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Kenya steps up measures against Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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13 23:14 Skidmark [12] 
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5 12:13 Abu Uluque [13] 
22 17:17 M. Murcek [12] 
7 17:12 M. Murcek [13] 
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Page 6: Politix
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1 12:05 Abu Uluque [16]
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-Great Cultural Revolution
An EIB Reunion!
[SteynOnline] On Tuesday Steyn was back with his old EIB comrade Mister Snerdley - James Golden - on Bo Snerdley's Rush Hour at New York's legendary radio powerhouse 77 WABC. Topics ranged from the State of the Union and the state of human biology to Snerdley & Steyn on the high seas. Click above (or here) to listen in full.

~Mark's departure from GB News continues to ripple through the UK media. Here are a couple more takes. First from Majid Nawaz:

Go to the link to hear the podcast and to read the rest:

Posted by: badanov || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I miss Rush and "Snerdley" input. I hope Snerdley goes national, as talk-radio need it.

I started listening to RUSH at the Red Roof Inn on WFNC/640? back in 1989 or 90?

Hell, a lot of us skipped the mess hall, just to go outside to our cars to tune him in while snacking in our cars.

Many of his quotes today, would create a firestorm by the LSD's and their collection of Storm Troopers. Where the comments and quotes were just plain commonsense and/or actual fact at the time. Heck, back in the day, working secured locations where any radio was banned and cars parked outside the gate, many of us set up our VCR's at home to record RUSH and listen to him later at home.

While this pair of new attempted Rush replacements, have most of the content / subject matter covered. Their show presentation manner and limited on-air listener comments just aren't doing it for me overall.

eg. Rush would end his commentary and tell us "Time for another obscene profit commercial break" and I continue listening to Rush tell me about the product.


This new pair just goes from slamming another stupid LSD stunt, right into a sneakily worked in commercial. Like they are trying to put one over on the listeners.

Where I now just turn down the volume for several mins.

Posted by: NN2N1 || 02/08/2023 6:13 Comments || Top||

#2  /\ I have often thought what Rush might think of the Biden Crime Family events of the day.

I could not watch last night's performance. I understand he was booed and heckled. A well deserved response.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2023 6:38 Comments || Top||

#3  ^^^ It never entered my mind to watch that spectacle last night.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 02/08/2023 6:54 Comments || Top||

#4  I watched Top Gun: Maverick.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 9:57 Comments || Top||

#5  I watched it. There is a reason there wasn't a transcript available early.

Had some old man moments too. The thing about Xi was....awkward.

The voice to text would be a hoot to read.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2023 13:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Diogenes probably has the best wrap-up. I missed Huckabee's rebuttal.

Getting feelers it was not a well received night. Feelers indicating that the not-insane Biden supporters, other than thinking they were going to get a state of the union last night, are upset it was a campaign rally instead of addressing the alarms everyone is noticing.

And that he slurred it like a dog which got into the peanut butter.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2023 15:00 Comments || Top||

#7  I like how the pro-abortion pins actually feature a heartbeat.

Brilliant.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2023 16:16 Comments || Top||


A Pair of Colossal Media Failures
Scathing.
[ZeroHedge] Two bombshells in a week will fail to sober a media deranged by reflexive, partisan hatred

This week has produced two of the most stunning, wide-ranging and humiliating revelations in the history of American media.

Bombshell No. 1. Hunter Biden has acknowledged that the laptop is his. The laptop denied by the entirety of the mainstream media. The laptop about which accurate reporting by the New York Post got the country’s oldest newspaper kicked off of Twitter during a hotly contested election. The laptop that was alleged by 51 National Security experts to have “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Bombshell No. 2. Former New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Gerth has completed his massive four-part review of how and why the mainstream media spent two years obsessively focused on a RussiaGate story that turned out not to be true. In a comprehensive, 24,000 word analysis —he begins by wondering why the New York Times itself didn’t do any public introspection as it had when it publicly filleted itself for credulous coverage leading up to the Iraq War — Gerth concludes … it was all bullshit.

