SHREVEPORT – I am no economist and so would have poor skills in predicting where this incredible inflation will end, but man, it has got to end somewhere.
When I retired from teaching a year and a half ago, my pension was comfortable. Now? It doesn’t go nearly as far as it did then. That’s why when my church needed a part-time receptionist in the office, I took it on. I figured the extra money would ease the pain. And then, when they asked me to add another day and work four days a week, I agreed to that, too. Picking up that extra four or five days a month looked good. Now I’m thinking I need to ramp up my paid writing sideline a bit and earn even more.
We just returned from a trip to Iowa where my husband’s family lives. From Louisiana, we usually spend about $200 to $250 in gas there and back each year. This year it was literally double, costing us right at $100 every time we filled up. On top of that, rising food prices are causing pain at the grocery store, too. Across the nation, more and more people are looking for supplemental income. According to the Washington Post, “the percentage of employed people working multiple jobs in the United States has steadily increased since March 2020 from 4 percent in April 2020 to 4.8 percent in June 2022…”. That percentage seems somewhat low to me.
In Iowa, where we just spent a week, we were in the south-central region. I know there are very liberal pockets in Iowa, but there are plenty of conservatives, too, and we met a lot of them. I saw one lady in the grocery store wearing a t-shirt that said, “Buck Joe Fiden.” Uh, okay. I saw a lot of Trump flags, and I saw zero Biden signs although I know there are Biden supporters there.
The chatter I heard at baseball games, in the stores, and in the shops were all full of angst at the state of the economy. My husband’s family is a farming family with a generational farm. The cost of fuel to run tractors and trucks is just crippling and many farmers will not make it because of this. It is devastating in the Midwest.
Like I said, I’m not sure where all this will end up, or who will be left standing when it’s over, if it is ever over, but I, for one, am working double time to get debts paid off and sock something back before everything implodes. I have one friend, an older lady who has seen some things in her day, who is selling off assets and putting up cash. She is downsizing, selling off jewelry with no sentimental meaning, putting up cold cash whenever she can. “I’m scared,” she told me. “I’ve never seen it like this, and I’m scared.” She is not usually this reactive.
As of the latest Uvalde revelation the left has decided on their talking point:
If 400 trained, coordinated, and fully armed police officers can't get their acts together enough to stop a mass shooting in time, what makes anyone think that arming teachers is the answer?
— Dr. DaShanne Stokes (@DaShanneStokes) July 18, 2022
You can find this tweet or a variation of it repeated all over the blue check world as the talking point which is essentially: 400 police with guns didn’t act to protect teachers therefore only police should have guns.
Idiots
Of course one of the reasons why the police might not have gone in at Uvalde can be illustrated by the reaction over the shooting of Tekle Sunberg who was pumping rounds into an apartment with a single mother and little kids:
Anything that can be exploited by the left is to be celebrated and kids being in danger? Meh!
Things boiled over during Saturday’s rally and march for Tekle Sundberg, when the 24 year old woman who says he was shooting into her apt. showed up voicing her frustration with those gathering in front of her building on Sundberg’s behalf. @kare11 * video contains profanity * pic.twitter.com/qdi1vbgO7k
If Sundberg had killed her and/or her kids it wouldn’t have been news, just a statistic to the BLM grifter crowd.
David French is shocked SHOCKED that when you import a large group of people who are religious into the country they tend to vote with the only political party that views belief in God as a positive thing:
A party that’s culturally disconnected from (or perhaps even scornful of) traditional religious faith is going to alienate itself from tens of millions of voters it could otherwise reach.
You would think a so called “conservative” would be thrilled with conservatives gaining votes from Spanish Speakers but they aren’t paying his bills anymore.
If this keeps up the Biden Admin will have a wall up by lunchtime.
In the documentary, Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss, Sharlene Azam, a Canadian filmmaker, says, “If you talk to teens [about oral sex], they’ll tell you it’s not a big deal. In fact, they don’t consider it sex. They don’t consider a lot of things sex.” In the documentary, teenage girls talk casually about their sexual experiences and even their forays into prostitution. One girl sums up the new attitudes: “Five minutes and I got $100. If I’m going to sleep with them anyway because they’re good-looking, might as well get paid for it, right?”
