallas VA Hospital they called him up. “Sergeant Rogers, we don’t know why the Army didn’t correct your issues, but if you’ll show up at oh-dark:thirty on Monday next we’ll fix your little problem.”

And they did! Kenny had about 3 extra heartbeats since they did the cardiophoresis procedure, and it happened while he was in recovery at the VA.

He eventually found a civilian helicopter training school, and is currently about two weeks from receiving his commercial rating as a private helicopter pilot. The next step will be completion of the certified flight instructor school, where he can log enough hours as pilot in command to find work. He will probably end up flying for a large city’s police department, or maybe the DEA or Border Patrol.

The fun thing is, because of his Army training and experience, he is able to spot problems with the Robinson R44 he trains in well before even his flight instructor does. His school gets frustrated at him when he “Red Tags” (takes out of service) any of their birds, but they know he’s always been proven to be right. Safety first, you know!

But he would have been much, much happier flying for his beloved Army Aviation.

Included is a photo of the proud papa pinning on his intrepid, entirely honorable son’s new rank insignia before his final promotion to SGT, after which the Green Machine unceremoniously hustled the boy out—one assumes because he just wasn’t Fake or Ghey enough to meet rigorous, exacting Army standards for such.

When we get our heads handed to us by a bunch of tribal, 4th-century savages in our next Forever War, remember: it’s because we deserved to. Far as I’m concerned, both Kenny and his old man can be happy indeed that they’re no longer associated with Amerika v2.0’s PC dot-mil dickheads.

Never too old to rock and roll

Divemedic recounts the incredible story of a bona fide American hero—a valiant and doughty warrior I’ve written about here myself. DM includes some aspects of the story, most notably a memorable quote, that I hadn’t heard before.

There are so many times that I have heard people, including myself, say that we are getting too old for the conflicts that are to come. It’s easy to think that the trials that we all see as inevitable are for young men, and let’s face it, many of us cannot consider ourselves to be young any longer. So let’s take comfort in the story of Samuel Whittemore.

Comfort? I hardly see it as comforting. Confers a YUGE burden of responsibility, and imposes a very real debt of awestruck gratitude, more like. At the very least, Whittemore’s story is enormously humbling for any present-day Real American with half a lick of sense and a knowledge of US history.

Anyways. Onwards.

Samuel was not a young man when he enlisted in the Third Massachusetts Regiment and fought the French in Canada. He was 49 years old when he killed a French officer and took his sword as a war trophy.

Mr. Whittemore wasn’t done. He fought again against Chief Pontiac in the Great Lakes region at 67 years old as he led troops against the French and Indians. During that conflict, he took a pair of dueling pistols as war trophies.

For the next decade or so, he became a respected leader in the civic arena. He lobbied against the government, speaking out and being a general pain in the ass. He protested the government’s actions, complaining about this and that, went to meetings of government, and represented his town as a member of the Committee of Correspondence. That was how it came to be that, in 1772, Whittemore was one of the three contributors to Cambridge, Massachusetts’ statement in objection to the Tea Act:

If we cease to assert Our rights we shall dwindle into supineness and the chains of slavery shall be fast rivetted upon us 

Then came the day when Samuel Whittemore’s family found him in his farm’s field, lying in a pool of blood, and even the town’s doctor didn’t believe that he would survive. British soldiers had left Samuel Whittemore in a pool of blood alongside a stone wall in Menotomy, Mass. after shooting the old farmer in the face, then bayoneted him at least six times and clubbed him, apparently, to death as they retreated from the skirmish at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Samuel was 78 years old.

Located near him were the bodies of three British soldiers: one shot by a musket, another by a dueling pistol, and a third run through with an ornate French sword.

Samuel survived that day, against all odds, and lived to the ripe old age of 96. He is currently buried in Arlington, Massachusetts.

This is the reason why we stand for the National Anthem, to honor men such as this.

Indubitably so. It’s to our everlasting disgrace that, were you to ask any random “American” schoolkid nowadays, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz would have no idea who Samuel Whittemore even was. Hell, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz parents wouldn’t know either. I very much doubt whether their teachers would.

As Founding Father Patrick Henry so unforgettably implored the flock at St John’s Church in Richmond:

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Amen. May we all draw strength from history, from the deeds of our glorious forebears; may we resolve to live up to their illustrious example. May the memory of that history, that example, never fade from our hearts and minds. In awakening Real Americans from their long, torporous slumber, Leftards know not what they have done. Let them reap the whirlwind, then, in fullest possible measure.

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The plane that wouldn’t die

Tell me, oh Magic Eight Ball: Is the indomitable, perenially-awesome, so-ugly-it’s-beautiful Fairchild-Republic A10 Thunderbolt II the best damned combat aircraft the US has ever fielded? Signs point to YES.

A-10s Return to Middle East with a New Mission, and a New Weapon
Tensions with Iran, Russia have CENTCOM calling upon the venerable Warthog once again.

A squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets, specially modified to nearly triple their bomb loads, has been dispatched to the Middle East to boost U.S. airpower in the region amid increased tensions with Iran-backed forces in Syria.

With each plane carrying four SDB (Small Diameter Bombs—M) bomb racks, a flight of four A-10s could bomb up to 64 ground targets, a nearly three-fold increase. Each plane can also carry laser-guided rockets along with its famed 30mm tankbusting gun.

“That’s a lot of targets that you can hit from an air-to-ground perspective,” Grynkewich said.

The rugged attack jet also gives commanders more flexibility because it can fly from short or dirt runways.

“We would be able to maneuver [the A-10] very rapidly to different locations and show an ability to do strike operations that really would be very difficult to to counter in any meaningful way should things escalate,” he said.

The A-10 could also be used to patrol the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian go-fast boats have harassed warships and tankers.

“There certainly are maritime threats that are out there that are promulgated by the Iranians,” Grynkewich said. “The A-10 brings you a capability that can counter that, as well—kinetically if necessary with those rockets and the gun.”