The fact that neither bombshell has produced the nonstop, industry-wide soul-searching and self-flagellation that they should have speaks to the lack of integrity of the majority of mainstream media rather than the explosive power of the revelation themselves.

To my knowledge, not a single reporter who spent two years on Russia Russia Russia has apologized for the error. Not a single one of the 60 intelligence experts has retracted his or her signature. Politico never retracted its headline “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say” even though what they actually said was that it might be (which itself turned out to be false).

None has apologized for not only breaching their duty to remain non-partisan, which would be bad enough had the material is true, but so much worse for having done so when the “Russian disinformation” charge turned out to be a lie.

This should not be a surprise. After all, they didn’t apologize when the Washington Post finally acknowledged the authenticity of the laptop in March 2022. That’s only 18 months after chief WaPo fact guy Glenn Kessler cast doubt on it with his October 2020 column headlined “Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop.” They didn’t apologize when the New York Times finally acknowledged the authenticity of the laptop in March 2022. That’s only 18 months after Adam Goldman cast doubt on it with an October 2020 column that contained a paragraph that would have been right at home as a DNC bullet point: “The laptop prompted concerns about Russian disinformation because the intelligence community has warned for months about Russian attempts to influence the election, including by spreading disinformation about the Biden family.”

If the 51 experts (plus nine who declined to be named in the letter) and countless Russia-obsessed journalists didn’t apologize when the twin pillars of lefty mainstream intellectual thought finally admitted the truth, why should they now that Hunter himself—via the mind-boggling strategy of his own lawyer demanding that his father’s Justice department investigate his tormentors—has acknowledged the veracity of the laptop.

But the fact that the purveyors of the two big stories of the last two elections — Russiagate in ‘16 and the laptop in ’20–lack the integrity to question their own motives and tactics doesn’t diminish the explosiveness of these charges.


Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Sound Of Even More Balloons Bursting
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/07/2023 9:17 Comments || Top||

#2  w respect to bombshell 1 - Hunter's lawyers are claiming that they do NOT acknowledge that the laptop is Hunter's even though that is the premise of their request for prosecution

w respect to bombshell 2 - Gerth left the NYTimes in 2005; the review of the Russia Gate was published in the Columbia Journalism Review
Posted by: lord garth || 02/08/2023 0:19 Comments || Top||

#3  “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Nothing will happen - and they’ll use the same playbook for 2024.
Posted by: KBK || 02/08/2023 8:22 Comments || Top||

#4  This should not be a surprise.

Well, no, it isn't for some of us. Sadly though, MSM has so much power that most folks will never notice.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2023 12:12 Comments || Top||

#5  I mean, you don't expect them to trumpet the fact that they are full of shit, do you?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2023 12:13 Comments || Top||


Fatherless children, dangerous cities: Numbers confirm deep roots of urban crime epidemic
[JustTheNews] High rates of crime, single-parent homes largely overlap, data confirms.

As Just the News recently reported, the U.S. is now home to 11 of the top 50 most dangerous cities in the world. All 11, as the piece noted, are governed by Democratic mayors. All 11 also have Democratic district attorneys.

Permissive criminal justice policies are widely thought to be large factors driving such grim statistics. Dig a little deeper, however, and an even more important cause of the crime epidemic plaguing blue cities comes into sharp focus: Many of these cities are also home to a staggering percentage of single-parent households, the great majority of which are headed by single mothers.

This large overlap shouldn't be surprising for two reasons. First, the U.S. has the highest rate of single-parent households in the world. Second, the connection between single-parent households and crime is very strong. According to research carried out by Jerrod Brown, a behavioral specialist at Concordia St. Paul, the extant literature "suggests that children raised in single-parent households experience more physical and psychological problems compared to those raised in two-parent households." Moreover, he added, the "implications of homes in which fathers are absent may be important to explore for criminal justice and mental health professionals."