This is how the phony feminist movement empowered women. More like enslaved women. Those men-hating parasites have ruined the glorious exaltation of women in 20th-century America.
My wife would disagree, with their definition of what is sex and what is not.
All I could think of was positive reaction to the Belle Knox story. I suspect that the day will come when college women are encouraged to service Booster and administrators to pay their way and nobody will blink at it.
Don’t tell me that men didn’t win the sexual revolution.
Real Old Lady Ground Controller:This is ground control, you don’t appear to have flight clearance.
Cat: [expecting young hot GC from the CGI] You’re the ground controller?
Real Old Lady Ground Controller:Please state your name and clearance code.
Cat: Reality Sucks!
Red Dwarf Back in the Red Part 3 1999
For quite a while we have seen the phenom of “virtue signaling” whereby a person rather than practicing virtues like temperance, generosity, charity which involve effort, will, time, inconvenience and occasionally expense simply exhibits a ribbon, or a tag on a twitter account or a list of “pronouns” thus signaling to the “right” people that one has “virtue” without all the messy effort of having to practice any such inconvenient things.
We have now seen an increasing amount of another phenom which I like to call “victim envy”.
One of the things about modern life is how, even during a time of hardship, EASY it is.
The dishwasher, clothes washing and the AC alone broke the bonds of heat and water that enslaved millions prior to the 1900, the computer, the ability to work remotely and the common delivery of food and almost any product that we might want in as little as two days means that all the comforts that people spent centuries sweating for and dreaming of are a button push away.
Furthermore higher education which was once the province of the elite (I don’t comment on the quality) is available as is quality medicine ( I don’t comment on the vaccine madness here) is common and regular.
Even more amazing a degree of protections for races creeds and various groups enforced by laws rigorously enforced removes many of the roadblocks that as recently as 50 years ago were in some places were only overcome by the most determined people out there.
Yet even in all of this prosperity and ease we see people, particularly people with every possible advantage considering themselves “oppressed” and “victimized” over things as slight as “pronouns” or “misgendering”, we even have people of color who fifty years ago were fighting for integration demanding “safe spaces” and “segregation” and suggesting that the lack of such conditions is a cause for at best distraction and at worst failure.
In short, we have a generation of people who are more determined to be victims then their forebears were to avoid such indignities.
But the question is why? Why would someone wish to be a “victim”? Why would anyone want to feel oppressed.
The answer is quite simple: Victimhood provides a perfect excuse for failure.
Given all the advantages I had outlined and all the successes that our forebears had managed in the face of real hardship there is little excuse for failure. But after a generation of trophies for showing up and informing people how special they are, the realities of the world where effort must be exerted to achieve goals proves to be too much for those so coddled their failures need to be justified, particularly in a world comparably as easy as ours.
But if one is a “victim” it all changes.
Suddenly it’s not YOUR fault if you didn’t become a movie, or music or artistic star
Suddenly it’s not YOUR fault if you have tens of thousands of college debt and no job prospects
Suddenly it’s not YOUR fault that you’re still living with your parents and unable to make it on your own
Suddenly its not YOUR fault if you don’t have the aptitude for work that an employer needs.
None of your problems are YOUR fault, you’re a victim so every failure in your life can be the province of someone or something else.
There are few things more dangerous than an excuse, and the excuse for failure that victimhood provides is the most dangerous of all, both for society and for those who claim its mantle and cling to it for dear life.
USS BONHOMME RICHARD on fire on 12 July 2020, from Wikipedia
Do you remember the USS BONHOMME RICHARD fire from 2020? Today marks two years since the fire was finally extinguished, having raged for four days while the ship was moored in Naval Station San Diego. Thankfully, nobody was killed in the fire, although 63 people suffered minor injuries, but the ship was ultimately scrapped, being sold for just over 3 million dollars and towed to a scrapyard in Texas.
A multi-billion dollar warship being scrapped due to a fire that should have been put out relatively quickly? Perhaps the Navy will hold someone accountable? I mean, when LtCol Stu Scheller said mean true things on social media, he was placed in jail for nine days and ultimately fined $5,000. Surely the incompetence that leads to the preventable loss of a warship in a US port would be punished more severely?