Designed in the 1970s as a specialized ground-assault weapon, the A-10 has won the love of generations of infantry. Protected by a “bathtub” of cockpit armor, Warthog pilots fly slow and low, eyeballing their targets before ripping into them with copious armament. But Air Force leaders have spent decades trying to win Congressional permission to retire the twinjet. They call it a sitting duck for modern air defenses, and they say stealthier, higher-flying, more lightly armed fighter jets can do the job. Earlier this year, Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said the last A-10s would be gone by decade’s end.

Grynkewich’s command is also responding to a call from CENTCOM’s Kurilla to be more innovative. Air Forces Central aims to experiment with the A-10’s ability to shoot down enemy drones. Since the A-10 lacks a radar, officials plan to use a network of U.S. and allied radars to guide the attack jets to their uncrewed targets. The Warthog could then use its infrared targeting pod to engage a drone with heat-seeking missiles or laser-guided rockets, Grynkewich said.

Is there ANYTHING the ‘Hog can’t do? Apparently not. Stout, amazingly versatile, a-bristle with ferocious lethality—she’s a credit to her noble lineage and her namesake, no doubt about it.

Update! So in the comments, I said this to Steve:

Pretty sure I’ve told this story before here, but back when the band was regularly traveling from NC to NYC for shows, we always took the back way up the spine of the Shenandoah on 81, through Harrisburg, and then on into a stretch paralleling a mountainous area with a USANG base close by (Fort Indiantown Gap, I believe it was). The base had A10s attached, and quite often we’d see a flight of ‘Hogs practicing attack weaves, crisscrossing low and slow from one side of the mountains up over the crest to the other and back again.

We’d all watch this airshow completely spellbound, which is when it occurred to me how truly awful it must be to be a ground-pounding camel-humper being hunted by one of those truly magnificent bastards. Bet there’s been whole damned laundry-trucks’ worth of djellabahs ended up smeared in fresh-squeezed shit by guys in that unenviable position. If not, then they were just too stupid to live anyhow.

Just for shits and giggles, I poked around some when what to my wondering eyes did appear but this choice vid:

And dammit, that’s IT, the spontaneous, unannounced “airshow” we looked forward to seeing on every trip up to the Rotten Apple. Hell yeah! How fuckin’ cool is THAT?

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Stunning and brave

For real this time, not the way the shitlibs (ab)use those words.

Nashville Heroes Expose The Lies Of Uvalde Cowards

The Nashville Police have released bodycam footage of its response to a terrorist shooting at Covenant Church school.

The six-minute clip is shot from the perspectives of Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, among the first two officers on the scene. It shows impressive bravery, determination, urgency, and skill. It’s not an exaggeration to say they probably saved numerous lives.

Their courage is also a reminder that if Uvalde cops responding to the Robb Elementary school mass shooting last year had shown any urgency or a modicum of bravery, rather than sitting around a parking lot and hallway debating what to do, they likely would have prevented the murders of many, if not all, of the 19 children and two teachers at the school. Recall that one of the officers had a rifle aimed at the shooter before he entered the school but didn’t take the shot because he was awaiting his boss’ permission.

These are obviously highly intense and perilous situations for cops. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I tend to believe most armed Americans would rush into a school to try and save children’s lives. As for the police, that’s the job. And Nashville police offered a textbook lesson on how to do it correctly.

They most certainly did, and are to be commended highly for it. The bodycam footage of both Collazo and Engelbert, viewable on YewToob exclusively since embedding it has been disallowed, is harrowing and quite difficult to watch. It’s also a must-see video, for the window it provides into what these fine Metro Nashville PD officers faced as they entered the building, cleared rooms on the ground floor, and then went upstairs to confront the unbalanced “transgender” (BIRM) mass-murderer and bring her down.

To say that they had to have been absolutely scared shitless is no slight to these fine officers, for what man alive wouldn’t have been in their place? Yes, it’s their job, their sworn and sacred duty, granted. Still, the courage involved in swallowing down that fear to run towards the sound of the guns without the least hesitation, perform the job flawlessly, and redeem that duty cannot be denied.

Engelbert, Collazo, and the rest of their team yesterday set a shining example of what it means to be a man—of what manhood really and truly IS, and always should be. Let us hope that their unflinching, indomitable bravery will inspire many, many young American men to duly dismiss the Left’s “toxic masculinity” codswallop and follow that example to the best of their ability instead, for generations to come. They are among our very best and brightest, and richly merit every jot and tittle of the praise being heaped upon them today. Heartfelt kudos, grateful thanks, and a humble tip of the CF chapeau to them.

Update! Victoria Taft says it well.

It’s gotten to be a cliché to say that when we run out screaming, the good guys run in. But here we are again. The good guys run in to vanquish the bad guys. It’s a story as old as time.

The response was professional and competent.

I know I’ll get blowback from some quarters, upset for saying a video showing a bad guy getting their pre-ordained end will make anyone proud. But if you are upset, I’d advise you to go back to your fainting couch where you left your kombucha, pick up your latest tome about toxic masculinity and ACAB tracts, and save your breath, because I can’t hear you.

Nor should you wish to, Victoria; they’ve never had anything to say that was worth listening to, anyway. In fact, no decent person should even bother to try listening. That way lies madness, which is all the Evil Left has to offer. To Hell with every last one of them.

There you go again

You keep using words like “most powerful,” “strongest,” “most lethal in the world,” &c to describe the bled-white and hollowed-out Woke military. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

An Army of None?

Suppose they gave a war and nobody came? The United States is gearing up for a possible war with China, but it faces a serious recruitment problem. The nation’s youth can’t meet basic standards.

Earlier this year, the Council for a Strong America reported that 77 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for service. About 44 percent of young Americans can’t serve for multiple reasons. More than 20 percent are simply too fat.

The Council didn’t have any good ideas. It discussed the benefits of the SNAP food program and suggested that policymakers “promote healthy eating, increased access to fresh and nutritious foods, and physical activity for children.” A country whose citizens are too stupid to feed themselves without the government both paying for it and telling them what to eat has problems.