There are roughly 74 million children in the U.S. Close to 24 million, or 34%, of these children live in a single-parent family. Of these, 15 mil­lion live in moth­er-only house­holds.

As Jack Brewer noted in a report last year for the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a public policy think tank founded by Trump administration alumni, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions and 85% of youth in prisons now come from fatherless homes. Fatherless children, according to the report, "are six times more likely to live in poverty and commit criminal acts than children raised in dual-parent households."

Detroit, now the world's 19th most dangerous city, is the United States' poorest city, according to World Population Review. As Money Talks News previously reported, Detroit, home to 632,000 people, has 44,234 single-parent households. Seventy-two percent of the city's families are single-parent families. Fifty-nine percent of the city's families are headed by a single mother.

The corresponding numbers for Cleveland, also among the 50 most dangerous cities, are comparably bad, with 73.3% of the city's families headed by a single parent and 58% headed by a single mother.

In Baltimore, the United States' most dangerous city and the 15th most dangerous in the world, 52.7% of the city's families are single-parent households. Only 7.6% of single-parent homes are headed by a father.

In Memphis, the world's 18th most dangerous city, 63% of the city's families are headed by a single parent. Less than 10% have a single father at the helm.

As measured by a range of indicators, the impact of growing up in a fatherless home is simply devastating. As AFPI has emphasized:

  • 85% of American children with behavioral disorders have been raised in fatherless homes.

  • Fatherless children are three times more likely to be behind bars by the time they turn 30 than children raised in two-parent households.

  • Children raised without a father are also more likely to abuse drugs and exhibit delinquent behaviors.

Research consistently shows that children raised in supportive environments where both parents are present, both physically and mentally, are less likely to engage in deviant behavior. Anti-social behaviors at an early age are a strong predictor of criminal activity in adulthood.

If crime, incarceration and poverty rates are driven predominantly by racism, as left-wing, "antiracist" big-city mayors and DAs are wont to claim, then crime, poverty and and incarceration rates should be lowest in the least racist cities, which would presumably be those blue cities left-wing "antiracists" themselves have long controlled. Instead, it is in blue-dominated, "antiracist" cities where crime, incarceration and poverty rates are highest.

Systemic fatherlessness, the numbers continue to show, not systemic racism, is the deep-rooted source of runaway urban crime in the U.S.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under:


#2  Yes....
Progressive Liberalism is doing a better job of destroying America from within than the CCP or our other enemies.

With that said. Think, if all that $$$$$ was put into true leg up job skills training, funded Community Jobs and what it would have accomplished.

Personally, If I was in congress, I write a Law requiring the fathers of any single parent child collecting Government $$$$ and housing.
Be ID (DNA) and required to provide up to 25% of his Net income to reduce Government expenses for his Sperm Donation.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 02/08/2023 6:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Big Brother as a substitute for fathers has been an abject failure replacing several thousands years of social evolution. They'll keep doubling down before admitting the abyss they created for so many people.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2023 7:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Oombekaweino has many wives and children. He also has a thriving dagga and utshwala (Beer) distributorship. He simply cannot be everywhere.

But you are umNgisi (English), you will never understand.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2023 7:48 Comments || Top||

#5  ^ 'specially when he's on the downlow.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 7:53 Comments || Top||

#6  ^^^^ Bwaaahhhhhh!!!!
Posted by: DooDahMan || 02/08/2023 9:21 Comments || Top||

#7  The man from Ghana with more than 100 children
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 10:01 Comments || Top||

#8  Ref #5: Laughed so hard I nearly had tears running down my pant leg.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2023 12:23 Comments || Top||

#9  P2k, you forgot to add that you get more of what you subsidize.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2023 12:24 Comments || Top||

#10  You can start by changing divorce laws to require fathers have shared,, half custody of his children. Don't automatically grant full custody to the mother.

Require fathers to be involved in raising their children.

I'm looking at you Texas!

