NATIONAL REVIEW BLOWS IT AGAIN

It was once an interesting magazine back when all that mattered was beating on democrats. However, after the selection of Donald Trump as republican candidate the NRO jumped the shark and headed out to sea.

They published a masterful article on the disease known as Mueller and carefully laid out what a complete partisan hack he was who carefully selected inside the beltway crony democratic party Trump haters and after carefully describing the way the special investigator hihjacked the special investigation, the National Review concluded:

What then is going on here?   

No one knows. We should assume that there will be almost daily new disclosures of the Mueller investigation’s conflicts of interest that were heretofore deliberately suppressed. Yet Donald Trump at this point would be unhinged if he were to fire Special Counsel Mueller — given that the investigators seem intent on digging their own graves through conflicts of interest, partisan politicking, leaking, improper amorous liaisons, indiscreet communications, and stonewalling the release of congressionally requested information.

They still don't get President Trump and it looks unlikely they ever will understand the man. I think he probably has Sessions and the DOJ carefully laying out indictments for all of the people involved in the Special Counsel hitjob and they probably include wiretaps.

I wouldn't want to be Mueller, Comey or any of the counsels and investigators on the hijacked special investigation into collusion with Russia. They're going down and perhaps Hillary, finally, as well.

BLEAK HOUSE OF NEGATIVE MORAL REPUTE

 There's never a language cop around when you want one. OTOH, who really needs a language cop? After all, that's what we have folks like hardcore fascist lena dunham and the rest of the hysterical fascist liberals and progressives for, to keep us on our toes about minding our Ps and Qs.

I laughed out loud when I was reading The New York Times Ethics columnist in their Sunday Magazine this weekend. He had some "ethical advice" about an everyday sort of common occurrence. I started to wonder if the language I grew up with had changed that profoundly or was this just another one of those routine inconsistencies the NYTs is famous for.

I'll skip over the so-called "ethical" advice and just lash them with this little quote from the article:

There are practical and legal consequences to consider. I’m not a lawyer, but as a general rule, a father must help support a child even if he didn’t want it. Otherwise every deadbeat dad could claim to be an unwilling one. And of course, he cannot force you to have an abortion. (I am not going to consider the question of whether abortion is morally permissible: You think it is, and I respect that view.)

Do you know what the definition of ethics is? Here ya go.

 I don't think that the New York Times Ethics columnist thinks that word means what it means. Perhaps they could find a new ethics columnist who actually understands what ethics are. As with slavery and the courts, I think we can draw a very bright line between that which is morally permissible and that which is legally permissible, or, to put it as it was argued, what is not morally permissible even if the law upheld it at some point and declared it perfectly legal.

DEMOCRATS AND RULE OF LAW

This is why I thoroughly despise all democrats. They are quiet in the face of democratic tyranny and afraid of the mob. They believe in tyranny and domination of the party out of power at any price, at all costs.

HACKERS AND LEAKERS

Why does it seem more and more obvious everyday that the only transparency Americans have into the workings of their elected leaders and government actions comes from the people who hack the mystifyingly pseudonomous email accounts favored by elected and appointed leaders and agency employees who unlawfully conduct the PEOPLE'S business away from all possible accountability?

What does it say about the perils of accountability when executives at every level in the Veteran's Administration are routinely found to be corrupt, lying, shameless pigs and yet they never suffer so much as a slap on the wrist after a 3 year investigation by the government agency responsible for such investigations finds them guilty of every crime and misdemeanor they were accused of? They don't even lose their jobs. They get a 2 week suspension with pay and then go right back to the job of not treating veterans, not being accountable for treatment, not playing fair and by the rules and, manifestly, not doing the job they are being paid to do.

THE REMARKABLES

I doubt that one in 100 Americans knows their names much less what they did but when you and I think about it, did we not have some of the most remarkable men in history at the helm when we most needed adult leadership? I'm not that old. Srsly, not even 56. A mere pup, but I recall the giants that put together a force that shaped the world for the last 70 years. Some can recall the man who dominated an entire generation. I don't care for him but I have not read his biography and mayhap I have figured him wrong. I can be mistook in my judgement and I'm the first to admit it.