Today, the American military relies heavily on the middle class, especially from the South. Sixty-four percent of recruits come from neighborhoods where households make between $41,692 and $87,850. Just 17 percent come from neighborhoods that are better off than that. A roughly equivalent share come from poorer neighborhoods. The South is overrepresented, producing more than 40 percent of all recruits. New England and the West Coast are underrepresented. South Carolina is the most overrepresented; DC (if we count it) is the least.

The military may go further down market. The Congressional Budget Office is considering ways to cut healthcare costs. One option was to “means-test VA’s Disability Compensation for Veterans With Higher Income,” which would save an estimated $253 billion over 10 years. On an annual basis, this would save less than the amount the United States has already spent on the war in Ukraine: about $32 billion. A cut in disability payments would also remove an incentive for the middle class to serve.

Tradition is probably more important. The military no longer celebrates the white Southern military spirit, despite the continued overrepresentation of Southerners. During the 2020 racial revolution, Democrats and cowardly Republicans defied President Donald Trump and required that all bases named for Confederates get new names. “We’re the party of Lincoln, the party of emancipation, we’re not the party of Jim Crow,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE). “We should be on the right side of this issue.” Nine names would go, including Robert E. Lee, A.P. Hill, and George Pickett.

Black Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin praised the Naming Commission’s efforts to “remove from U.S. military facilities all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederacy,” instead choosing names that “echo with honor, patriotism, and history” and will “inspire generations of Service members to defend our democracy and our constitution.” Those turn out to be names of insignificant non-whites.

One exception is Fort Bragg, named for General Braxton Bragg, which will become Fort Liberty. The name change will cost more than six million dollars. Officials say this bland name “conveys the aspiration of all who serve.” Fort Bragg is also renaming all the streets named after Confederates. No doubt this will cure the base’s problems: 31 fatal drug overdoses from 2017 to 2021, 41 suicides in 2020 and 2021, and 11 soldiers murdered or charged with murder from mid-2020 to September 2022.

The Army had a recruitment target of 60,000 last year but it missed it by 15,000. The Army wants more than 500,000 active-duty soldiers, but may have fewer than 450,000 next year. The Air Force is expected to miss its target; the Navy missed its target for officers. Only the Marine Corps made its quota.

I suspect “wokeness” hurts recruitment, but the collapse into drugs, crime, and obesity may have more to do with it. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) denied that an obsession with diversity hurts recruitment. “Diversity and inclusion strengthens our military,” he said. “By every measure, America’s military is more lethal and ready than it has ever been. It is also more diverse and inclusive than ever before. This is not a coincidence.” What’s his evidence for this?

The Army’s head of marketing said the real problem is that the service isn’t “relevant” to most Americans. I wonder why not.

Yeah, me too. Why, it’s downright baffling, is what it is. A puzzler, a real head-scratcher for sure and certain.

Why are recruitment numbers in the toilet? Because hardworking, athletic, intelligent warriors who pursue excellence in their lives want nothing to do with a woke, anti-American, politically correct nut-job factory invested in a Marxist worldview and promoting an overtly anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-white agenda. That answer is so obvious that just as with every other important issue of the day — “green” energy-induced inflation, central bank money-printing, government censorship, open borders, warrantless surveillance, surging crime, global war — normal people know what’s going on, while only America’s leaders choose to play dumb (although, in their defense, many aren’t playing).

What makes a superior warrior? An individual willing to rise every day and push his body and mind to the limits. Someone who is capable of taking an absolute beating yet unafraid to get back up and continue the fight. A person who is constantly working to get stronger, be tougher, think more clearly, and achieve tomorrow what could not be achieved today. A warrior works all the time because when he is not working, someone else is, and when those two meet on a battlefield, only one will walk away.

That is not the mindset of today’s woke armed services. Whining, psychobabble, coddling, and grievance-conditioning do not create a superior fighting force. “Safe spaces,” fear of “triggering” words, and fixation on personal pronouns make minds weak. Blaming mental and physical shortcomings on others will always result in future mission failure. Rewarding ineptitude while disregarding merit in the name of “diversity” will ensure a diverse collection of dead bodies when hostile forces strike. No person in harm’s way gives a fig what color skin encases the person fighting to his back; no person in harm’s way has the time to worry about another American warrior’s “social justice” virtue. When it is do or die, skillful excellence alone purchases life, one minute at a time. There is no such thing as a “woke warrior” because they do not survive.

In other words, when waters get rough, the warriors best suited for survival, resistance, and victory are tireless fighters with their heads on straight who are calm under pressure, emotionally resilient, and spiritually robust. That describes a lot of liberty-loving, conservative, religiously devout, family-oriented, patriotic, and proud Americans. It does not tend to include people so confused about their own identities that they aren’t even sure how to describe their biological sex. It does not describe Americans who despise their country’s illustrious history, believe its people to be inherently racist, and insist its foundations rest not on freedom but rather slavery. It does not include self-centered egoists too obsessed with personal pronouns to reflect upon a higher calling or personal sacrifice. It does not include people who would rather fight so-called “global warming,” “systemic privilege,” or “hate speech” than foreign armies intending mortal harm.

Those who find themselves offended easily and who cannot distinguish between language and violence have no place on a battlefield. They are, at best, a nuisance keeping real warfighters from doing their jobs and, at worst, a fifth column assisting the enemy in doing its job — which is to kill and subdue Americans. Woke is a joke, but it is also deadly.

Oh, it’s a joke right enough, but it ain’t no laughing matter. My oft-repeated advice: if you’re in, get the fuck out as quick as you can—any way you can contrive to do so, up to and including just going AWOL, if that’s what it takes. If you’re considering going in, for any reason other than to have your dick chopped off at taxpayer expense, just…well, just don’t, that’s all.

Today’s Woke military isn’t anyplace any sensible, old-school-patriotic warrior-type wants to be. Let the PC pussyfarts, the knob-polishing Blue Falcons and REMFs like “General” Milley, and the hard-charging political hustlers have it. Get the hell away from them all most ricky-tick, as far away as you can possibly get yourself. There’s trouble up the road, and you do NOT want to find yourself caught up in it with some dick-chopping, fatbodied Private Pyle in line of march directly behind your happy ass—loaded rifle in his poorly-trained dick-skinners, muzzle-sweeping you every step of the way, as you all trundle off to yet another war not worth fighting, at the behest of civilian “leadership” not worth defending.

