Famously, the US Army was quite pissy as it rolled through the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, being dragged by a series of leaders from a past as a frontier constabulary to a future as a modern army that could engage in sophisticated maneuver warfare.
I forgot to mention, w/r/t the argument that Caine is underqualified for JCS Chair because he's a mere lieutenant general, that Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower started WWII as a lieutenant colonel. Don't remember details, but I hear he did okay.
Just a Lieutenant general could be because he refused to kiss ass with his superiors and/or the pentagon/whitehouse. In other words it is not impossible that it is actually a major plus for people who want the military to concentrate on war not DEI
If Harris had won and nominated Caine, the media would be praising him as Pericles II. Patton summed it up best: “The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real battle than they do about fucking.”
Ike was a major for 11 years in the inter-war era. Our modern up-or-out military would never keep someone on the bench for that long now - ironically an outcome of Ike's insistence on changes to the Army while he was president.
The entire officer corps and enlisted ranks were largely frozen during the interwar years as Congress childishly celebrated the “end of war” and reduced our military to a hollow shell. And thank God those men stuck it out, or we would have had no cadre around which to build a 12.5M person wartime military. I suggest you watch the after-trial scene in “The Caine Mutiny,” in which José Ferrer educates Fred MacMurray and his Ivy League “fashionable” Navy officer friends about Queeq’s contemporaries’ dedicated interwar service.
(If I’ve misunderstood the direction of your comment, my apologies in advance for my tone.)
The inter-war GO corps in the Army was for the most part cashiered by Marshall, who instead turned to an emerging cadre of men that fit a model he thought appropriate to the execution of the coming war - Ike being the greatest example. Patton was one of the few pre-war generals (1 star) to actually serve. Marshall also corrected his mistakes, relieving Fredendall after the Kasserine Pass disaster.
“The inter-war GO corps in the Army was for the most part cashiered…”
After the Battle of the Somme and the unrepentant Allied commanders, I would think the GO corps of every nation would be evaluated for retirement.
Charlie Wilson: “You mean to tell me that the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is to have the Afghans keep walking into machine gun fire 'til the Russians run out of bullets?”
Couple things to buttress some of your points: (1) We won WW2 with four 4-star Generals; the current bloated Army count is ~47; (2) the 2014 film, “The Hornet’s Nest,” describes how a 500-man Special Forces team defeated the Taliban, prior to “Big Green” being deployed & fighting for 20 more years and (3) there is no Constitutional prerogative for an enormous standing army (perhaps so closeted gay Senators don’t try to prove they’re straight by using it): https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/08/the-thank-you-for-your-service-red-pill/
“In 1945, the US Army had a total of 188 generals, including 5 four-star generals, 24 three-star generals, 60 two-star generals, and 99 one-star generals.” (This breakdown appears to overlook the wartime 5 stars: Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, & Arnold.)
There were ≈12.5M men under arms, or 5M troops per 4 star. Today there are ≈1.3M under arms, or 29,500 troops per 4 star.
A 4 star isn’t what it used to be, except for pay of course…
A 4 star is the biggest political plum, as the state or Congressional district gains not just the officer, but his entire entourage. That's why Congress authorizes so many of them.
Flag and general officers are promoted to the rank of the position they are appointed to. I don't believe there are any 4* reserve officer billets in the entire military, so 3* is as high as it goes.
Which is why being appointed to CJCS makes him an actice duty 4*. This is not complicated.
He was a 2 star in the “Regular Army” immediately prior to his 1st retirement on 1 Jan 1938, and was recalled to active duty as a 2 star in the “Regular Army” on 26 July 1941. The next day he was promoted to 3 star in the “Army of the United States.” On 22 Dec 1941, he was promoted to 4 star in the AUS. On 18 Dec 1944, he was promoted to 5 star in the AUS, and 22 Mar 1944, he was promoted to 5 star in the Regular Army.
They’ve become so totalitarian in their thinking that they don’t even recognize their political beliefs as political. They think their beliefs are just objective ultimate Truth. Therefore, any other beliefs are inappropriately political, the product of false consciousness and/or Russian disinformation.
Soki talked about President Trump's dangerous militarized foreign policy. And, of course, there's no one from the left who's going after this. But you remember, there's another story that Russia had shared with us and now that brocco Biden controls the White House. So he went back to bombing Middle Eastern countries. You will probably remember Russia's story about Ron Silver. If not, here's a reminder. You all remember in 1992, the week prior to the inauguration of Slick Willy, Clinton scheduled all kinds of events on the Washington Mall parties and events.
[00:08:13]
And one of the things that Clinton's schedule was a flyover of military jets. And there was an actor by the name of Ron Silver and Ron Silver got mad as hell. He said, what the hell is that we don't do? Who are there flying jets overwash? What the hell? And somebody had to calm him down, said Ron. Those are our jets now. Oh, yeah. So when the Democrats those are our jets that used to be they were Reagan's jets and Bush's jets, they weren't ours, but now they're our jets.
[00:08:47]
And that indication, right. Ron Silver later became a great conservative before he passed away.
[00:08:53]
If your foreign policy is dependent upon who is doing the bombing, you don't have a foreign policy. And Russia shared with us all these years about the Democrats and the duplicitous way they use the military and exploration projects and wars that they sponsored. But so many of them had nothing to do with putting America first. We have now and Russia warned us about this. We have now a president who has announced that America is not first. And I think to this day, this is a you realize this is our first full week without America's anchorman.