Raymond Spruance. He turned around the whole of World War II at Midway.
Ike. I don't care what his detractors say, he was a genius.
George Mashall. He was the one that said OK to General of the Army because he didn't want to Marshall Marshall. He thought there might be a number of 5 star officers in the future. So far, we've resisted the temptation.

The list of them all.

 The following Americans have been promoted to five-star rank:
      •   Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy 15 December 1944
      •   General of the Army George Marshall 16 December 1944
      •   Fleet Admiral Ernest King 17 December 1944
      •   General of the Army Douglas MacArthur 18 December 1944
      •   Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz 19 December 1944
      •   General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower 20 December 1944
      •   General of the Army & Air Force Henry H. Arnold     21 December 1944 & 7 May 1949
      •   Fleet Admiral William Halsey, Jr. 11 December 1945
      •   General of the Army Omar Bradley  20 September 1950

Irregardless of your notions of merit, that was a remarkable group and they came along at just the right time for us. The men who followed them were made from entirely different cloth. The political crew we have had for the last 30 years are a bitter disapointment.

NAILED IT

Scott Adams is a funny cartoonist and an amazing political philosopher. In this column he nails why there can never be any 'commonsense' gun control in America.

On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. 

On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense. 

But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

You don't see the arguments for gun-seizing and gun retention better expressed than that.

HAPPY VE DAY

I read these words on the subject of evil the other day at this place. I think the man who wrote the words had probably seen all there is to see of stupid and evil. He and Admiral Canaris were both executed by evil and stupid on the same day just weeks before VE Day. It was interesting to read that Thorbeck got off with this because the German State later determined that the State has the right to execute traitors. It was, yes, compounding stupid and evil.

At first glance the admission that the administration lied to the public seems a slam-dunk case for malevolence. But there's more to it than that. There is a perception that political imbecility is a lesser offense than malice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anti-Nazi activist, while in prison waiting to be executed, reflected that "stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice" because evil left behind in its conscious perpetrators "a sense of unease."

Against true imbecility even reasoning was useless since you couldn't even appeal to your enemy's self interest because they were too dumb to see it. "Against stupidity we are defenseless," he wrote, because imbeciles never feel a qualm. Against the stupid "neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything ... reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict ... simply do not need to be believed ... and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this, the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack."

Sadly, stupid is always there. It lurks in the strangest places and its effects can be measured far more accurately than the motion of planets orbiting distant stars.

NAVY BOUNCES OFF REALITY, DENIES COLLISION

It's been a month now since two boat loads of incompetent Navy boobs cravenly got down on their knees and surrendered their heavily armed and instrumented patrol boats to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy (IRGN). I thought for sure that by now we'd hear the real truth about what happened and also learn that the Commanding Officer and several others had been relieved for, "loss of confidence" in their ability to command. Imagine my surprise to find that the Navy still doesn't have a problem with the disgraceful events of that day and has fired nobody.

Navy Expeditionary Combat Command has fired almost 20 Commanders and Commanding Officers since it sprang into existence under Rear Admiral Bullard on 14 January 2006, but in this case it cannot seem to find any fault with anybody's behavior on the boats, at their parent command in Kuwait or the Task Force Headquarters in Bahrain or with their home station command in San Diego. That is awesome! Over 20 officers sacked for loss of confidence because of personal foibles but people who bring great shame and disgrace are here to stay.

The Navy's failure to take any action publicly means that: Coastal Riverine Squadron THREE, Coastal Riverine Group ONE, Commander, Task Force 56, Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and Commander, FIFTH Fleet find that the training, preparation, readiness, material condition and navigational abilities of those two crews were up to snuff and in no way departed from the standards expected by the United States Navy.

That means that the United States Navy tacitly approves of the actions of the sailors pictured below and approves the methods used to train them for their responsibilities.