The most disgusting story of the year

Incredible. Unbelievable. Sickening. Horrifying. Yet somehow, like so many other dismal contemporary tales of unnecessary catastrophe, totally unsurprising.

Marine Sniper: I Was Denied Permission to Take Out Kabul Airport Suicide Bomber

After many long months without oversight or accountability for President Joe Biden’s disastrous and deadly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the House of Representatives’ Republican majority is finally doing what the preceding Democrat majority never did: hearing from those whose lives were forever changed on the front lines of the chaos in Afghanistan at the end of two decades of U.S. involvement.

Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a sergeant in the United States Marines, was in Kabul as the Biden administration’s haphazard withdrawal took place. He was at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) watching the chaos unfold, and he was one of the hundreds of individual wounded when a suicide bomber attacked one of the airport’s gates where hundreds of individuals were waiting to be screened for evacuation.

In an emotional opening statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Vargas-Andrews told his story, one that the Biden administration never highlighted and Democrats in Congress apparently didn’t want on the record.

On August 26, 2021, Vargas-Andrews was in position at HKIA when he noticed suspicious individuals outside the gate to the airport as thousands of people were attempting to flee Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban, fearful for the future and what retribution anyone who’d helped American forces over the previous twenty years would face.

“I requested engagement authority when my team leader was ready on the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System,” Vargas-Andrews said, testifying in his personal capacity. “The response: leadership did not have the engagement authority for us — do not engage.”

Vargas-Andrews said he requested that his battalion commander “come to the tower to see what we did. While we waited for him, psychological operations individuals came to our tower immediately and confirmed the suspect met the suicide bomber description,” Vargas-Andrews recounted. When the battalion commander “eventually arrived,” he was presented with the evidence and photos of two men, one who met the description of a suicide bomber. “Pointedly, we asked him for engagement authority and permission — we asked him if we could shoot,” Vargas-Andrews told lawmakers. “Our battalion commander said, and I quote, ‘I don’t know.’”

“Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, ‘Well, who does? Because this is your responsibility, sir,” Vargas-Andrews explained. “He again replied he did not know but would find out. We received no update and never got our answer.”

“Eventually the individual disappeared,” Vargas-Andrews continued. “To this day, we believe he was the suicide bomber. We made everyone on the ground aware,” he said. “Operations had briefly halted but then started again. Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded — no one was held accountable for our safety.”

And so 13 Marines then got blowed up real good, thanks to this Blue Falcon, who I assume is a Light Colonel, since that would be the usual rank for a commanding officer of a battalion. Poor SGT Vargas-Andrews was gravely wounded his own self due to this contemptible Buddy Fucker Bird’s shucking, jiving, dithering, and diving away from his own responsibility:

“A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me, and my body was catastrophically wounded with 100-150 ball bearings now in it,” Vargas-Andrews explained. “Almost immediately, we started taking fire from the neighborhood and I saw how injured I was, with my right arm completed shredded and unusable. I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood. I crawled backward roughly seven feet because I thought I was still in harm’s way,” he recalled. “My body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast — my abdomen had been ripped open. Every inch of my exposed body except for my face took ball bearings and shrapnel,” Vargas-Andrews continued.

“I tried to get up but could not. Laying there for a few minutes I started to lose consciousness,” Vargas-Andrews remembered. That’s when he said he heard his team leader “screaming my name as he ran to me. His voice calling to me kept me awake,” he added. “When he got to me, he dragged me to safety and immediately started triaging me, tying tourniquets on my limbs and doing anything he could to stop the bleeding and start plugging wounds with the help of the other Marines,” Vargas-Andrews said. “I was awake through most of it — screaming, moaning, and cursing.”

Well, hey, Sarge, wouldn’t you say it was all worth it, if it helped to avoid offending or antagonizing our Taliban Partners In Peace in any way? After all, your CinC *spit* and the rest of his illegitimate, incompetent, and traitorous ruling junta certainly seem to think so.

Apologies to the good sergeant for my sarcasm just now, which I admit might have been in poor taste given his injuries and his betrayal at the hands of blithering idiots both military and cake-eating civilian.

Free advice, not just for SGT Vargas-Andrews but for any decent, intelligent individual still in the armed services, of whatever branch: you deserve far better than you’re ever gonna get from Amerika v2.0’s fundamentally transformed, über-PC military—most especially its politicized officer corps, from about the level of Major on up. So just get out as quick as you can, however you can. Let the dick-chopping freaks, fatbodies, and other sundry degenerates fucking have it.

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Lobbing a doo-doo bomb at the Gooks

Okay, this one’s just too hilarious not to put up here.

It’s True! A toilet was used as an aerial bomb during the Vietnam War

On November 4, 1965, some Vietnamese came across a very strange object that looked as if it had been dropped from the sky. Was it a bomb? Well, it had tail fins and a nose like a bomb. But it was white, and shaped like – a toilet?

It was a toilet in fact. It had been dropped by a VA-25 A-1 Skyraider on a mission to the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. It had come from Dixie Station, an aircraft carrier base in the South China Sea. The plane’s pilot was CDR Clarence ‘Bill’ Stoddard.

As Stoddard approached his target, he began preparations for attack. He read the ordnance (list of weapons the aircraft carried) to Forward Air Control. At the end of the list, he read ‘and one codenamed Operation Sani-flush.’ What was Stoddard talking about?

The story of the toilet drop was told by Captain Clint Johnson, the pilot of another VA-25 A-1 Skyraider. The toilet was a damaged one that was going to be thrown overboard anyway. But some plane captains decided to rescue it, dress it up to look like a bomb, and drop it in commemoration of the 6 million pounds of ordnance that had been dropped by the U.S. Air Force. The Air Control team said it made a whistling sound as it came down, and that it had almost struck the plane as it came off. A film was made of the drop using a video camera mounted on the wing.