[00:09:30]
This is the first full week since Russia has gone to heaven. And I would love to hear a monologue today about Syria and a reminder of how the Democrats actually enjoy using the military in this fashion once they get into office. I remember Rush's monologue about Barack Obama's interview with Jimmy Buffett. Obama bragged about being good at killing people. Do you remember this? I think it was a Rolling Stone. Where he was talking about droning people and it turned out he was really good at this."
I would take it further, and argue that the current left/DEI/woke whatever one wants to call them are in fact an entirely different culture. They don't see the possibility of reasonable disagreement because they are coming from an entirely different context, like one plucked a few million Qing era Chinese and dropped them in modern day.
I don’t know. I am working on an essay addressing that, but I think it is something deeper and more fundamental that separates the left in general from everyone else.
It's the means vs. ends dynamic. Most people accept that some grim means are justified by a particular end- for example, it's not that war is ever really just, but it's occasionally better than the alternative- but the Left takes it to an entirely different level.
The problem is the group dynamic. It shifts the needle of morally justifiable means to an end to 'by any means necessary'. I was watching Sowell today, and his three questions for the Left: compared to what, at what cost, and what's your hard evidence? In pursuit of their utopian ends, big or small, they never seem to stop to ask these key questions. It's why they never like debating with the Right, and routinely resort to ad hominem.
One time I told a Leftist the actual history- the Nazi Party actually used the fact that their message was routinely suppressed and censored in the press as a tool to achieve political power. The Leftist was pretty much incandescent with rage, especially when I provided sources.
Further sources include Ian Kershaw and Richard J. Evans. The better historians even give it a name- the Weimar Fallacy. It's worth noting that most browsers show their progressive programming on this issue- unless one is quite precise in what one wants, the curation invariably focused on ways the Nazis used censorship, rather than how censorship against them helped them achieve their initial political power.
That's an excellent article, along with its comments. Thank you for sharing.
So rather than the National Socialists winning because they were allowed uncontrolled freedom of speech, in fact, they won in a context in which the Weimar government was placing extreme restrictions on them, closing their newspapers and banning their public speeches. And they won, probably, in large part because of this.
It seems that when a nominally democratic government abuses its powers to prevent large portions of the electorate from exchanging their political views, it creates a Streisand effect that gives much greater credibility to those views. It also polarizes the issues, and drives both sides to extremes, so that seizing and holding power becomes their existential need, driving them both to grasp for full-blown totalitarianism.
Leftists disgruntled by Trump 2.0 should reflect on what the previous administration may have done to prepare the way for it.
Gah! That's another time I've completely missed using the Streisand effect! Cheers for that though- sometimes the only way to learn is through repetition...
That’s fascinating. I recall from history that Hitler was imprisoned/persecuted before his rise to power. The use of censorship laws to minimize him was either not mentioned/taught, or possibly in our minds we thought it ok/necessary to try to stop him. However we are all quite aware that by the time he came in to power that free speech was not what allowed the nazis to flourish as Margaret Brennan & the wealthy elitists would have us believe.
The question is not whether or not censorship/suppression of the Nazis was justified, but rather whether it was effective. The answer is a resounding no- it backfired spectacularly, contributing directly to the Nazi rise to power.
Probably the best example of how to deal with political insurgencies, in this case communism, also comes from Germany- in this case, from Bismarck. From a list of what was probably 20 or so demands on the part of communist agitators, no doubt including expropriation of companies, workers owning the means of the production, and the overthrow of government, Bismarck what able to refine the list down to the three feasible ideas we know today as welfare capitalism- employer funded healthcare, continuous education and training in the workplace, and pensions upon retirement. In other words, the only way to defeat political insurgencies based upon popular unrest is to address the root causes of complaint.
Unfortunately, the Weimar Republic actually tried this approach, but were limited by the actions of other sovereign states. They tried repeatedly to repudiate, renege or revise the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The worst instances was the Ruhr Crisis 1922-1923, where the Germans stopped making payments, in response to which the French and Belgians occupied the Ruhr. In response, Germany engaged in passive resistance, worsening hyperinflation.
They also tried 'progressive' taxes on capital, in a move surely calculated to appease struggling lower income Germans in danger of buying into socialism, but guaranteed to only further the crisis in Germany. None of it worked. About the only thing powerful enough to prevent the general destablisation of the Weimar Republic was Christian-centred revivalism, centred upon a shared legacy of suffering, the past sins of imperialists, and determination in the face of adversity.
In many ways, FDRs fireside chats were a form of Christian Revivalism- they deeply tapped the Christian ethos, whilst only occasionally quoting scripture, and avoiding a too doctrinal approach. FDR did many things wrong- his big government approach created a lasting burden for Americans, and his economic plans probably prolonged the Great Depression, but his Fireside Chats were a stroke of genius, using religious rhetoric as a tool for national unity, resilience, and summoning the spirit of moral manifest destiny.
Unfortunately, the Weimar Republic was explicitly secular and 'modern' in its conception. It maintained Religious Neutrality, and the 1919 Weimar Constitution went even further in separating church and state in the past. It also goes without saying that the Weimar Republic was somewhat fractured religious speaking- nearly two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. It was probably about the only thing which could have worked though.
But a lot of people are stupid why do you think they get away with it?!?! Yes most people are stupid. They are right about that and that’s why they are extremely rich and we are losing. It’s very difficult to stop the IRS from grabbing your money and Biden wanted to give them guns to do it with!
Trump and Hegseth are 100% in their lane to fire Generals who are not “on the team”. It’s been done regularly, throughout history. And thank God they are doing just that. Biden’s sitting Generals were a laughingstock.
Right, they were “on the other team” and that team is One World Government.