UNITED STATES NAVY SURRENDERS TO IRAN

This is Iranian Navy Ship Sahand in the Persian Gulf on my second deployment to the Arabian Gulf.

 Note what the Iranian patrol boat did when it was challenged by a US Navy cruiser and two frigates:

The Iranian patrol boat Joshan ignores radio warnings and approaches SAG Charlie. About 45 minutes later, Joshan fires a U.S.-made Harpoon missile — the remnant of a pre-Revolutionary arms purchase by the Iranian shah. Some 13 miles away, the U.S. ships fire chaff and dodge the incoming weapon. They return fire with Harpoons and Standard missiles, sinking Joshan in the world’s first missile duel between warships.

Joshan never hesitated, nor did the frigate Sahand. He got warned off three times and pressed in to launch an attack he knew would doom his ship. The thought of surrender never entered their minds and they never did.

I was sure that by now we would know what really happened at Farsi and learn that those involved had been fired. I really don't know this navy anymore that will remove all access to classified material from the top two Navy Intelligence admirals for two years while incompetent idiots investigate their involvement in a bribery scheme that happened 5 years ago and in which the defendant is cooperating with the government. How could it take two years without resolution, I wondered. Well, now we know. In the absence of an existential threat we have let the admirals select only officers like Dorsey for promotion to Admiral. What other explanation can there be for things like Littoral Combat Ships, the ongoing Intelligence Fiasco and this craven surrender?

In September of 1987, while US Navy forces were boarding and capturing an Iranian minelayer in the Persian Gulf, Dorsey was flying a training mission above the Mediterranean Sea and used the opportunity to deliberately shoot down a United States Air Force RF-4C Phantom. In 2012, a board consisting of Navy Admirals decided that Dorsey was made of the right stuff and selected him for promotion to Admiral. They have been doing a very poor job for a long time of selecting navy officers with integrity and competence for promotion to admiral.

In the words of another U.S. Navy patrol boat sailor:

"I can imagine a no more rewarding career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worth while, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"   

--"Remarks at the U.S. Naval Academy (321)," August 1, 1963, Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963.

It will take decades to repair the damage Admiral Vern Clark and his followers did to the Navy.

I DON'T THINK SO

The school administrators made students watch a bullying, racist attack on white people. All of them. Henrico School leaders (unnamed sources) released the following statement:

"The students participated in a presentation that involved American history and racial discourse. A segment of the video was one component of a thoughtful discussion in which all viewpoints were encouraged. As always, we are welcoming of feedback from students and their families, and we address concerns directly as they come forward."

 revised to simply say, how amusing. And leave it at that.

A SIMPLE QUESTION

Every news story I looked at has a photo of the same blameless house.

In the interest of justice and public safety, shouldn't the photos accompanying this massive criminal conspiracy and hoax be of the women who made up and published this evil lie? I think so.

This house agrees

MOLON LABE

One of the good guys in N7 came up with this design as Naval Coastal Warfare Forces were getting renamed and reorganized by Navy Expeditionary Combat Command. I laughed and told Eric it would never fly even though it pretty much captured the sentiments of all the people there at the time. I can only wonder at what changed when they were merged with Riverine Group ONE a couple of years after I left. The design seems so inappropriate now. It's broken.

I'm sure Eric is even more unhappy about the recent events involving Group ONE than I am.

AINT WORKIN FOR THE MAN

In the old days, prospective ambassadors were called into the Secretary's office and asked to point at the country they represented. Most of them spun the globe and pointed to the country they were being sent to instead of to the United States. No more. Now nobody in the State Department works for the United States. They're all out there feathering their nests with money they "earn" doing business on the side for everybody except the United States. Here's the Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Clinton explaining/justifying her outside job while woring for the State Department,

“The UAE’s culture is very different than ours,” she told the Post.
“We had to have extensive discussions and negotiations to step through how this university could exist consistent with their framework, how we ensured the right protections for faculty and for students as they did their work. 