Just as the toilet was being shot off, Johnson said,’ we got a 1MC message from the bridge, “What the hell was on 572’s right wing?” There were a lot of jokes with air intelligence about germ warfare. I wish that we had saved the movie film.’

I can’t believe nobody at the storied Strike Fighter Squadron 25 (Fist of the Fleet) DID; it would speak very poorly indeed of all involved if they didn’t. But knowing Navy combat aviators as I do, and I do, I’d be willing to bet that CDR Stoddard at least might’ve glommed a copy for himself, which is probably still floating around (ahem) out there somewhere—making it the absolutely coolest family heirloom in all human history. I certainly hope that’s the case, anyway.

Before you ask, yes, there are pictures, and They. Are. Good.

DooDooBomb

Too, too perfect.

All this talk of the Able Dog and pictures and such-like practically demands a re-link of this old post, wherein you’ll find pics of one of the greatest experiences of my entire life, to wit: actually piloting one. It was arranged for me by my late, lamented cuz CPT Reggie “Regbo” Carpenter, God rest him.

See, Reg had an older friend who just happened to be the proud owner of an A1D, an Able Dog enthusiast scheduled to be flying at an annual airshow up in Hickory that Reggie had been instrumental in founding and running.

Reg didn’t tell me so beforehand, but as it turned out setting up a free-of-charge ride in a Douglas Skyraider would be just the beginning for me that fine day, the sneaky bastid. Although that would certainly have been enough and to spare, I would’ve been more than satisfied with it.

To my eternal delight, Regbo’s bud had me help out with the preflight walk-around when me, my cousin Mark, and my brother presented our giddy selves at the A1D’s assigned parking spot for our gratis check ride. I was then asked to fill out the preflight checklist form once I’d gotten myself strapped into the right seat.

Perhaps it was the pilot’s subtle way of making sure I knew at least something of what he’d soon have me doing, I dunno. If so, I wouldn’t blame him at all for his judicious exercise of caution. I was a complete stranger to this guy; whatever assurances Reg may have given him to the contrary, for all he knew, he was about to relinquish complete command and control of his cherished, expensive, and increasingly rare (3,180 built, fewer than 20 still airworthy) aircraft to a clueless noob who knew no more about flying a plane than most people do about the construction of a tokamak reactor.

Once we were wheels-up and level, he offered me the stick, whereupon I murmured a duly-stupefied “co-pilot’s airplane” through a grin so wide I nearly swallowed my own ears. After letting me ferociously toss that surprisingly-nimble pig all over the sky for a good twenty minutes or so, he pointed down to a house below (visible through the port cockpit window in one of the pics from the earlier CF post) and said, “See that house down there? That’s where my daughter and her husband live. Pilot’s airplane,” thereby assuming command of the trusty old warbird again.

From there, we racked back around to enter the landing pattern, which was crowded with a flight of three vintage Stearman biplanes in the queue ahead of us as we were coming out of the break onto final ourselves. A pic of them through the canopy:

Sflight

The pilot was having trouble spotting the Stearman flight and asked me if I had ‘em visually, which I did after a moment’s scan of the airspace ahead. I then acted as his eyes in the sky, literally, helping to walk him all the way to a gentle, trouble-free touchdown—the most deflating, depressing part of every flight, for every aviator.

Because that’s the sad, sad moment, see, when it hits you that the fun is truly over, until the next time you’re privileged to take to the air once more, and truly live again.

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1

It was ALL a damnable lie

Yet another one, like FauxVid, that some of us have known all along was precisely that, and nothing more.

Secret Surveillance Video Dismantles January 6 Narrative
Clips aired during Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday night demonstrate how the January 6 select committee doctored surveillance video.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired the first set of previously-unseen surveillance video captured by Capitol police security cameras on January 6, 2021 that undermines several aspects of the reigning narrative about what happened that day.

Only “several”? I strongly suggest you take another look, Jules; it undermines the entire fucking thing, actually. Over, under, sideways, and down. Stem to stern, end to end, top to bottom, start to finish. No more, no less.

Capitol Police turned over to the FBI roughly 14,000 hours of video covering the hours of noon and 8:00 p.m. on January 6 but the full 24-hour reel has been in the hands of House Democrats for two years—reportedly the footage that Carlson’s team was authorized to view.

Carlson exposed falsehoods that bolster key animating aspects of January 6 including the movements of Jacob Chansley; the activity of still-uncharged agitator Ray Epps; the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; alleged “reconnaissance tours” conducted by House Republicans the day before; the “escape” of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); and the overall deceptiveness of the January 6 Select Committee. “Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection,” Carlson explained. “In fact, it demolishes that claim. And that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.”

Don’t you dare miss a single word of this one, people. Anyone who does so will be derelict in his duty as a citizen, and will thereby forfeit all right to think of himself as either “informed” or “concerned,” that’s the long and the short of it.

I won’t say it’s shocking, because it isn’t, not by a long yard. What it is, is further confirmation—as if any were needed—that the so-called “American” federal government is now openly at war with not just its own people, but with every last principle this nation was originally founded upon. That really is all there is to it, no two ways about it.

Tucker Carlson—who some on Our Side contend is variously A) a phony; B) Controlled Opposition; C) even a witting sock-puppet being used by The Enemy for steam-valve purposes, which I think is just ridiculous—has done enough in his dogged pursuit of the truth here as to have earned a Medal of Honor for meritorious, above-and-beyond-the-call service to his country. Endless kudos to him for his determination and derring-do.

I know, I know, the Medal is a servicemember-only decoration, almost always awarded posthumously (actually, that isn’t so, I only just found out). But still.

Likewise for the esteemed and estimable Julie Kelly for her tireless work on this gargantuan, monstrous case. She’s stayed on J6 like the most stubborn bulldog, and the rabbit has now been well and truly caught. Bravo, woman. You and Tucker are both admirable examples of what real, true journalism is supposed to be all about, but almost never is nowadays.

Emetic update! As Ace notes, the US has used the military to overthrow foreign governments more than once for far, far less egregious offenses against their own subjects than what it has done, and continues to do, to the J6 “insurrectionists.” So vile, so indecent, so morally abhorrent has the Amerika v2.0 regime become it could literally induce projectile vomiting in any true patriot.