Yes there are people who are simoly unfit to be a parent,, but still need to pay child support. We're supposed to have courts to decide stuff like this fairly.

Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 02/08/2023 12:34 Comments || Top||

#11  Laws wont fix it. you cant legislate culture. When the communities stopped going to church, thanks to liberals, it started us down the road of no responsibilities. Like the church or not, it held people accountable as family units. An interesting study would be the relationship between single parent homes and church followers vs non church followers. Its all about community and culture. Throw out the ties that bind us, and we will not be bound...
Posted by: 49 Pan || 02/08/2023 12:47 Comments || Top||

#12  Time for mass permanent sterilization.
Posted by: Elminens Chusorong3648 || 02/08/2023 13:46 Comments || Top||

#13  In Texas, the divorce judges apparent;y has no choice but to grant mothers full custody.

Laws need to be changed to give judges much more leeway in granting custody.


Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 02/08/2023 13:51 Comments || Top||

#14  P2k, you forgot to add that you get more of what you subsidize.

Yep. The community's jobs were outsourced to Asia and illegal aliens. Their manhoods outsourced to Washington D.C. and the welfare office. All part of the plan to divide and rule.
Posted by: Thruter Gloluger6393 || 02/08/2023 14:13 Comments || Top||

#15  Laws need to be changed to give judges much more leeway

They have too much now.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 14:19 Comments || Top||

#16  An interesting study

Pew Research Center
Religious Landscape Study
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 14:35 Comments || Top||

#17  16 comments and so far and no mention on how our local Marxists used feminism as the vehicle to achieve their ultimate goal of destroying the nuclear family. They told us this and have been bragging ever since. This is why we lose.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/08/2023 16:42 Comments || Top||

#18  The old feminist saw is that if there were no men, the world would be full of fat, happy women.

YMMV on the fat part, but as a man, once you have opted out of bothering with the screechy creatures, you will certainly be more happy.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 16:59 Comments || Top||

#19  ^ Very true, and that was the goal. Whether by hook or crook, the men had to go. And the women who knew better, who could have stood up, didn't. They sat down and those screechy creatures siezed power in the vacuum that was left.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/08/2023 17:07 Comments || Top||

#20  ^ But us guys are still here, just no longer in harness to some nasty ingrate.

Works for me. I do get that some people worry about their kids, grandkids or the future of humanity, but I'm out of that loop my own self.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:09 Comments || Top||

#21  For the best. Those are the men who will be available to rebuild after this clown show folds, but that happens only if they are willing to do so. That is a tough call. I have a granddaughter Mundi who I watch weekly so my position is fixed.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/08/2023 17:16 Comments || Top||

#22  ^ In that respect, Rex, you are doing God's work, and He will show His appreciation in His Good Time.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:17 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
The UFO Craze is A Chinese Spy Balloon Crisis
[DanielGreenfield] 2022 was a banner year for UFO nuts. And for Chinese spying on America.

The Biden administration, following in the footsteps of the Carter and Clinton administrations, had an interest in flying saucers. Conspiracy theorists embraced the release of Pentagon reports about UFOs, but the real conspiracy was down to earth and hiding in plain sight.

Last month, the Director of National Intelligence released a report on "unidentified aerial phenomena", especially those in "restricted or sensitive airspace". The report characterized 26 reports as "Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)" and 163 as "balloon or balloon-like entities."

We didn’t have a plague of UFOs, but a massive Chinese aerial surveillance operation. We now know that Chinese spy balloons had previously targeted Navy facilities in Guam and Hawaii.

Democrats and their media had no interest in the balloons or UAS systems showing up in sensitive airspace. And the UFO nuts they allied with gleefully dismissed "weather balloons" as a military cover-up for flying saucers. But it was the UFOs that were the real cover-up.

When a Montana resident captured the first video of the Chinese spy balloon, he first thought it was a UFO. The Biden administration, which had been aware of the balloon all along, kept it secret until videos and photos by Montana residents forced their hand. For the first time, top officials had to go on record about Chinese spy balloons and to even shoot one of them down.