We’re not sipping brandy smoking cigars chuckling over missteps in history that led to where we are…
The execution and speed at the highest levels of power and influence are not “a nice thing to have”, they are an absolute essential to defeat an enemy controlling every lever of power only one short month ago (except for One).
This is David vs Goliath, no less than biblical epic proportion in fact I think far more so.
We are witnessing not just history, but the invisible hand of God using imperfect human beings with faith in Him to do His will on earth to defeat the forces of darkness who have surrendered their souls.
I like a good laugh as much as anyone, but I think joking about it only diminishes the importance of it, which is exactly what I would expect the enemy within would like to do by taking away as someone else said, the credibility of the point you made: President Trump is doing exactly what 70% (actual, not stolen) voters wanted by electing him.
Keep up the good work.
These are days I never thought I would live to see in America because things had gone so far wrong, and I am grateful to God for each day I am here to be part of it.
Prayer is power 🙏 keep the faith, God is in charge, always.
What is dinosaur media defending exactly? They have no credibility on anything, none, especially not in real-world, common-sense matters. The recent dismissal of the top brass was very polite and diplomatic, maybe even undeservedly so. Now, if social experiments could be forever ended in the military branches, our country would surely be stronger for it. Please, in addition, stop using military members as lab rats in biological and chemical experiments. Thank you.
Only fascists think the elected President should get to control the military and its leaders! You know who else fired generals!? Hint: he spoke German and had a toothbrush mustache...
It aint a real crisis till they bring back the embalmed beef!
Considering the recent news about how the money collected from the enlisted in order to feed (the BAS) them seems to have gone walkies embalmed beef seems like it might be an improvement on what was actually served
That’s fraud. Wtf? They were covering cosmetic surgeries for trans identified people, but not feeding them properly? I didn’t even know the army deducted money for food from soldiers? Aren’t three squares part of the deal? Americans SAS don’t want their soldiers being cheated. It’s disgraceful.
It is indeed a disgrace. I expect various current and former base COs and their underlings will be court martialled for this once Hegseth gets other parts of DoD under control
A nation's leader who doesn't have loyal generals is a figurehead without real power or authority. If Pres. Trump doesn't control his generals he's not the nation's leader.
When the Roman senate controlled the generals every emperor served at the pleasure of corrupt, conniving senators. Sames.
How many commanding generals of the Union army did Lincoln sack before finding Grant? At least three if not more and that was in the span of three years.
The lack of historical knowledge of people that supposedly have a functioning frontal cortex baffles me. It’s either intellectual laziness or a desire not to want to know.
God forbid we would have a military, led by civilians elected by the citizens, that are prepared to, can ably execute and be successful in the military missions that the civilian leadership directs them towards.
This stuff is kinda personal to me as I currently have a son serving in the USMC who is now deployed for the next six months to Okinawa. I want his command leadership to be mission focused and prepared for anything that may arise during this time. Pearl clutching and woke struggle sessions don’t meet that criteria for me.
Democrats hate Republicans sacking generals because when Lincoln sacked Halleck for Grant, it ultimately cost Democrats their slaves. They’ve never forgotten.
Exactly. Which is what is happening right now. Trump has successfully shut down the border and that alone has lost the bureaucrats their modern day slaves - illegal immigrants. History is quite literally repeating itself.
They’ve stopped importing new “slaves,” but the existing ones are still here. We need to amend the 14A to only count persons “legally present in the United States” for purposes of Congressional apportionment.
If illegals were omitted from apportionment, CA, NY, & IL would lose a veritable shitload of Congressional seats, and law abiding states like TN would thereby gain.
It would also benefit the apportionment of Fed funds based on population. If Congressmen wish to subsidize illegals, let them do so by voting directly on that issue, rather than by using muddied apportionment ratios to hide their treason.
It’s intellectual laziness. Folks don’t want to take the time to do their own research and tend to rely on the propaganda machine they call mainstream media. It’s laziness.
If we made every infantry division we have into a Ranger Regiment, we would never lose another war....ever. If we had Patton level men leading those divisions and armies...we would never lose another war...ever. If we had government leadership with brain cells appointing those people....we would never lose another war, ever. Hell, we might not get into them in the first place! Imagine that.
Unfortunately we may be stuck with leftist idealogues every 4-8 years voted in by some woman with 12 cats. But we are fortunate, son, because we have 4 more years, and probably another 8 behind those, and it won't be the colossal fuckup we just lived through. Things be changing.
Marines respectfully disagree, but we are on the same page. I would add an essential element of this current administration being fixing corrupt elections: on paper, in person, with ID, witnessed and verified, counted same day, not vote counting machines.
Agree 110%, but I would add roving 2 person witness teams R+D. But if we must choose, THE core element is decentralized same day counting. “Warehouse” counting at 4am with no witnesses is just begging for fraud.
U.S. 176,933 precincts, 152.3M votes = 861 votes per precinct
I started out thinking hand counting is a slam dunk. But ACCURATELY hand counting 861 ballots, each containing multiple offices and ballot questions might be difficult for a half dozen poll workers in one evening. We could cut the ballot count by increasing the number of polling places or workers, but local jurisdictions are already having difficulty staffing elections.
Those are averages, meaning that on average, Canada has 3.6 times as many vote counters per voter as does the U.S., making hand counting more feasible. (It was difficult finding the number of “polling divisions;” I can’t imagine finding the exact staffing levels, particularly since U.S. elections are handled locally.)
Subsequent thoughts:
I don’t think it follows that a larger voter base in a precinct inherently draws a linear increase in poll workers. In Houston, I was in a huge precinct with 6 people checking in voters. In rural Tennessee, I’m in a small precinct and we have 3 people checking in voters.