Show me something update! My GOD, the balls on these faux-obstreperous pusbuckets.

GOP Rep. Ralph Norman on Jan. 6 Fedsurrection: ‘Why Is Ray Epps Not Behind Bars?’

Because big-talking Vichy GOPe frauds like you refuse to PUT him there, that’s why. Do something other than run your fat yap about it or just shut the fuck up already, whydon’tcha. Miss Lindsay Graham, Mitch The Bitch, Paul Ryan, Jim Jordan, all the rest—a great many of us are sick unto death of the braggadocious, talk-a-great-fight routine, and have no desire whatsoever to hear any more of that twipe.

Hold me back, hold me back or I’ll kick his fookin’ ass!!

Yeah, right. Put up or shut up, fuckface.

Uplifting update! Trump weighs in, and It. Is. Good.

Trump Demands January 6th Prisoners Let Go, House Select Committee Prosecuted After Tucker Carlson Releases Bombshell Videos

Trump called the dramatic new evidence one of the ‘biggest scoops’ in American journalism.

“The New Surveillance Footage of the January 6th Events sheds an entirely different light on what actually happened,” he wrote on his Truth Social media platform. “LET THEM GO FREE, NOW!”

“A whole new, and completely opposite, picture has now been indelibly painted,” he contends. “The Unselect Committee LIED, and should be prosecuted for their actions.”

In another posting on Truth Social, the former President reiterated his call for those charged for their relatively mundane actions that day to be released.

“Let the January 6 prisoners go,” he wrote in an all-caps screed. “They were convicted, or are awaiting trial, based on a giant lie, a radical left con job.

Indubitably so, Mr President.

Here’s an idea: in light of the truth finally getting out despite the dead-level-best efforts of the D卐M☭CRATs to keep it swept safely and securely under the rug, howzabout sane people all immediately just stop referring to the events of J6 as a “riot,” an “insurrection,” “violent,” and/or “destructive.” I suggest that instead, we describe all further insistence on that kind of hysterical, dishonest hype as “baseless” and “unfounded,” there being absolutely “no evidence” that they were any such thing. Y’know, take a page from their own “baseless election theft accusations” playbook, as it were.

THAT oughta tach up all the right people well past the pulse-pounding, vessel-popping redline, no?

Hell, I can even see newsrooms across the country go totally chaotic in the wake of this, as thousands of “journalists” lapse into shrieking paroxysms of grief and rage at seeing their own tactic used against them—flopping about on the floor like landed fish en masse, gnashing their teeth to the gumline, tearing their hair out in great hanks, ripping each other to bloody meat-gobbets with their bare hands in an ungovernable frenzy.

Try as I might, I’m just not seeing any downside here.

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1

State of (perpetual un)readiness

PopMech takes a look at yet another disastrous multi-billion-dollar boondoggle from the once-mighty US military—a bigger one, probably, than even the F35 Turducken.

How the World’s Greatest Aircraft Carrier Became a $13 Billion Fiasco

Can the military save the USS Gerald R. Ford?

Wrong question. The real question is: should it?

The late 20th century was a time of supreme American confidence and rapid innovation. The Cold War was drawing to a close, the digital age was around the corner, and the Pentagon saw an opportunity to capitalize on peacetime and begin preparing for future conflict. With few diplomatic or military distractions, the United States ushered in a revolution in military technology.

Out of that boom period came ambitions for a new class of aircraft carrier headlined by the transformational USS Gerald R. Ford, a ship featuring an expanded flight deck, a boosted power plant, and support for almost two dozen emergent technologies. Expectations were high. The Ford’s nuclear reactor and propulsion system would triple the electrical power of the preceding Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Its state-of-the-art weapons elevators would move 20,000 pounds of munitions at speeds of 150 feet per minute compared with the Nimitz‘s speed of 100 feet per minute. Its new launch-and-recovery system would be able to handle 270 planes in a single day. From bow to stern, the ship’s innovations—designed to save time, costs, and crew—would revolutionize the way the U.S. military built and used carriers. The Ford would be a symbol of American superiority, one that would project power to American adversaries for five decades of dependable service.

Well, they got the “transformational” bit right, anyway; the Ford definitely IS that. It’s just that it’s part of a decidedly wrong-way transformation: from a capable, powerful military—along with fighters that can’t fight; tanks that can’t tank; rifles more prone to jamming than a pimply, teenaged Stevie Vai wannabe at Sam Ash on a Saturday afternoon; and battalions of mincing, simpering dick-choppers who only signed up so they could get their bulbous naughty parts lopped off by an Army surgeon for free—into a hapless, bumbling, incompetent one.

“There was this thinking of, ‘We are so far ahead of everyone else that we can afford to take a strategic pause and take risks on our acquisition and try new and untested technology,’” says Eric Wertheim, a defense analyst and expert with the U.S. Naval Institute, of the nation’s mindset after the Cold War. “And there was this feeling that the rest of the world is at least 20 years behind us.”

But after two decades of development and delays, the audacity that conceived the Ford seemed to usher its doom. Expected to save the military $4 billion during its life span, the Ford has actually cost billions more than initial estimates. First expected to deploy in 2018, it has been projected to deploy as far out as 2024. When the ship reached the Navy after construction, it was already two years behind schedule, with work outstanding on thousands of items. In 2015, Sen. John McCain, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Navy aviator, called packing all that tech onto the Ford “the original sin” that damaged the program.

Even the Navy’s top officer acknowledged the problems that have plagued the carrier. “We had 23 new technologies on [the USS Gerald R. Ford] which, quite frankly, increased the risk of delivery on time and cost right from the get-go,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday at a virtual talk before the Navy League’s 2021 Sea Air Space exposition. “And I think industry’s in full agreement with this: We really shouldn’t introduce more than maybe one or two new technologies on any complex platform like that, in order to keep risk at a manageable level.”