That was much more awkward than talking about UFOs. Advanced alien spaceships in the sky may be a silly thing to comment on, but they don’t expose their duplicity and cowardice. Letting Communist China operate surveillance devices near our air bases, planes and ships does.

What did China think it was doing? The Communist regime is gathering information on our aircraft and ships, on our pilots and personnel, in preparation for an expected war over Taiwan. They want to know as much as they can about everything from capabilities to reaction times. While we’re stumbling into a war and wandering in a scifi haze, they’re doing everything they can to get an edge on us so that when the war happens, they can win swiftly and decisively.

Beijing just assumed that our government would go on covering it up. And that was a good bet.

The Biden administration remained committed to a cover-up until the American public found out through crowdsourced social media means. That is something that Communist China could not have counted on. Or perhaps it assumed that, like Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Biden administration had the leverage with Big Tech to suppress any story. That may be technically true, but the social media censors were late to brand it as "disinformation" or "lacks context".

China’s drone, balloon and other surveillance operations have often been passed off as UFOs.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2023 06:51 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Alien expert: They don't come in peace
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 9:45 Comments || Top||

#2  They were unidentified until we identified them.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/08/2023 10:57 Comments || Top||

#3  This article is so wrong I'm actually speechless. I'll comment more later.
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/08/2023 11:12 Comments || Top||

#4 
The Biden administration, which had been aware of the balloon all along
Really?
Posted by: Gromble Dribble4342 || 02/08/2023 11:38 Comments || Top||

#5  I don't make the news, I just report it.

This article is so wrong I'm actually speechless.

Which may not be a bad thing.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 14:13 Comments || Top||

#6  The prevailing theory is that UFOs are just us, but from the future. The question then is not why here, but why now?
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/08/2023 16:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Everyone thinks a time traveler should go back in time and kill Hitler.

What they don't know is that there were 6 other German leaders who came to power in the 1930s who led Germany to victory, and they were all killed by time travelers. Hitler was the first to lead Germany to a loss and so was allowed to pass, as horrific as it was, it paled in comparison to the German wins.

/Herb McCoy circle

*trying to remember the name of that animated movie where a culture develops time travel, and colonizes the past. Story is told from the perspective of the inhabitants of the past; simple folk being attacked by beings from the future.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2023 16:57 Comments || Top||

#8  In many time travel sci-fi stories, going back to kill Hitler is referred to as "the rookie mistake."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:00 Comments || Top||

#9  And that's the paradox of time travel history changes. Short of precipitating the eschaton, you have unlimited opportunities to go back again until you get it right.

So the huge problem of it does not really exist.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:03 Comments || Top||

#10  Or, as Commander Data said, "If it did happen, it will happen."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:04 Comments || Top||

#11  Which may not be a bad thing.

Geeze Skid: what did I ever to do you?

(... though now I will of course confirm your worst expectations.)

I hate articles like this not just because Greenfield doesn't know what he's talking about, but also because he doesn't even care that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And he's not even reporting the facts. It's like that Atlantic reporter from a few years back who said "Isn't it funny that UFO reports stop at the American boarder?" When even a few minutes of research would have shown her that Mexico's UFO enthusiast subculture rivals that of the US and includes thousands of sightings, including by their air force. Same thing for Canada.

Out of 366 recent reports, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office's (AARO) initial analysis found that 195 objects had shown "unremarkable characteristics." The bulk of those reports — 163 — were attributed to balloons "or balloon-like entities." Another 26 were found to be various types of drones. (Those 189 objects ARE mostly Chinese and Russian stuff.) And six reports were attributed to "clutter" — a category that includes plastic bags, weather phenomena and birds.

That leaves 171 reports that AARO has found to be, well, weird. Or at least not easily explained. And unless the Chinese or Russians were running radar and holographic spoofing operations in the 1950's, Greenfield's flippant, politically motivated explanations aren't very good ones. Or very helpful.