IMHO (as a CPA used to human error with documents), the logical approach is a precinct level machine count, validated by a hand count.
We’re not losing wars because our troops are incapable. I’d hazard to say even the average soldier is a notch or two above his/her counterpart in any other military. It’s the use of military force to pursue non-military objectives. Nation building, hearts and minds, and all that other crap.
While true, I think there’s a narrower cause within that: Losing sight of the underlying mission of lethality. (Not every soldier is the combat arms. It’s possible for an army to do more than one thing at a time.)
Erik Prince was recently interviewed by Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College (Prince’s alma mater), and he had a perfect illustration of this point beginning at about 43:20 in this podcast:
There's a bit of ancient wisdom you ought to consider...
“Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior and he will bring the others back.” -- Heraclitus
When my otherwise homeschooled oldest son was high-school age, we let him attend the local child factory for one school year to see what it was like.
History class: teacher asks when the US Civil War occurred. Number one son is the only student who has the answer. Teacher mentions that it's the homeschooled kid who knew.
My comment: the Civil War? For goodness sake, anybody who's lived in the US for, oh about five minutes, should at least get the right decade.
I doubt a majority of public high schoolers could identify the century. Somewhere on YouTube is a guy asking young people on the street a series of softball US history questions including, "who won the Civil War?" My favorite answer was, "we did?" It's hopeless.
"Fleccas Talks" maybe? He did a number of clips two years ago where he asks Gen Z and younger people questions that should be super-easy. Like "What state is Utah in?" or "Name two nations bordering the USA".
What I found more interesting than the retardation on display, was the setting and the youths that he asked: lots and lots of feminist, LGBTP+ and similar iconography on display among those on camera.
Could be editing of course, but based on my own experience as a teacher, I'd say being retarded and ignorant, and being a woke liberal progressive "goes together like mud and straw" (if that expression makes sense in English?).
I taught US history at the college level for 34 years and actually had students who said that the Depression happened prior to WW1. Not only did they not know when something happened, they had no sense of the order in which anything happened. And they almost never had any idea of causation or of consequences.
History is the best cautionary tale. When you don't learn history (or are taught false history), you neither have a future....nor a past. It's all planned. This is also why they change definitions, change nuance and create euphemisms of inversion (gender affirming care), etc.etc
A big part in the decline of America and the slow stripping of our liberty is what happens when kids don't know how to measure freedom.
The true measure of liberty is how much freedom you have to make your own independent decisions...even if they're awful decisions.
Schools have destroyed the yardstick by which freedom can be measured
I forgot to mention, w/r/t the argument that Caine is underqualified for JCS Chair because he's a mere lieutenant general, that Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower started WWII as a lieutenant colonel. Don't remember details, but I hear he did okay.
Just a Lieutenant general could be because he refused to kiss ass with his superiors and/or the pentagon/whitehouse. In other words it is not impossible that it is actually a major plus for people who want the military to concentrate on war not DEI
ALL general rank officers kiss ass to get their stars. Not a single one didn't play the game. Only difference is whose asses got kissed.
I have it on good authority that Caine is able.
🤣
Haha
Off topic. As a DDS do you know anything about contamination of all oral numbing anesthesia?
I know only what I've read on the internet since the covid vaccine rollout. I'm leery about such claims.
As a layman, that sounds like commercial propaganda from a denture manufacturer.
Good one
If Harris had won and nominated Caine, the media would be praising him as Pericles II. Patton summed it up best: “The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real battle than they do about fucking.”
Ike was a major for 11 years in the inter-war era. Our modern up-or-out military would never keep someone on the bench for that long now - ironically an outcome of Ike's insistence on changes to the Army while he was president.
The entire officer corps and enlisted ranks were largely frozen during the interwar years as Congress childishly celebrated the “end of war” and reduced our military to a hollow shell. And thank God those men stuck it out, or we would have had no cadre around which to build a 12.5M person wartime military. I suggest you watch the after-trial scene in “The Caine Mutiny,” in which José Ferrer educates Fred MacMurray and his Ivy League “fashionable” Navy officer friends about Queeq’s contemporaries’ dedicated interwar service.
(If I’ve misunderstood the direction of your comment, my apologies in advance for my tone.)
The inter-war GO corps in the Army was for the most part cashiered by Marshall, who instead turned to an emerging cadre of men that fit a model he thought appropriate to the execution of the coming war - Ike being the greatest example. Patton was one of the few pre-war generals (1 star) to actually serve. Marshall also corrected his mistakes, relieving Fredendall after the Kasserine Pass disaster.
“The inter-war GO corps in the Army was for the most part cashiered…”
After the Battle of the Somme and the unrepentant Allied commanders, I would think the GO corps of every nation would be evaluated for retirement.
Charlie Wilson: “You mean to tell me that the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is to have the Afghans keep walking into machine gun fire 'til the Russians run out of bullets?”
Couple things to buttress some of your points: (1) We won WW2 with four 4-star Generals; the current bloated Army count is ~47; (2) the 2014 film, “The Hornet’s Nest,” describes how a 500-man Special Forces team defeated the Taliban, prior to “Big Green” being deployed & fighting for 20 more years and (3) there is no Constitutional prerogative for an enormous standing army (perhaps so closeted gay Senators don’t try to prove they’re straight by using it): https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/08/the-thank-you-for-your-service-red-pill/
“In 1945, the US Army had a total of 188 generals, including 5 four-star generals, 24 three-star generals, 60 two-star generals, and 99 one-star generals.” (This breakdown appears to overlook the wartime 5 stars: Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, & Arnold.)