Meanwhile, naval advances by U.S. adversaries have added urgency to the Ford’s troubleshooting. The ship’s critics point to its expanding budget and timetable as evidence that the U.S. military should reconsider developing massive nuclear carriers as a foundational element of its naval program. Military advisor Norman Polmar points out that America’s most recent conflicts in the Middle East didn’t even use the Nimitz class to full capacity. “Look what we did in Iraq,” he says. “We launched [just] 20 or 30 strikes a day from a carrier that has 70 airplanes.” And Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has questioned whether the Ford’s price tag justifies its utility. During a 2021 Brookings Institution discussion, Smith asked if there are other ways “to get unmanned systems closer to the fight that don’t cost $12 billion.”

All part and parcel of the truism that generals and admirals are always preparing to fight the last war, in this case WW2.  Out of the myriad mistakes, flaws, and failures of the Ford, this one remains the most jaw-dropping to me.

One standout feature of the Ford—albeit a troublesome one—is its state-of-the-art Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG). Prior to Ford, American carriers used a hydraulic arresting system to slow and stop landing aircraft, but the AAG uses an electric engine and a water twister to accommodate a broader range of aircraft—including unmanned aerial vehicles. Engineering and manufacturing of the AAG began in 2005, with 2009 the targeted end date. But a 2016 Pentagon Inspector General report noted that developmental testing for the AAG would continue through 2018; the system still hadn’t proved capable or safe enough to test on the Ford. Between 2009 and 2012, the AAG’s power conditioning system failed across multiple tests, and both its inverter system and cable shock absorber required redesigns. The setbacks ballooned the AAG’s development cost from $143 million to more than $1 billion, according to a report from Sen. McCain’s office.

(Now-retired Navy captain Talbot) Manvel says he resisted AAG on the Ford as early as 1998, wanting to push it onto the subsequent ships in the class after its design had matured. He had his way until Rumsfeld stepped in with his transformational vision. “This was transformation run amok,” Manvel says.

That it surely was, sir. Which, once the temptation of it is yielded to, is what usually tends to happen.

It all makes for a depressing read for anyone who grew up believing that the American war machine was nigh-invincible, without Earthly peer or parallel amongst its adversary nation-states. That’s simply no longer the case, if it ever really was. Which, given certain harsh realities of life on this here planet, it almost certainly wasn’t.

Hilariouser and hilariouser

Spy balloons, schmy balloons.

The hot air of spy balloons

Originally, General Milley — who promised to warn Red China if we would sneak attack Beijing — and Biden tried to keep the balloon from the public.

They would have gotten away with it, if not for the meddling Billings Gazette publishing photos of the balloon snapped by that pesky Larry Mayer.

This weekend, it was like a shooting gallery as an embarrassed Pentagon fired 4 shots to take down 3 balloons. Top Guns, our pilots are not.

They fired their guns but the balloons kept a-comin.’ There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago.

One of targets was over Lake Huron, which is next to Michigan and its population of 178 people per square miles (24 times Montana’s density). As Woody Hayes once said in a quote I just made up, “Michiganders are expendable.”

Chairman Xi said the first balloon was his but not the other ones. Xi is right because “the call was coming from inside the house!”

These were our balloons. On August 2, 2019, Lisa Kaczke of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, reported, “Pentagon launching drug surveillance balloons over Midwest.”

Ooooops. And then there’s this small revelation.

Bottlecap Balloon Brigade – an Illinois hobby group – claims its $13 weather balloon last pinged near Yukon on February 10 – hours before F-22 brought down UFO in SAME area with $400k missile

A mystery object shot down by U.S. fighter jets amid ongoing hysteria sparked by a Chinese spy balloon may have been a $12 inflatable launched by a hobby group in Illinois.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) reported one of its balloons ‘missing in action’ around the same location – and at the time time – a U.S. Air Force jet downed an unidentified object near Alaska using a $400,000 Sidewinder missile.

NIBBB said its ‘K9YO’ balloon last reported its location shortly before 1am GMT on Saturday, February 11 (8pm EST on February 10), near the coast of southwest Alaska.

Later on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared an ‘unidentified object’ was downed over Canada’s Yukon territory, several hundred miles from K9YO’s last known location.

Modeling shared by NIBBB shows its balloon was headed in the direction of Yukon before it vanished – and opens up the possibility it was one of the suspicious objects down by the U.S. military.

Hey, fret not, people—Jao Bai-Deng’s crack team of “experts” is ON. THE. JOB—defending US airspace and protecting the American people from mysterious alien incursions!

1

Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children disgrace themselves

As goes the rest of the FUSA military, so go the Marines.

 


Disgusting. But it’s probably just as well, I suppose; if today’s Marine Corps had deigned this vet worthy of a visit from one of their own, they’d have undoubtedly sent along a Jarhead in his prettiest black cocktail dress and spiked heels, in full make-up. If Mr Thompson’s poor dad didn’t stroke out right away from the sheer horror of it, being confronted by what Wokester pissants have done to his beloved Corps would have put him on a rage-high that would last for the rest of his days. I’m with Billy:

In TOTAL there were only 589,852 MARINES to serve in WW2.

16 Million Americans served in uniform

Only a little over 500k were Marines

That means this gentleman is one of a very few surviving Devil Dogs Left

Shame on the Marines for blowing this guy off.

Fucking the local Jarheads -should- have a fucking parade for him…

WTF ever happened to “Semper Fidelis?”

Always Faithful my ass.

Indeed. I repeat: Disgusting. Disgraceful. Reprehensible. And truly, truly sad.

My sincere apologies as a Heritage America to you, Mr Thompson, sir. May you have a happy 100th birthday anyway, despite this unconscionable PC insult to your bravery, your legacy, and your personal honor. Always remember, though: Illegitimi non carborundum. Otherwise, they win. And that, they must never, EVER be permitted to do.

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In praise of Pat Buchanan

As Barry Goldwater’s ill-fated 1964 campaign’s slogan had it: In your heart, you know he’s right.