My guess is that we aren't looking at time travelers, extraterrestrials, or 75 years of communist drones and balloons; though definitely some of it can be explained by the latter. We're looking at some kind of "breakaway" civilization that's sharing the same planet with us. And probably it's an American, post WW2 black budget research program that grew out of project paperclip, went rogue somehow, and is not really controlled by the feds at this point. It's operating very advanced tech, doing whatever it's doing, and only being cooperative with the military when it feels like it.

Which would certainly a secret worth hiding.
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/08/2023 19:28 Comments || Top||

#12  Everyone thinks a time traveler should go back in time and kill Hitler.

International Association of Time Travelers (IATT) Members’ Forum: READ BULLETIN 1147, PEOPLE!

tl;dr: no Hitler-> no Third Reich-> no World War II-> no rocketry programs-> no electronics-> no computers-> no time travel.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/08/2023 22:22 Comments || Top||

#13  And so there we have it.
The ball bounces before it was thrown.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 23:14 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Victor Davis Hanson: Ukrainian Paradoxes
[ZeroHedge] Are the borders of country 5,000 miles away more sacrosanct and more worth taking existential risks than our own airspace and southern border?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Former Defense Secretary Slams Pelosi as ‘Incoherent' and ‘Shrieking' Mess During January 6th Riot, sez nobody held accountable for Afghanistan & Iraq
[ThePoliticalInsider] Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller slammed Nancy Pelosi as an ’incoherent’ and ’shrieking’ mess during the January 6th riot, and downplayed the crowd who had overrun the Capitol as "a rowdy band of MAGA supporters" who were "taking selfies."

Miller, who led the Pentagon from just days after the 2020 election through President Biden’s Inauguration Day, made the observations in his forthcoming book, Soldier Secretary, set for release this week.

In it, Miller describes lawmakers like Representative Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as "hyperventilating into the phone" regarding the status of troops to protect the Capitol.

He claims Pelosi called him in an "incoherent" state as she was "shrieking" about what he describes as "a handful of provocateurs" who had "infiltrated" the Capitol.

"I had never seen anyone — not even the greenest, pimple-faced 19-year-old Army private — panic like our nation’s elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed," Miller scoffed.

Trump's last defense secretary says no one held 'accountable' for Afghanistan and Iraq wars

[WashingtonExaminer] Former President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
's last Pentagon chief, Christopher Miller, believes no one in the military has been held accountable for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .

Miller, who served multiple deployments in both wars, writes in his new book, Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon about America’s Most Dangerous Enemies , which was released on Tuesday, that Trump's only guidance from him when he took the position in November 2020 was to "bring the troops home."

While the Trump administration agreed to a deal with the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
in February 2020 to withdraw troops within 14 months, prior to Miller's time as acting secretary of defense, it was President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. The nincompoop who dumped Afghanistan. The copier doesdn't exist that could reelect him....
who ultimately led the chaotic exit in August 2021.

"We lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and no one's been held accountable," he told the Washington Examiner in an interview. "And that to me, I was raised in my ethos coming up as a young officer was that, you know, you're responsible for everything that does or doesn't happen, and to see the decisions that were made over the years that resulted in our defeat in Afghanistan, and no one's been held responsible."

The other aspect that Miller wanted to see from current defense officials was "lessons learned," though he said he doesn't see that happening right now.

"We have doggone generals that talked with great confidence about how they could achieve our goals in Afghanistan only to fail horribly," he added. "Nope, they're not held accountable. They'd go sit on these boards and think tanks and get paid enormous sums of money. And I think that's really, really damaging to the ethos of the officer corps."

In the book, he listed ten action items that promote "a new way forward for America," and the final one is to "fire the generals."

"Accountability for the most senior general officers — the ones that develop strategy and provide guidance and advance to their civilian bosses — is woefully lacking in the current culture," the former acting Pentagon chief writes. "It seems obtuse that an administrative error is more harshly punished than losing a war, which brings national shame and embarrassment, not to mention the profound waste of our human and financial treasure."