There were ≈12.5M men under arms, or 5M troops per 4 star. Today there are ≈1.3M under arms, or 29,500 troops per 4 star.
A 4 star isn’t what it used to be, except for pay of course…
In reality, the pay and retirement benefits are much more generous today than they were in 1945.
A 4 star is the biggest political plum, as the state or Congressional district gains not just the officer, but his entire entourage. That's why Congress authorizes so many of them.
Interesting. Of course there’s a pork angle - what was I thinking?! ☺️
Caine was not a “native” to the ANG. He was a part-time member from 2009-2016 pursuant to various assignments related to the D.C. ANG.
His rank of Lieutenant General was held in the active duty Air Force up through his date of retirement in 2024.
https://www.nationalguard.mil/portals/31/Features/ngbgomo/bio/3/3007.html
Thanks for the link. I am not sure I completely agree with all of it in the modern age, but the author makes some valid points.
Flag and general officers are promoted to the rank of the position they are appointed to. I don't believe there are any 4* reserve officer billets in the entire military, so 3* is as high as it goes.
Which is why being appointed to CJCS makes him an actice duty 4*. This is not complicated.
What was Dugout Doug’s rank at start of WW II? And how’d he do in Manila compared to Dwight in Europe?
He was a 2 star in the “Regular Army” immediately prior to his 1st retirement on 1 Jan 1938, and was recalled to active duty as a 2 star in the “Regular Army” on 26 July 1941. The next day he was promoted to 3 star in the “Army of the United States.” On 22 Dec 1941, he was promoted to 4 star in the AUS. On 18 Dec 1944, he was promoted to 5 star in the AUS, and 22 Mar 1944, he was promoted to 5 star in the Regular Army.
^^Like!^^
They’ve become so totalitarian in their thinking that they don’t even recognize their political beliefs as political. They think their beliefs are just objective ultimate Truth. Therefore, any other beliefs are inappropriately political, the product of false consciousness and/or Russian disinformation.
Yes. Trump disagrees with me, which means that he's being political.
Not political, immoral.
I remember when people objecting to the "vaccine" being forced on them were accused of "politicizing" the issue.
El Rushbo Classic
Clinton 1992 Inauguration, "Those are OUR planes now!"
Rush Limbuagh TV- Ron Silver Hails "Our Planes"
May 21, 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkdHIglNTo
The Rush Limbaugh Show Podcast - Feb 26 2021 (Greatest Clips)
https://www.happyscribe.com/public/the-rush-limbaugh-show/the-rush-limbaugh-show-podcast-feb-26-2021
"[00:07:36]
Soki talked about President Trump's dangerous militarized foreign policy. And, of course, there's no one from the left who's going after this. But you remember, there's another story that Russia had shared with us and now that brocco Biden controls the White House. So he went back to bombing Middle Eastern countries. You will probably remember Russia's story about Ron Silver. If not, here's a reminder. You all remember in 1992, the week prior to the inauguration of Slick Willy, Clinton scheduled all kinds of events on the Washington Mall parties and events.
[00:08:13]
And one of the things that Clinton's schedule was a flyover of military jets. And there was an actor by the name of Ron Silver and Ron Silver got mad as hell. He said, what the hell is that we don't do? Who are there flying jets overwash? What the hell? And somebody had to calm him down, said Ron. Those are our jets now. Oh, yeah. So when the Democrats those are our jets that used to be they were Reagan's jets and Bush's jets, they weren't ours, but now they're our jets.
[00:08:47]
And that indication, right. Ron Silver later became a great conservative before he passed away.
[00:08:53]
If your foreign policy is dependent upon who is doing the bombing, you don't have a foreign policy. And Russia shared with us all these years about the Democrats and the duplicitous way they use the military and exploration projects and wars that they sponsored. But so many of them had nothing to do with putting America first. We have now and Russia warned us about this. We have now a president who has announced that America is not first. And I think to this day, this is a you realize this is our first full week without America's anchorman.
[00:09:30]
This is the first full week since Russia has gone to heaven. And I would love to hear a monologue today about Syria and a reminder of how the Democrats actually enjoy using the military in this fashion once they get into office. I remember Rush's monologue about Barack Obama's interview with Jimmy Buffett. Obama bragged about being good at killing people. Do you remember this? I think it was a Rolling Stone. Where he was talking about droning people and it turned out he was really good at this."
I would take it further, and argue that the current left/DEI/woke whatever one wants to call them are in fact an entirely different culture. They don't see the possibility of reasonable disagreement because they are coming from an entirely different context, like one plucked a few million Qing era Chinese and dropped them in modern day.
I think you're onto something, here.
I will throw up the link here when I finish it (hopefully this weekend). I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Their culture is EU Socialism. The US has been funding that since 1945.
I don’t know. I am working on an essay addressing that, but I think it is something deeper and more fundamental that separates the left in general from everyone else.
It's the means vs. ends dynamic. Most people accept that some grim means are justified by a particular end- for example, it's not that war is ever really just, but it's occasionally better than the alternative- but the Left takes it to an entirely different level.
The problem is the group dynamic. It shifts the needle of morally justifiable means to an end to 'by any means necessary'. I was watching Sowell today, and his three questions for the Left: compared to what, at what cost, and what's your hard evidence? In pursuit of their utopian ends, big or small, they never seem to stop to ask these key questions. It's why they never like debating with the Right, and routinely resort to ad hominem.
