Archive for April, 2022

The Air Force’s double standard on sexual assault

Posted: April 30, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
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Recently I wrote a few articles about how reforms to how the military would prosecute sexual assault would likely not make any difference, and how the military abuses the non-judicial punishment system, especially on young enlisted servicemembers, while not doing much to hold members of higher ranks accountable. Those are great articles and you should go back and read them, as this article is going to build off of that information.

My email was inundated recently with articles about Air Force General William Cooley, who was recently found guilty of sexual assault abusive sexual contact (editor note: he was found not guilty of sexual assault, which is the Article 120 reference in the linked article. My apologies for that mistake, and thank you to the commenter that caught it!). This is a big deal because its the first time in the entire history of the Air Force that a general (someone that is wearing a stars on their shoulders and was specifically approved for promotion by Congress) was taken to court martial and found guilty. Now, this isn’t the first time a general was punished. That normally happens under the radar through administrative means, and can happen even as the person is retiring.

As an intelligent reader of this blog, you might ask yourself “How did the Air Force make it 75 years without taking a single general to court martial? Are they just that good at picking people?” When you consider the size of the Air Force and the large number of generals that have served over its 75 year history, and if you know anything about statistics, you realize that this is nonsense. People committ crimes. It happens. You can’t judge an organization by the fact a member committed a crime.

You CAN judge that organization by how it responds to the crimes, and in the case of the military services, that judgement should be pretty harsh. General Cooley was given a fine of $10,910 a month for five months (total of $54,550) and a reprimand. Now, $54K is a lot of money for little people. But at the low end, a major general makes $191K a year in just base pay, so you can be excused for thinking he got off pretty easy.

Normally, sexual assault and other sexual crimes carries jail time and having to register as a sex offender, which General Cooley apparently won’t have to do. Is this a double standard? The easiest way to confirm is look at the results of other court martials of lower ranking people. Scanning the Air Force’s trial results show an awful lot of jail time for Article 120 (sexual assault) convictions as well as abusive sexual contact.

Probably more infuriating for the average airman is that Air Force leadership told everyone that sexual assault and other sexual crimes would not be tolerated and would be punished, despite the fact that sexual crimes in general are notoriously hard to prosecute due to lack of evidence. Inevitably this attitude lead to more than a few innocent people getting NJP, which doesn’t give members a fair trial, and seems to disproportionately affect young enlisted members, and particularly minority members. But when the Air Force has the chance to prosecute a senior member and show it can hold its own accountable…it doesn’t. A fair jury finds General Cooley guilty, and yet the judge goes soft on him.

By the way, not the first time the Air Force hasn’t punished one of its own.

To which I have to ask, why? Why denigrate yourself this way? How can you sleep at night knowing that you botched the chance to prove you really do care about your core values and the service members that serve your organization? The Army lost a lot of credibility in how it handled the Jeffrey Sinclair case. This directly mirrors it, and somehow the Air Force learned nothing from it.

I can’t imagine how this makes parents of kids wanting to join the military feel. The fact that General Cooley did something criminal says nothing about the Air Force, but the fact that he faces no jail time says volumes about the Air Force. It’s just one more reason the military is losing credibility and will have a long road to win it back.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Those agencies would have you believe everything is great and that nothing is wrong with the current way things work. If you liked this article, drop a donation in DaTipJar, share this story and consider purchasing one of the author’s books on Amazon.

One Liners Under the Fedora CW, Depopulating votes, History’s Path, Mr. Clean and Irony.

Posted: April 30, 2022 by datechguy in under the fedora
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It took tens days for the NBA Conventional Wisdom to go from: The Celtics are fools to take the 2nd seed and face the Brooklyn Nets in the 1st round, to The Unstoppable Celtics defensive machine is going to beat Milwaukee in the 2nd.

Between the Push for Abortion, the push for Gay Marriage and one million genders and the push to surgically or chemically make as many children unable to reproduce by the time they reach twenty is it any wonder that stealing elections is and will only grow a a vital cog in the left’s electoral plans?

No matter how familiar one is with history and the rise and fall of cultures, civilizations and empires as a normal event, seeing said fall happen to your own is disconcerting.

As the NY grand jury that was empowered to investigate Trump prepares to disband It still amazes me that there are people who think that even though the Obama Administration, the Deep state and the Biden administration have been going over Donald Trump’s life with a fine tooth comb for the last 6 years that there is still some kind of crime he will be caught with that none of these entities were able yet to discover.

It’s rather amusing to note that the left in power in government, education and media is currently using every single tactic that they spent the last 50 in books, film and plays warning the public to keep an eye out for and beware.

One Thing the Left Should Remember Concerning the New Position of Disinformation Czar…

Posted: April 29, 2022 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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…In 2025 it is very likely that Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis will be appointing the replacement to Ms. Jankowicz.

And I suspect said replacement will not be all that inclined to show mercy on a left that has none.

