The US Military Academy used to be a steward of American military values.
Leaders won’t “lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do”.
George W. Bush did all of that and still got rewarded. What message does that send to our future and current leaders?
As of July of this year, Afghanistan and Iraq have produced 59,496 casualties. We all see 52,566 daily as the walking wounded in our society.…
In 2009 California passed the Private Postsecondary Education Act, which forced PCHS and other schools to require that prospective students possess a high school diploma—or pass an equivalent government-approved exam—before they can enroll in a private trade school. The state calls it an “ability to benefit” prerequisite.
You might wonder why any Government would want to prevent their citizens from gaining a skill that might make them productive citizens. I’m guessing in California’s case it has something to do with the teachers unions who benefit from making people use their “education” system.
This prerequisite was never enforced against PCHS until earlier this year, when California regulators threatened to shut down PCHS if Bob didn’t start turning away any student who did not meet the state’s prerequisite education requirements.
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New Orleans doesn’t just destroy Confederate memorials. They destroy private property too.
When David and Lourdes Garrett purchased a neglected townhouse from the City of New Orleans in 2015, they had plans to renovate it and rent it out. But they never had a chance. Approximately four months after the acquisition, the City demolished the building. It provided the Garretts with no prior notice, hearing, or opportunity to repair.
The City’s actions are unconscionable since the Garretts’ interests were easily ascertainable and indeed, obvious, given the Garretts’ recent and recorded purchase from the City itself. Yet, the only notices and hearings prior to demolition were directed to a long-gone owner of the property from the 1990’s, someone who had not owned the property since the City took possession in 1998.
When the Garretts protested the demolition of their property, the city responded by sending an $11,000 bill for the cost.
Pacific Legal Foundation is one of the good guys and are taking the case to the 5th Circuit.…
I’ve been posting about the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for some time now. It’s still not too late to contact your congress folks to protect our freedoms.
This guy raises an interesting point that goes beyond Section 702 into regular seizures of computers, tablets and phones. At what point does a seizure become a search, and what are the 4th Amendment implications?
This is a good read. …
Lots of exciting news regarding the so-called Trump dossier. Most of the headlines and the stories are talking about the Hillary campaign buying the report and/or the Fusion Groups role in the dossier.
I don’t have a problem with the Clinton Campaign buying what they thought was opposition research. Yeah, they look stupid for buying such a brazenly false report, but politics at the presidential level is a blood sport. The more dirt you can dig up on your opponent helps to make people not vote for them.
What I want to know is who funded creating the dossier. That is the huge red herring out there. I’m inclined to believe that it was deep state “never Trump” folks. Remember who turned the dossier over to the FBI – John McCain.
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Most of us have mixed feelings about “whistle-blowers”. On the one hand, we all applaud when the truth is revealed. Heck, most of us “wish” for the so-called good old days when the media was objective.
We like whistleblowers a lot when they reveal things that folks we don’t like do (the right loves Hillary stuff and the left loves anti military complex stuff, for example).
We like it less when it embarrasses out country. People hate Bradley Manning because he revealed some of the bad things we were doing in the war. Many folks hate Edward Snowden because he revealed some of the evil that our surveillance state still does. Many folks have very mixed feelings about Julian Assange.
If we want the truth, the truth that turns information into knowledge, we need to concentrate on the truth and not the messenger. The truth is the truth, no matter what motivations the messenger might have.…
It’s a sad commentary on the United States right now that we seem to not be able to make military equipment. The F35 debacle speaks for itself. The Navy has so many problems with the Littoral ships and the latest aircraft carrier that you can write books about it.
Well, in an equal opportunity moment, it appears that the Army isn’t immune either.
At the “battle” of Kirkuk, Kurds armed what seems to be 1970s technology Chinese anti-tank missiles destroyed a US Army M1A1 tank owned and operated by the Iraqi army.
This isn’t a rare occurrence. ISIS destroyed Iraqi M1A1 tanks in the beginning of the war near Mosul. They even captured some and operate them. Hezbollah has at least one M1A1 tank. It’s not mobile, but the guns still work and they tow it into battle! Houthi rebels in Yemen are destroying Saudi Arabian M1 tanks with anti-tank missiles.
The US is currently spending $20 million per tank for 1000 M1 tanks to upgrade the turrets with all sorts of high tech.
Meanwhile the Russians are fielding their T90 and Armata tanks which are clearly marked improvements on older tank technology and perhaps are the best in the world. A complete, latest version of the T90 costs $4.5 million.
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The Uranium One “scandal” has its genesis in the end of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War, the Soviets had tons of highly enriched uranium, most in the form of warhead, bombs and submarine reactors. A big fear of the western world was this inventory turning up in the hands of bad actors around the world.
The US solution was to buy it all. It got dollars into the hands of a fledgling Russian government and got the stockpiles off of the world market. The US problem was what to do with it. With the end of the Cold War, we needed much less of it and had surplus warheads and bombs.
We sold our two government run reclamation facilities for $3 billion. We sweetened the deal by giving them the exclusive rights to the Russian products. The business worked out well. Then the Russian-US deal went south. Negotiations went nowhere, and President Obama terminated the program by executive order.
The company had big plans for commercial use of nuclear energy. They applied for a loan guarantee to build a new plant and were turned down. Meanwhile, the Obama administration approved a loan guaranty for a plant owned by the French government to be built in Idaho. A Dutch/UK/Germany company built a plant in Louisiana. Obam’s folks cited safety flaws which years later were dismissed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Both links tell more about the story, with the second link being published in 2009 which gives more background.
Maybe this isn’t only about the Russians and Hillary. There is a lot more to be seen.…
We talk regularly about the alternatives to the more popular social media sites. We understand the challenges to change. It’s hard, your friends aren’t there and you have to learn something new.
Nonetheless, we will continue to share the alternatives, if for no other reason than to show that there are choices. For those who complain about censorship and discrimination, it is possible to vote with your wallet. …
Last week we talked about the upcoming vote on domestic spying. It’s not too late to contact your congressmen. There is a bi-partisan bill in the Senate right now to force the government to do the “spying” legally.
Here is the devastating tale of someone who fell victim to this domestic spying by our government.
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