I think you are close, but I hate to spoil it :)
It's their belief system. It was planned and imposed from without. And they don't even know it:
"Origins of Today's Normal-Hating, Lying, Reality-Denying, PC-Prog, Conformity-Enforcing Culture"
https://kentclizbe.substack.com/p/origins-of-todays-normal-hating-lying
The demons on their side
So totalitarian that they believe free speech allowed the nazis to take over Germany. Either they’re stupid or they think we’re stupid.
One time I told a Leftist the actual history- the Nazi Party actually used the fact that their message was routinely suppressed and censored in the press as a tool to achieve political power. The Leftist was pretty much incandescent with rage, especially when I provided sources.
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/04/27/would-censorship-have-stopped-the-rise-of-the-nazis/
Further sources include Ian Kershaw and Richard J. Evans. The better historians even give it a name- the Weimar Fallacy. It's worth noting that most browsers show their progressive programming on this issue- unless one is quite precise in what one wants, the curation invariably focused on ways the Nazis used censorship, rather than how censorship against them helped them achieve their initial political power.
That's an excellent article, along with its comments. Thank you for sharing.
So rather than the National Socialists winning because they were allowed uncontrolled freedom of speech, in fact, they won in a context in which the Weimar government was placing extreme restrictions on them, closing their newspapers and banning their public speeches. And they won, probably, in large part because of this.
It seems that when a nominally democratic government abuses its powers to prevent large portions of the electorate from exchanging their political views, it creates a Streisand effect that gives much greater credibility to those views. It also polarizes the issues, and drives both sides to extremes, so that seizing and holding power becomes their existential need, driving them both to grasp for full-blown totalitarianism.
Leftists disgruntled by Trump 2.0 should reflect on what the previous administration may have done to prepare the way for it.
Gah! That's another time I've completely missed using the Streisand effect! Cheers for that though- sometimes the only way to learn is through repetition...
It's okay. That's the first I've had the opportunity to use it too. :)
That’s fascinating. I recall from history that Hitler was imprisoned/persecuted before his rise to power. The use of censorship laws to minimize him was either not mentioned/taught, or possibly in our minds we thought it ok/necessary to try to stop him. However we are all quite aware that by the time he came in to power that free speech was not what allowed the nazis to flourish as Margaret Brennan & the wealthy elitists would have us believe.
The question is not whether or not censorship/suppression of the Nazis was justified, but rather whether it was effective. The answer is a resounding no- it backfired spectacularly, contributing directly to the Nazi rise to power.
Probably the best example of how to deal with political insurgencies, in this case communism, also comes from Germany- in this case, from Bismarck. From a list of what was probably 20 or so demands on the part of communist agitators, no doubt including expropriation of companies, workers owning the means of the production, and the overthrow of government, Bismarck what able to refine the list down to the three feasible ideas we know today as welfare capitalism- employer funded healthcare, continuous education and training in the workplace, and pensions upon retirement. In other words, the only way to defeat political insurgencies based upon popular unrest is to address the root causes of complaint.
Unfortunately, the Weimar Republic actually tried this approach, but were limited by the actions of other sovereign states. They tried repeatedly to repudiate, renege or revise the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The worst instances was the Ruhr Crisis 1922-1923, where the Germans stopped making payments, in response to which the French and Belgians occupied the Ruhr. In response, Germany engaged in passive resistance, worsening hyperinflation.
They also tried 'progressive' taxes on capital, in a move surely calculated to appease struggling lower income Germans in danger of buying into socialism, but guaranteed to only further the crisis in Germany. None of it worked. About the only thing powerful enough to prevent the general destablisation of the Weimar Republic was Christian-centred revivalism, centred upon a shared legacy of suffering, the past sins of imperialists, and determination in the face of adversity.
In many ways, FDRs fireside chats were a form of Christian Revivalism- they deeply tapped the Christian ethos, whilst only occasionally quoting scripture, and avoiding a too doctrinal approach. FDR did many things wrong- his big government approach created a lasting burden for Americans, and his economic plans probably prolonged the Great Depression, but his Fireside Chats were a stroke of genius, using religious rhetoric as a tool for national unity, resilience, and summoning the spirit of moral manifest destiny.
Unfortunately, the Weimar Republic was explicitly secular and 'modern' in its conception. It maintained Religious Neutrality, and the 1919 Weimar Constitution went even further in separating church and state in the past. It also goes without saying that the Weimar Republic was somewhat fractured religious speaking- nearly two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. It was probably about the only thing which could have worked though.
But a lot of people are stupid why do you think they get away with it?!?! Yes most people are stupid. They are right about that and that’s why they are extremely rich and we are losing. It’s very difficult to stop the IRS from grabbing your money and Biden wanted to give them guns to do it with!
Ain’t that the truth 👍
Trump and Hegseth are 100% in their lane to fire Generals who are not “on the team”. It’s been done regularly, throughout history. And thank God they are doing just that. Biden’s sitting Generals were a laughingstock.
Right, they were “on the other team” and that team is One World Government.
We’re not sipping brandy smoking cigars chuckling over missteps in history that led to where we are…
The execution and speed at the highest levels of power and influence are not “a nice thing to have”, they are an absolute essential to defeat an enemy controlling every lever of power only one short month ago (except for One).
This is David vs Goliath, no less than biblical epic proportion in fact I think far more so.
We are witnessing not just history, but the invisible hand of God using imperfect human beings with faith in Him to do His will on earth to defeat the forces of darkness who have surrendered their souls.
I like a good laugh as much as anyone, but I think joking about it only diminishes the importance of it, which is exactly what I would expect the enemy within would like to do by taking away as someone else said, the credibility of the point you made: President Trump is doing exactly what 70% (actual, not stolen) voters wanted by electing him.