“The disposition decisions included six Nonjudicial Punishments (NJP) with guilty findings, two NJPs with Matter of Interest Filings (MIF) and a Letter of Instruction (LOI), two NJP dismissals with a warning, one additional MIF, five other LOIs, three Non-Punitive Letters of Caution (NPLOC), two letters to former sailors documenting substandard performance, and six no-action determinations,” according to a statement from the service.”
From navy.mil
The Navy also issued a letter of censure to retired VADM Brown and two LOIs for other admirals.
For most non-Navy people, the language used for the above punishments listed is confusing, so I’ll translate what it says into what it actually means.
First, the letter of censure. In this case, it was issued to VADM (ret) Brown, who is already retired. The letter can be viewed here. A letter of censure is a “strongly” worded letter from the Secretary of the Navy expressing their disgust for someone’s actions. It sits in a service member’s record, so if you were hoping to promote, its unlikely to happen. That…doesn’t matter much to someone who is already retired. Worse still, it appears that nobody interviewed VADM (ret) Brown, and he is contesting the results, so the letter may ultimately be rescinded.
In other words, letter of censure = no punishment if you’re retired.
Let’s look at the non-judicial punishment (NJP) results:
6 NJP with guilty findings
2 NJP with MIF and LOI
2 NJP dismissals
1 MIF
5 LOIs
3 NPLOCs
2 letters to former Sailors
6 no-actions
NJP is a legal proceeding where the Navy doesn’t have to prove something “beyond a reasonable doubt,” instead they can punish someone if there is a “preponderance of the evidence.” If that sounds a bit sketchy to you, it should. The “preponderance” level essentially means you can find someone guilty of a crime even when there is substantial evidence placing doubt as to whether the person was really responsible.
The Navy is supposed to use NJP to punish small offenses quickly so as to maintain good order and discipline. NJP punishments are limited in nature and aren’t considered an actual conviction, so they don’t translate to felonies or misdemeanors on a service member’s record when they leave service.
The fire on the BONHOMME RICHARD was not a small offense. Reading through the description of the poor response to the fire should make you angry as to how the Navy, charged with maintaining the premier maritime fighting force for the most important nation in the world, could let a critical warship burn in a major city when it has plenty of firefighting equipment nearby. This SHOULD have gone to court martial. The one Sailor accused of starting the fire, a Seaman Apprentice, is facing criminal charges at a court martial, and we don’t know yet those results. Yet for some reason the Navy elected to not pursue court martial charges for any other person involved in this case.
So NJP it is. Six members were found guilty at NJP. We don’t have the full results, but the SECNAV said that two members, the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer of the BONHOMME RICHARD, were assigned letters of reprimand and forfeiture of pay. NJP limits pay forfeitures for officers to 1/2 months pay for up to two months. With this in mind, we can calculate the lower limit for how much pay was taken by assuming they each lost 1/2 months pay for one month, and the upper limit as 1/2 months pay for two months.
CAPT Thoroman enlisted in the Navy in 1988 and thus has 34 years of service. His base pay is $12,980 a month, so he could have been fined $6,490 or $12,980. CAPT Ray joined via NROTC in 1996, and his base pay is $12,725, so he’s being fined either $6,362.50 or $12,725.
Adding these up, the lower limit of total fines is: $12,852.50 The upper limit of total fines is: $25,705 The estimated cost to fix the BONHOMME RICHARD was around $3 billion, so these fines represent 0.000857% of the repair cost for the ship.
I might be off a bit, check my math and let me know in the comments.
So that’s the financial cost, and as far as I can tell, the ONLY financial cost. Granted, its not likely the Navy could get $3 billion from all the people involved, but only punishing the CO and XO financially seems a bit light. The other guilty NJPs probably issued letters of reprimand, which like the letter of censure is a black mark on your record that otherwise has no bearing in the civilian world.
What about the Matter of Interest Findings, or MIF? A MIF is a negative letter that also sits on a service member’s record that essentially says this person wasn’t necessarily guilty, buuuuut we think we should be concerned about this individual. Translating that to reality, it means that person will likely never get promoted, but the MIF doesn’t become a felony or misdemeanor in the civilian world.
Letters of Instruction (LOIs) are letters that say “You did something wrong, and I’m instructing you on how to do better.” Then, once you complete all those items, the LOI is considered complete. I have an LOI from my first command where I screwed up a tagout and my CO made me provide tagout training to my division. LOIs don’t go on your record and don’t affect promotion. They correct bad behavior and are one step above yelling at someone for doing something stupid. Again, not much of a lasting punishment.