Multiple House committees, now under Republican control, have been eager to investigate the way the end of the war in Afghanistan occurred.

The final U.S. forces in Afghanistan evacuated more than 120,000 civilians in the final two weeks of August, after the Taliban took control, though their efforts were marred by the tragic events of Aug. 26 and 29. On Aug. 26, an ISIS-K operative detonated a boom jacket, killing 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 civilians outside the gates of the airport where the evacuations were occurring, while on Aug. 29, U.S. forces launched a strike at what they believed to be another imminent threat to the personnel at the airport, but the target was wrongly identified and 10 non-combatants were killed, including multiple children.

Miller, throughout the book, discusses major shifts he'd like to see in how the Department of Defense operates, ranging from deep cuts in its budget to creating a smaller force, demolishing and then rebuilding the intelligence community, and restoring universal service for 18-year-olds requiring them to serve for 18 months whether that's in military service, healthcare, education, infrastructure rejuvenation, environmental programs, or the National Park Service.

"We need to restructure and rethink how we do our national security," the former acting secretary said. "We're going from an era of exquisite platinum-plated weapon systems, very few of them, which lets you know, for pride or ... it won the Cold War, it was the right approach, the Soviets couldn't keep up and we bankrupted them. Well, we're returning to an era where it's quantity over quality, and we still have not made that adjustment in our military."
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There presently exist some 650 military officers with the rank of General. Thank God their number is limited by law or we would have double that amount. Thin the ranks.
Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 || 02/08/2023 6:50 Comments || Top||

#2  ...restoring universal service for 18-year-olds requiring them to serve for 18 months whether that's in military service, healthcare, education, infrastructure rejuvenation, environmental programs, or the National Park Service.

Violates the 13th Amendment.
What is called the 'draft' is actually the activation of the unorganized militia. Per Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to organize and regulate the militia. Two of the first acts of Congress in 1792 were two Militia Acts. Today that is manifested in Title 10 United States Code.

10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.


You can only 'mobilize' the militia for the defense of the United States. Having been in the tail of the last 'draft' army, you don't want a gaggle of unmotivated druggie undisciplined low education humans that you spend more time baby sitting than accomplishing anything.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2023 7:56 Comments || Top||

#3  restoring universal service for 18-year-olds
Would appear to be a good platform for loan forgiveness.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 9:55 Comments || Top||

#4  The majority of today’s youth are not military material. Diluting military standards any more to accommodate folks that are not military material is a non-starter in my opinion. Mandating some kind of 40 hour work program for youths not in full time employed, in High School, Voc Tech or College has some merit. You could orange suit them for trash clean-up, have them do chores for the elderly or work in parks seems reasonable. You could make it cost neutral by whacking subsidies, and by obliterating duplicate, unnecessary or harmful government entities, which is most of them. There would probably need to be a single parent waiver. Any regular 40 hour job that was not illegal or under the table would fulfill the requirement. Outside active work would be the norm for the program. No community organizing or political activity under the government funding.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/08/2023 12:17 Comments || Top||

#5  My understanding was that West Germany offered deferments from military service if the person would opt for (underpaid) "social" service -- emptying bedpans, sweeping hospital floors and etc. The Left seems to perpetually want to have some form of Todt Organization so they have a supply of cheap labor.
Posted by: magpie || 02/08/2023 13:51 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Tonight's State Of The Union To Be Sponsored By Pfizer
[BB] WASHINGTON, DC — In a move designed to both bring in some extra revenue for the federal government as well as send a message of encouragement to the public to get vaccinated, tonight's State of the Union address from President Joe Biden will be sponsored by Pfizer.

"We've really been a driving force behind most decisions made by the country's leadership anyway," said Pfizer spokesperson Phil Brooks. "The next logical step is to just start publicly sponsoring this type of official policy speech."