Keep up the good work.
These are days I never thought I would live to see in America because things had gone so far wrong, and I am grateful to God for each day I am here to be part of it.
Prayer is power 🙏 keep the faith, God is in charge, always.
Right, and no generals who promise China a heads up on anything!
Obama purged 197 military leaders to change the military’s culture:
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/197-military-officers-purged-by-obama/
And was extremely successful, unfortunately. Hegseth is trying to fix that.
Here’s a list of most of them:
https://rense.com/general96/listof.html
What is dinosaur media defending exactly? They have no credibility on anything, none, especially not in real-world, common-sense matters. The recent dismissal of the top brass was very polite and diplomatic, maybe even undeservedly so. Now, if social experiments could be forever ended in the military branches, our country would surely be stronger for it. Please, in addition, stop using military members as lab rats in biological and chemical experiments. Thank you.
Only fascists think the elected President should get to control the military and its leaders! You know who else fired generals!? Hint: he spoke German and had a toothbrush mustache...
It aint a real crisis till they bring back the embalmed beef!
I spent several years dining in army DFACs, and I object to the claim that they ever didn't serve embalmed beef.
it's why you look so well-preserved! lol
LOLOLOL
Considering the recent news about how the money collected from the enlisted in order to feed (the BAS) them seems to have gone walkies embalmed beef seems like it might be an improvement on what was actually served
https://www.military.com/daily-news/investigations-and-features/2025/02/14/over-151-million-taken-soldiers-paychecks-food-costs-spent-elsewhere-army.html
What a shocking report that was.
It wasn’t going to be very long if we lived through any more Bidencide that our military would be eating cock for breakfast.
Ha now with Kash they'll be eating cock all three meals, behind bars, after he's done finding the dirt.
That's terrible! 😢
That’s fraud. Wtf? They were covering cosmetic surgeries for trans identified people, but not feeding them properly? I didn’t even know the army deducted money for food from soldiers? Aren’t three squares part of the deal? Americans SAS don’t want their soldiers being cheated. It’s disgraceful.
It is indeed a disgrace. I expect various current and former base COs and their underlings will be court martialled for this once Hegseth gets other parts of DoD under control
One can only hope for now, but yes that would be satisfying, for us and the cheated soldiers.
All three of my sons would agree. 😂
Actually he hung them on meat hooks.
A nation's leader who doesn't have loyal generals is a figurehead without real power or authority. If Pres. Trump doesn't control his generals he's not the nation's leader.
When the Roman senate controlled the generals every emperor served at the pleasure of corrupt, conniving senators. Sames.
Thanks for the precedents!
As is typical these propagandists ignore or re-write history.
Taibbi started an initiative to preserve source documents recently, as they are being destroyed.
Fahrenheit 451 is real me lads.
How many commanding generals of the Union army did Lincoln sack before finding Grant? At least three if not more and that was in the span of three years.
The lack of historical knowledge of people that supposedly have a functioning frontal cortex baffles me. It’s either intellectual laziness or a desire not to want to know.
God forbid we would have a military, led by civilians elected by the citizens, that are prepared to, can ably execute and be successful in the military missions that the civilian leadership directs them towards.
This stuff is kinda personal to me as I currently have a son serving in the USMC who is now deployed for the next six months to Okinawa. I want his command leadership to be mission focused and prepared for anything that may arise during this time. Pearl clutching and woke struggle sessions don’t meet that criteria for me.
Democrats hate Republicans sacking generals because when Lincoln sacked Halleck for Grant, it ultimately cost Democrats their slaves. They’ve never forgotten.
Exactly. Which is what is happening right now. Trump has successfully shut down the border and that alone has lost the bureaucrats their modern day slaves - illegal immigrants. History is quite literally repeating itself.
They’ve stopped importing new “slaves,” but the existing ones are still here. We need to amend the 14A to only count persons “legally present in the United States” for purposes of Congressional apportionment.
You’re just making the crush more intense.
???
If illegals were omitted from apportionment, CA, NY, & IL would lose a veritable shitload of Congressional seats, and law abiding states like TN would thereby gain.
It would also benefit the apportionment of Fed funds based on population. If Congressmen wish to subsidize illegals, let them do so by voting directly on that issue, rather than by using muddied apportionment ratios to hide their treason.
I’m sorry, forgive the teasing. It’s just refreshing to see someone with intellect & knowledge. Thank you.
🥰🥰🥰
What does your son think of the current USMC?
It’s intellectual laziness. Folks don’t want to take the time to do their own research and tend to rely on the propaganda machine they call mainstream media. It’s laziness.
And please thank your son for his service.
We can’t do our own research anymore don’t you know? The experts will tell us everything we need to know.
https://youtu.be/AwRQh1NZ4Sc?si=XxtIV5uGH-VYBftI
Somehow we survived four years of commander in chief Embalmed Beef, undersecretary Troglodyte Pecksniff, et al, but NOW media is outraged? Hahaha 😝
If we made every infantry division we have into a Ranger Regiment, we would never lose another war....ever. If we had Patton level men leading those divisions and armies...we would never lose another war...ever. If we had government leadership with brain cells appointing those people....we would never lose another war, ever. Hell, we might not get into them in the first place! Imagine that.
Unfortunately we may be stuck with leftist idealogues every 4-8 years voted in by some woman with 12 cats. But we are fortunate, son, because we have 4 more years, and probably another 8 behind those, and it won't be the colossal fuckup we just lived through. Things be changing.