America First: A Tribute to Pat Buchanan

Last Friday, Buchanan announced he is retiring the political column he has written since the days of Barry Goldwater. It is the final end of a public political career that has spanned a half century of decline in the country Buchanan loved so much and fought so hard to save. And if Buchanan can’t boast that he actually did save the country, he at least has the satisfaction of seeing ideas that once made him an outcast from his own party rise to become the dominant worldview within it. Without Buchanan, there would be no Trump. For that matter, without Buchanan, there would be no Revolver.

Of all the people who might be deemed a forerunner of Donald Trump and his political revolution, Pat Buchanan has by far the most worthy claim.

Consider this article from 2015, published just as Trump’s presidential campaign was taking off:

Mr. Trump revels in controversy. But as he assails illegal immigration as an “invasion” and refers to Mexicans en masse as “Jose,” his critics are accusing him of taking controversy a step too far. They say Mr. Trump is speaking in code, using xenophobic images like those or anti-Semitic references to excite bigots without alienating mainstream voters.

[Trump frequently offers] direct and sometimes harsh mockery of foreigners, using his derision to cultivate support for his immigration and trade policies. “I’ll build that security fence, and we’ll close it, and we’ll say, ‘Listen Jose, you’re not coming in this time!’ ” he shouted to applause from an almost entirely white audience at a rally in Waterloo, Iowa three weeks ago.

Okay, you probably already guessed the twist: That’s not Trump at all, but a write-up of Buchanan’s presidential campaign twenty-six years ago. All that’s missing is the promise to make Mexico pay for the fence. Buchanan didn’t just share Trump’s views, but his talent for colorful language that drove the regime berserk; a quarter-century before “Crooked Hillary,” China’s Deng Xiaoping was a “chain-smoking Communist dwarf.”

Donald Trump won the presidency by appealing to the Silent Majority, but Buchanan is the one who literally coined the term working as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. And throughout his career, Buchanan tried his best to speak for that quiet mass of beleaguered American humanity.

Put up a fence, send illegals home, America-first trade policy, an end to foreign interventionism, no more wokeness: It was all there, 20 years ahead of Trump. But tragically, the message went unheeded. Buchanan was the intellectual son of accountant, not a billionaire real estate tycoon with three decades’ experience as a TV star. Buchanan had the ideas, but Trump had the money, the star power, the meme magic. Buchanan’s 1992 campaign was the last credible primary challenge to an incumbent president, but nothing more. His 1996 campaign might have worked against a more divided field, but against an establishment firmly united around Bob Dole, Buchanan won just four states and 20% of the primary vote.

But Buchanan never deviated or retooled his message just for the sake of popularity. Instead, he willingly endured more than a decade as the Republican Party’s Cassandra.

In the end, all of Buchanan’s warnings came true: Middle America became a hollowed-out, deindustrialized area wracked with blight and drug overdoses. America’s foreign adventures wasted trillions and achieved nothing. The tidal wave of foreign immigration resulted not in rainbow-like harmony but endless struggles between different identity groups. And all of this culminated in crushing defeat for the Bush-era Republican party that embraced all of these trends. It would only return to the White House in 2016 behind a candidate who finally did what Buchanan had begged the party to do a quarter-century before: Actually reach out to middle America and seek the support of America’s Silent Majority.

“My friends, these people are our people,” Buchanan said in 1992. “They don’t read Adam Smith or Edmund Burke, but they come from the same schoolyards and the same playgrounds and towns as we come from. They share our beliefs and convictions, our hopes and our dreams. They are the conservatives of the heart. They are our people. And we need to reconnect with them. We need to let them know we know how bad they’re hurting. They don’t expect miracles of us, but they need to know we care.”

Sadly, it took twenty-four years for the GOP to field a candidate who did.

Yep—dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way, and to this day they struggle desperately to smite him, and make damned sure he stays smote for the duration. Just as any debased, corrupted system or organization always will do, to any nonconformist, visionary outlaw who dares stand athwart them and their nefarious ambitions.

6
1

Threatens the tyrant

The usual blather from a gun-grabbing blowhard.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has blasted the more than six dozen sheriff’s offices across the state for vowing to defy a new gun control law.

“This is political grandstanding at its worst. The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois,” the governor’s office told Fox News on Monday. “The General Assembly passed the bill and the Governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church, and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder.”

The state Senate passed the Protect Illinois Communities Act last week, which bans assault weapons 2A-protected semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity standard-capacity magazines from being sold or manufactured in the state.

Edited by me, for purposes of veracity.

At least 74 sheriff’s offices have publicly stated their opposition to the law, calling it unconstitutional.

80 at last count, out of a possible hundred and two counties in Illinois. Which adds up to an overwhelming majority in anybody’s book. Gee, Gov Prickzter, think maybe the problem here might not lie with these stalwart sheriffs, who are standing up straight and tall in resistance to mendacious authority, but with this soggy sop you’re tossing to the fear-stricken and factually-challenged in your sorry state?

“Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution,” Edwards County Sheriff Darby Boewe said on Facebook. “One of those rights enumerated is the right of the people to KEEP and BEAR ARMS provided under the 2nd Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people.”

The Illinois Sheriff’s Association stated last week that they have opposed the bill since its inception.

“We, as a representative of chief law enforcement officials throughout Illinois, are very concerned and disturbed by the ongoing and escalating violence throughout our State and Country,” they said. “We are always supportive of new tools, techniques and laws that assist us in preventing and holding accountable those that wage efforts of harm and violence on others. However, this new law does not do that.”

As statistics and studies have confirmed, over and again.

Pritzker’s office continues to maintain that law enforcement in the state doesn’t have the right to “pick and choose which laws they support.”

Perhaps so, and then again perhaps not. What they DO have is a clear and specific duty to refuse to enforce patently unlawful and contra-Constitutional edicts such as this one, you multi-chinned fascist slob. These good men and true are upholding their oaths of office; you’re violating yours. If this nation is to survive qua nation for very much longer, it will require a whole lot fewer of YOU and a whole lot more of THEM to see to it that it does.

Next time grubby, greasy Gov Prickzter is consoling himself with a few dozen fully-loaded triple-decker fatburgers in the privacy of the Governor’s Mansion, I hope he chokes to death on ’em.

7

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