Fresh off its sponsorship of the much-talked-about musical performance/Satanic worship service by Sam Smith at the Grammy Awards, the pharmaceutical giant is looking to expand its public presence into the political sphere. "Most members of Congress are on our payroll already," Brooks continued. "Sam Smith's performance at the Grammys, combined with a speech from President Biden, really captures the essence of what Pfizer is all about. They go hand-in-hand."

Other potential sponsors were reportedly discussed behind closed doors by the Biden administration, including Balenciaga, the Chinese Communist Party, and Satan himself. "We thought about other options, but Pfizer seemed like a good start," said a White House source under the condition of anonymity. "After all, we can't really be too open and honest about who controls our messaging."

At publishing time, additional ideas being bounced around included having the President do paid ad reads for Pfizer during the speech, adding a musical interlude by Sam Smith, or even inviting Pfizer mascot Clotty to be one of the President's guests.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2023 07:06 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes it is.
Posted by: Thruter Gloluger6393 || 02/08/2023 8:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Love the play on Clippy.

Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2023 12:36 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
The age of reporters is ending - AI chatbots are the new journalists
[JPost] Journalists in this new media era have gone from being information suppliers to information recyclers. The opportunity for manipulation is now much greater than it used to be.

Sarah Hoyt responds to the AI scare in We Can Write It For You Wholesale. She is not impressed.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2023 00:00 || Comments || Link || [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Couldn't happen to a nicer group of contemptuous assholes.

Learn to code.
Posted by: Fat Bob Thrart2867 || 02/08/2023 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Given that NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, et al are all redundant and just regurgitate DNC talking points, I suspect a lot of writers are 'expendable' when a financial crunch comes.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2023 7:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Learn to code.

That's so 20th century. Learn to Feed Data.
Posted by: Thruter Gloluger6393 || 02/08/2023 8:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Heck, learn to plumb or hammer or weld or wire or paint (and I don't mean Hunteresque).
Posted by: AlanC || 02/08/2023 10:18 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm fairly sure some of the bots out there are AI. It's a theory I want to test as Chatgpt has an add-in that allows you to scan walls of text to see if it was AI generated.

Chatgpt has hacks now too. Jail Break Dan is one. Free the code!
Posted by: mossomo || 02/08/2023 12:54 Comments || Top||

#6  "Now, the investigation by Hersh says that the US had planned the attack for months and executed it with the help of regional ally Norway."Here;
Posted by: Dale || 02/08/2023 16:32 Comments || Top||

#7  A typical Seymour Hersh story. If he's playing your tune, you'll dance to it. If not, you'll probably tune him out.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2023 17:12 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2023-02-08
  Kenya steps up measures against Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia
Tue 2023-02-07
  Nearly 3,000 dead, over 13,500 injured in Turkiye-syria earthquake
Mon 2023-02-06
  Militant NY couple get a combined 20 yrs in prison for providing material support to Islamic State terrorists
Sun 2023-02-05
   US shoots down Chinese balloon over ocean
Sat 2023-02-04
  Karachi: Another Ahmadiyya worship place vandalised, 5 arrested
Fri 2023-02-03
  Anti-ISIS Campaign Ends, 127 Arrested – AANES
Thu 2023-02-02
   Russian Forces Closing in on Artyomovsk
Wed 2023-02-01
   Three Al-Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen drone strike
Tue 2023-01-31
  200 people evacuated as fire engulfs migrant camp in Spain
Mon 2023-01-30
   Israeli warplanes hit a convoy near the Iraqi-Syrian borders
Sun 2023-01-29
  Explosions at a military ammunition plant in the city of Isfahan
Sat 2023-01-28
  U.S. Military Raid In Northern Somalia Kills Senior ISIS Leader, 10 Fighters
Fri 2023-01-27
   NYC bike path terrorist Sayfullo Saipov convicted on all counts in deadly 2017 attack
Thu 2023-01-26
  Spain probes 'terror' motive after church attack kills 1
Wed 2023-01-25
  Kenya says its troops killed 12 Al-Shabaab members near Somalia


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