The revelation comes amid heightened scrutiny on the work arrangements for Clinton’s former top aides. 

In addition to Mills, longtime Clinton confidante Huma Abedin also received permission to work for an outside firm while employed at the State Department. Abedin’s decision to split her time between the government and a private consulting firm have led to allegations about a possible conflict of interest. 

In her discussion with the Post, Mills said that did not recall the State Department’s ethics office flagging any questions about her unusual work arrangement.

We could save a great deal of time and effort if we fired the State Department's ethics office and hired Apple to represent us overseas. They, at least, make money the old fashioned way and not as bribes piled on bribes piled on bribes.

WILL THE IOC BE NEXT?

I see that the U.S. Justice Department indicted most of the FIFA ruling class for racketeering, extortion and unsportsmanlike conduct and had a lot of them arrested in Switzerland today. I can only wonder how long before they go after the International Olympic Committee for exactly the same crimes committed over the decades since the modern Olympics returned after World War II.

When you look at sports in this country it is pretty clear that just about every aspect of sports governance is contrary to the laws of this country. Everything from getting the citizens of a given locality to pony up the money to build sports stadiums they cannot use themselves to the rules governing the free agency of players to play for any team that will have them seems to violate the rights of the citizen.

How exactly did San Diegans end up on the hook for selling ALL the seats to Charger home games? How is it that if seats went unsold to the public, San Diego local government was compelled to buy those seats? Why, even when that happened were games blacked out on local TV if the stadium didn't sell out?

I don't have any problem with people supporting the local team and paying big bucks to park there, bigger bucks for tickets to the game and big bucks for the pathetic food and drink offerings available from the concessionaires that 'bought' the right to compel you to buy whatever they sell you at whatever markup they think they can get away with but I don't think I should have to pay to support the local team because somehow my local government put me on the hook to build some billionaire or consortium of billionaires a "free" stadium which also lets them pocket ALL of the money.

So yes Justice Department, when are you going to go after the NFL and Major League Baseball and the NBA? And what is you plan of action with regard to NCAA ball which gets away with exploiting talent without any pay whatsoever?

On the other hand, Justice appears uninterested in the pay for play access that Congressmen now demand as the price for listening to a constituent or interested party who wants legislative relief or action because we all know that the "donations" to the campaign are nothing more nor less than bribes.

YOUR ROLE IN THE NEW STATE

Well I admit. This hurt me way more than most movies. My own personal universe crashed right about then. Just think how long the thing that was Rome lasted. It was there because the people believed in it for almost a thousand years.

Yeah, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Well maybe. They believed in hot baths,

IF LOSERS LIKE YOU COULD STOP BUILDING

More dreams of his father,

Obama: ‘We’re the Slaves Who Built the White House’

I'm pretty sure his father wasn't there and neither was his mother.

This racist son of a bitch is getting old.

Not one single one of his ancestors or anybody who knew them was there building the White House.

It is at times like this that one sees why weak worthless presidents employ utterly worthless or ruthless Vice Presidents. I think I preferred the tickets we used to have where the loser of the other party enjoyed the office of vice president. A president of those times could feel a certain care sitting down on a cushioned chair lest there be a serpent there.

Can you imagine Biden handling a dangerous serpent? I could look for the You Tube but, seriously, the shrieks of panic and alarm after that ignorant loser dropped the snake in his own lap are utterly predictable.

The socialist nazis laugh but think about it.  Bush had the devil incarnate but the democrats employed idiots of the first water. I think 12% of the reason that idiot McCain ran such an idiotic campaign was when he realized that 90% of his own electorate would shoot him dead in order to have her step up as president.

You can go with ruthless or vapid. Mostly, the dems have gone with vapid. Srlsy, Al Gore, Biden, Hillary, whoever was Carter's?

updare:
speelled shoooot write.  :)

ME AND MIKE

I might have written about him before but, you can take it. We had a great meal out with scientists and engineers so I am reminded again of Mike. He was going to work for me. He was going to be late reporting, on account of surgery. He wrote a letter to the Captain and said that due to testicular cancer he would be late and one ball short.