A NPLOC is a non-punitive letter of caution. It has even less teeth than a punitive letter, because it doesn’t sit on your record at all. A NPLOCs whole purpose is to give you more evidence on someone that is likely committing crimes but staying just below the threshold to get caught. Do you remember the “I’m not touching you game,” where you irritated your sibling by putting your finger just bareeely in front of their nose or cheek and said “I’m not touching you,” like somehow not touching you meant you couldn’t be punished? Remember when your birthing person mom or dad said “That’s strike one, do it again and you’ll get a whooping.” That’s a NPLOC. Not a punishment at the time, but could be used later.
Did any Admirals besides VADM (ret) Brown get punished? Well, Rear Admiral Scott Brown (not related to the VADM (ret) Brown) and Rear Admiral Eric Ver Hage both got LOIs.
And that’s it. So, just to review:
USS BONHOMME RICHARD catches fire on 12 July 2020, burns for four days and is a total loss of somewhere around 3 billion dollars.
Two years later, the Navy issues approximately 30 pieces of administrative paper that say they are really, really mad with how a Sailor acted.
The Navy also issues somewhere between $12K and $25K in fines.
The Navy has an ongoing criminal trial into one Sailor they think started the fire that we don’t have resolution on yet two years after the initial event.
No other Court Martials were convened.
No Sailor above the paygrade of O-6 was held responsible in any meaningful way.
No person was sent to jail (at least not yet).
And that’s it. That’s the extent of how the Navy holds people responsible for losing a warship inside our own port.
We often talk about the “Deep State” and how it protects bureaucrats from punishment while holding all the “little people” responsible. While its been obvious for some time now, the failure of the investigation into the fires on the BONHOMME RICHARD confirm that the military should be included into this “Deep State” calculus. It goes far beyond COVID vaccines and extremist “training.” The people wearing stars in our military will gleefuly destroy the lives of the hard working men and women in our service while continuing to provide poor leadership, poor guidance and force an ever increasing focus on non-warfighting skills. They are responsible for the poorly structured command and control diagrams, the shortened damage control training pipelines, and the increasing focus on non-warfighting skills, yet they demand all the pomp and circumstance for their office from every service member below them, and demand that we ASSUME (always a dangerous word) that they are really ready to conduct warfighting on behalf of this great nation.
Contrast the response to the BONHOMME RICHARD fire to that of the USS COLE, which had a massive hole blown in the side at the waterline from a suicide bomber, yet stayed afloat long enough to be brought home in one piece on the MV Blue Marlin, and eventually returned to service. Think about that when you read the descriptions in the BONHOMME RICHARD report on how Sailors didn’t know basics about their fire fighting gear:
On the morning of the fire 87% of the ship’s fire stations “remained in inactive equipment maintenance status,” according to the investigation. None of the crew members tried to use the ship’s foam sprinkling system because it had not been properly maintained and “in part because the crew lacked familiarity with capability and availability.” The crew made several other mistakes that day, including waiting far too long to report the fire, the investigation found. Several sailors decided not to put their firefighting gear on because they thought they were not wearing the proper uniform to take part in firefighting efforts. Sailors were also not properly trained on how to use emergency breathing devices, leading to cases of smoke inhalation.
What happened in the 20 years since the COLE bombing? How did we get worse at damage control as a Navy? Most importantly, who should be held responsible for that?
One final piece of history. The original BOMHOMME RICHARD was a converted merchant ship used by Captain John Paul Jones to raid the coast of Britain. In the Battle of Flamborough Head, Jones fought the HMS Serapis, which heavily damaged and eventually sank the RICHARD, but not before Jones had lashed the ships together, stormed the Serapis and ultimately captured her in a massive win for the fledgling United States Navy.
One has to ask how Captain John Paul Jones, currently interred at the Naval Academy, would react to his old ship’s namesake suffering such a tragedy, and how he would have conducted the follow-on investigation.
This post represents the views of the author and does not represents views of the United States Navy, Department of Defense, or any other government agency. You’re welcome to read their views in their official posts on navy.mil. If you learned something from this article, please consider donating to Da Tech Guy, or purchasing one of the author’s books for you or someone you care about.
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