But go ahead and create the position of Disinformation Czar over our objections but don’t be surprised if you discover that you don’t like the new rules.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Mitch McConnell:

If you want to play games and set yet another precedent that you’ll no doubt come to regret, I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: You’ll regret this, and you may regret it sooner than you might think,

Maura Healey’s climate plan will decimate the economy of Massachusetts

Posted: April 28, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Maura Healey, the current Attorney General of Massachusetts, who is now running for Governor, is a hard left ideologue. She has been in constant lockstep with the more radical Democrats, such as Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders.  Her Climate Change Plan, which is outlined on this page of her campaign website,  proves this most compellingly.  All quotes in this article are from that disconcerting page.

As you can see from this paragraph, Healey has completely bought into this sham called Climate Change.

The climate crisis is our greatest risk and our greatest opportunity. Our choice is clear: to protect our families, communities, and the environment that sustains us, we must rapidly transition to clean energy. As Governor, Maura will make climate change a top priority. She understands the critical urgency of this issue and she knows what is at stake—especially for the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable communities. The actions we must take now to protect our families and communities from climate change also present a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a healthier, more equitable future and to position Massachusetts as a global leader in clean energy technology and innovation. She will make that vision a reality by innovating state government, working directly with communities, implementing science-based policy, partnering with clean technology businesses, and supporting clean energy research and development.

Her plan would all but eliminate fossil fuels, replacing them with unicorn farts and fairy dust.  She claims that she wil be able to replace them with wind and solar energy.  That claim is just as implausible as my statement about unicorn farts and fairy dust.  The State of California implemented a plan very similar to Healey’s.  Brownouts, skyrocketing energy prices, and economic hardship are now the norm,

Maura Healey’s grand scheme is completely devoid of reality.  Check out this proposal:

Electrifying buildings will be one of our biggest challenges– but also an opportunity for safer, healthier homes and buildings. We have the technology that we need, but we need a bold set of policies to obtain the level of greenhouse gas emissions reduction necessary and to do so equitably. 

We also need to change the business model of our gas utilities, which are, after all, public utilities. The Healey Administration will require the gas utilities to adopt transition plans that are customer-focused, equitable, and consistent with the state’s emission reduction requirements. 

Healey is planning on transitioning away from natural gas for heating homes to electricity, while transitioning from natural gas and other fossil fuels to solar and wind to produce electricity.  That will result in perhaps tens of thousands freezing to death during our harsh Massachusetts winters because that plan is completely untenable.

Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to address emissions and lower customer costs. We must continue and expand our award-winning MassSave energy efficiency program. But we cannot get the job done by relying solely on the MassSave program or by continuing to build homes and buildings that rely on fossil fuels. That is why, in a Healey Administration, municipalities will have the option to adopt a specialized energy code that gives them the authority to ban gas use in new construction. 

This next part of the plan is fanciful because our electrical generation and distribution systems will not keep up with the increased demand, even if we keep the status quo.

Maura will also put 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 by providing larger rebates for used and low-cost electric vehicles, while making it easy for customers to access these rebates at the time they buy or lease their vehicle. She will prioritize public spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects that benefit low- and moderate-income households and overburdened communities. 

Even more fanciful is this next part of her plan.

The Healey Administration will end the sale of new passenger cars and light duty trucks powered by gasoline or diesel by 2035. All public fleet purchases will be electric by 2028. They will require utilities to offer discounts for charging at night when electricity demand is low. The Healey transportation agenda will also include bold investment in electric vehicle infrastructure and strong incentives for their adoption, including for heavy duty vehicles, as well as pedestrian walkways, and safe, expanded bike lanes. 

This next component of Healey’s insane scheme is the most deluded.  They’ve been attempting to make a go of offshore wind to generate electricity on a large scale here in Massachusetts for about a decade, with no luck.  It has been an absolute failure.

Under a Healey Administration, Massachusetts will achieve 100 percent clean electricity supply by 2030. Maura will position Massachusetts as the nation’s offshore wind capital by expeditiously permitting the 5,600 MW of offshore wind procurements currently authorized by law and more than doubling the Commonwealth’s target to 10,000 MW offshore wind by 2035.

Where are the solar panels going to come from to implement Healry’s next plan? The obvious answer is China because they have a monopoly on the rare earth materials used to produce solar panels.  The environmental carnage caused in the mining of these materials will be far worse than what occurred in the former Soviet Union.

The Healey Administration will capitalize on the strong existing Massachusetts solar industry with a total of 10 GW of deployed solar by 2030. They will deploy rooftop solar installations in the communities where widespread adoption is lacking and encourage smart siting of large solar facilities.

The next component of her plan is science fiction.  It cannot be accomplished.

Maura will quadruple energy storage deployment by 2030 and invest in research and development to make long-duration storage a reality. She also will build upon Massachusetts’ award-winning energy efficiency programs by ending fossil fuel incentives, encouraging fuel switching and beneficial electrification, and focusing on whole building electrification in low-income and overburdened communities. And a Healey Administration will give customers greater control over their energy use through home solar and storage systems, community energy systems, advanced meters, time varying rates, and smart appliances.

If Maura Healey is elected Governor of Massachusetts, her plan will absolutely cripple the Massachusetts economy, producing widespread economic devastation, perhaps even worse than what has taken place in California.

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