When he finally showed up, he was enormous. Huge. Youngest of 14 in his family. Nice young man.

As it happens, shortly later, we went to the Tanker War for a bit and looked for mines. Mike was my DCA on both ships. As it happens, we were both sipping coffee in the wardroom as the ship prepared to get underway from BASREC, Bahrain when the Captain's voice came over all the speakers on the ship and demanded to know, who peed in his coffee cup. The voice assured us that there would never ever be any liberty again and life would surely dry up and blow away if the man who peed in his coffee cup did not immediately reveal himself.

Srsly, it was a timeless moment. I kind of nodded and said, "you" and he kind of nodded and said, yep.

NEW STATEMENT

Just happened to buy a 150 rounds of .45 on the way home. Just saying.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, GOT THE ISIS TRIM

Yet a new study has been conducted to determine why some fields of endeavor appear to shun women and maybe even blacks. Let's hope they're too smart to sound off on their findings. Read a way into the comments there at mathbabe's place because it takes awhile to become clear that Harvard defended a professor so well that he was never convicted. To quote mathbabe's post and comments, there was a reason or two:

1. 

   Anon
   March 22, 2012 at 1:10 pm

   So let me get this straight.
   Summers should be in jail because of what his friend did?
   Should not the friend be in jail first?
   The friend who is currently ranked the most influential economist in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc,[2] and is listed #1 in the category “Most-Cited Scientists in Economics & Business”.
2. 

   Scott Locklin
   April 4, 2012 at 4:58 am

   The truly fucked up thing about this is, Larry Summers actually *did* get shit-canned from Harvard for merely speculating about a “hatefact” and he and Shleifer got off scott-free after ruining a perfectly good country and committing crimes against the US government and the human race. I guess destroying the lives of thousands of Russians and committing fraud isn’t as important as offending upper middle class ideas of political correctness. In a just world, his comments wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, but Cossacks would have burned down his village for his crimes against Rodina Mat.
   Oh yeah: I know your pal Monica Chinups.

Mathbabe might have some credibility but she went off the usual deep end with those types and instantly vaulted into the ring to accuse two men with high crimes worthy of life-until-death in the Gulag Archipelago for crimes against the Rodina. I think we all know why Larry Summers got fired at Harvard and it had nothing at all to do with some other professor at Harvard and any "crimes" he may have committed in Russia. Nope. He put his mouth around words others found hateful and had to go.

I think the faculty ousted him as President of Harvard because of what he said. So, if you are carrying out a study on gender and science differences never ever breath a word of the results you get. Go back and ask for more funding for further study.

Double that amount if you want to even breath about race and science differences. Or better yet, just slit your lying stupid throat first. OK, I had actually meant to refer to the authors of the BELL CURVE.

There are no real victories in the social sciences these days nor in most of the non-engineering/STEM sciences. Go forth young pioneer and discover new breakthroughs in medicine and immunology based on genetics but rather sacrifice your first child to Baal than try to draw any conclusions from genetic differences about ability from something as transient and specious as genetics.

MILDLY IRRITATING

I never paid any attention to the uniform regulations so it is wrong of me to parse them now. My ire means nothing at all to them. They live for the shiny and the clean crease but it's the Admiral who comes closest to the mark. By the rules of now he cannot wear both but he at least carries it off right.

How does one get a Presidential Unit Citation without shots being fired? How do the top two Marines gaff the precedence of ribbons?

SOME NAVY INTEGRITY

It's in the news but just think about that Navy Reserve Officer who had the balls to kick Biden out. The PAO slot was probably in an Echelon V command which meant that a full TAR had to take part in punting Biden out of the Navy. To be honest, I didn't think TARs had it in them. That's an O4 or an O5 standing up and saying, this scumbag is not worthy.

Of course the entire Naval Reserve chain of command kept it secret but that's what we expect of them.