Marines respectfully disagree, but we are on the same page. I would add an essential element of this current administration being fixing corrupt elections: on paper, in person, with ID, witnessed and verified, counted same day, not vote counting machines.
Agree 110%, but I would add roving 2 person witness teams R+D. But if we must choose, THE core element is decentralized same day counting. “Warehouse” counting at 4am with no witnesses is just begging for fraud.
No reason for anything but hand counting. Decentralized when done in person by precinct. It works everywhere it’s done.
We’re in “heated agreement.” I’m just cognizant that we might not get all the aspects that are warranted, and it would make sense to prioritize.
My friend in Calgary reports same precinct hand counting has been in place forever with no problems.
Subsequent analysis:
Canada: 71,576 polling divisions, 17.2M votes = 240 votes per polling division (precinct)
U.S. 176,933 precincts, 152.3M votes = 861 votes per precinct
I started out thinking hand counting is a slam dunk. But ACCURATELY hand counting 861 ballots, each containing multiple offices and ballot questions might be difficult for a half dozen poll workers in one evening. We could cut the ballot count by increasing the number of polling places or workers, but local jurisdictions are already having difficulty staffing elections.
Larger precincts should have proportionately more workers, no?
Those are averages, meaning that on average, Canada has 3.6 times as many vote counters per voter as does the U.S., making hand counting more feasible. (It was difficult finding the number of “polling divisions;” I can’t imagine finding the exact staffing levels, particularly since U.S. elections are handled locally.)
Subsequent thoughts:
I don’t think it follows that a larger voter base in a precinct inherently draws a linear increase in poll workers. In Houston, I was in a huge precinct with 6 people checking in voters. In rural Tennessee, I’m in a small precinct and we have 3 people checking in voters.
IMHO (as a CPA used to human error with documents), the logical approach is a precinct level machine count, validated by a hand count.
We’re not losing wars because our troops are incapable. I’d hazard to say even the average soldier is a notch or two above his/her counterpart in any other military. It’s the use of military force to pursue non-military objectives. Nation building, hearts and minds, and all that other crap.
While true, I think there’s a narrower cause within that: Losing sight of the underlying mission of lethality. (Not every soldier is the combat arms. It’s possible for an army to do more than one thing at a time.)
Erik Prince was recently interviewed by Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College (Prince’s alma mater), and he had a perfect illustration of this point beginning at about 43:20 in this podcast:
https://youtu.be/WPMgzm_9K50?si=H7SVmj1QfA5R9Ajp
Yes, “all that others crap” as we are finding out by following the money trail is The Enemy Within!
There's a bit of ancient wisdom you ought to consider...
“Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior and he will bring the others back.” -- Heraclitus
We also have to avoid wars where there is not a clear definition of victory that can be attained by the use of military force.
The military will never forgive Trump for the way he bugged out of Afghanistan. Oh wait…
Make learning history great again. Make critical thinking great again!!
Seriously, I hope school curriculum is re-written and re-engineered. Poor kids learn nothing of use anymore.
When my otherwise homeschooled oldest son was high-school age, we let him attend the local child factory for one school year to see what it was like.
History class: teacher asks when the US Civil War occurred. Number one son is the only student who has the answer. Teacher mentions that it's the homeschooled kid who knew.
My comment: the Civil War? For goodness sake, anybody who's lived in the US for, oh about five minutes, should at least get the right decade.
I doubt a majority of public high schoolers could identify the century. Somewhere on YouTube is a guy asking young people on the street a series of softball US history questions including, "who won the Civil War?" My favorite answer was, "we did?" It's hopeless.
"Fleccas Talks" maybe? He did a number of clips two years ago where he asks Gen Z and younger people questions that should be super-easy. Like "What state is Utah in?" or "Name two nations bordering the USA".
What I found more interesting than the retardation on display, was the setting and the youths that he asked: lots and lots of feminist, LGBTP+ and similar iconography on display among those on camera.
Could be editing of course, but based on my own experience as a teacher, I'd say being retarded and ignorant, and being a woke liberal progressive "goes together like mud and straw" (if that expression makes sense in English?).
Edit, link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2oMv93EUpY
Yep, that's the guy. Thx for the link. I love the woman who can't name three countries because she sucks at history. Thanks, Randi Weingarten.
I taught US history at the college level for 34 years and actually had students who said that the Depression happened prior to WW1. Not only did they not know when something happened, they had no sense of the order in which anything happened. And they almost never had any idea of causation or of consequences.
That's so depressing to hear.
Spot on. But I think its more insidious.
History is the best cautionary tale. When you don't learn history (or are taught false history), you neither have a future....nor a past. It's all planned. This is also why they change definitions, change nuance and create euphemisms of inversion (gender affirming care), etc.etc
A big part in the decline of America and the slow stripping of our liberty is what happens when kids don't know how to measure freedom.
The true measure of liberty is how much freedom you have to make your own independent decisions...even if they're awful decisions.
Schools have destroyed the yardstick by which freedom can be measured
"Schools have destroyed the yardstick by which freedom can be measured"
Could be, perhaps, phrased, "Schools have, very deliberately, destroyed any yardstick by which freedom could be measured"
Because, as the old saying goes, 'If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.'
Perfectly said
Add to the list of soulless (being polite here) euphemisms: reproductive freedom.
“Historical thinking” is VIOLENCE!
"With Purge Trump Thrusts."
Hey, at least WaPo still knows how to use strong verbs.
Obama fired 197 high ranking military leaders in his first 5 years in office to put the military in line with his political beliefs.
Great piece as always, but you forgot to put the word “reporter” in quotes.