Posts Tagged ‘Juliette Akinyi Ochieng’

Buttigieg and the Military Service Check Box

Posted: February 11, 2020 by julietteochieng in oddities, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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by baldilocks

From last month at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

When Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks about his military service, his opponents fall silent, the media fall in love, and his political prospects soar. Veterans roll their eyes.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mr. Buttigieg Sunday if President Trump “deserves some credit” for the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. “No,” the candidate replied, “not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made.” He questioned whether “it was the right strategic move” and said his own judgment “is informed by the experience of having been on one of those planes headed into a war zone.”

But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.

Wow.

Combat veterans have grumbled for decades about the direct-commission route. The politically connected and other luminaries who receive immediate commissions are disparaged as “pomeranian princes.” Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus became a Naval Reserve officer in 2018 at age 46. Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president, accepted a direct commission but was discharged after one month of service for failing a drug test.

I’ve never understood the need to overestimate the importance of one’s military service or to pretend to understand aspects of it outside of one’s field and be accepted as an expert simply for having served. However, I guess that’s due to the fact that I’m not a politician. (And even though I had four AFSCs during my career, I can’t even tell you that much anymore for two reasons: a great deal of it is classified and I have brain-dumped a lot of information. My hard-drive has its limitations.)

But this guy didn’t even have to go to Officer Training School! Now, I’m told that the military will occasionally use this form of commissioning to fill essential billets which are difficult; physicians and lawyers, for example. But why would the Navy need a paper-pusher wearing O-3 bars?

Answer: to credential this particular person for his planned future as a politician. No need for any real hardship — like being awakened at Oh-Dark-Thirty for exercise. He’s in; he spends some time in Afghanistan behind the wire; and then he’s back to the states with a check mark inside of the military service box.

I don’t see the point in bothering with this sort of thing anymore especially since our last two presidents have had no military service. But, if they must, I’m sure that there are thousands of worthy Democrats who at least have Basic Training/OTS under their belts. Why this one?

I’d give Buttigieg this: at least he didn’t get booted for being a crackhead.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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California Assembly Set to Outlaw Choice

Posted: February 8, 2020 by julietteochieng in Uncomfortable Truths
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No, not that one

by baldilocks

Assembly Bill 5 (CA AB5) wasn’t the California Political Left’s first tactic in tightening the noose on the state’s citizens and it isn’t the last one.

This tactic won’t be the last one either: meet Assembly Bill 2070.

Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a bill that would require every registered voter in California to cast a ballot in elections beginning in 2022.

“We’re not compelling anyone to vote,” Levine, a Democrat who lives in Marin, said Thursday. “We’re asking them to return the ballots that have been sent to them or come in and cast a ballot. If they don’t want to mark a vote on that ballot, if they’re not informed about a particular issue or campaign, then that’s fine. This only applies to registered voters, people who have expressed an interest in voting. (…)

As drafted in its preliminary form, AB 2070 leaves it up to the California Secretary of State how to enforce the proposed mandate. Levine said he has been contemplating ways to address low voter turnout for five years.

“In 2014, we had ridiculously low voter turnout across the state, including the North Bay, which usually votes in very high levels,” he said. “I’ve been working on this issue since then.” (…)

I’m sure that all Californians are so looking forward to finding out what the enforcement methods are. It is for certain that money will be involved. Those public troughs aren’t going to fill themselves.

“This is extreme government overreach,” [Vice chairman of the Marin Republican Party Tom] Montgomery said. “I’m not worried about more people voting. I’m worried about the government taking our choices away from us. The Democrats place such an emphasis on a woman’s right to kill her unborn child, but they want to take away my choice of whether or not I cast a ballot.”

A few months back, I pointed out that Jungle Primaries have been the law of the land in California since 2010, which has given us all Democrats, all the time. But, considering the voter turnout, few are willing to bother showing up at the polls. In 2022, that will change because …

You, my fellow Californians, will be made to vote for the leftist of your “choice.” In this manner, the California Political Left will be able to claim a mandate for anything it does. Anything.

Here is AB 2070.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Wishcasting for California

Posted: February 1, 2020 by julietteochieng in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, elections, News/opinion, politics, primaries, primaries
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Bernie won’t win

by baldilocks

In two days, it begins.

Californians start voting Monday in a high-profile Democratic presidential primary that has no clear front-runner and could take longer to count than any previous election in a state already notorious for slow ballot counting.

For the first time, Californians can register to vote all the way up to and including election day wherever ballots are cast, which could mean a surge of last-minute ballots, including last-minute provisional ballots that take longer to count.

Sanders, Warren and Biden are all jockeying for first position here to go against President Trump in November. Our primary used to be on the other Super Tuesday in June, but this year – going forward, I presume – it’s on the first Tuesday in March.

Fifteen counties, including Los Angeles, will replace traditional polling places with “vote centers” where people who live anywhere in the county can vote early, drop off ballots or register to vote. (…)

California has previously allowed same-day voter registration, but only at county elections offices. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last year requiring all polling places and vote centers to offer the option until 8 p.m. on election day.

But with change comes the potential for hiccups.

You better believe it. For the past few decades, voting in California has been one gigantic hiccup.

If you think that we got this was through some pristine voting process, you are delusional. As I implied here, California’s Organized Left has built the electorate it wants, with massive voter fraud as complement.  But I wonder about something.

I wonder if California can be flipped.

What has me thinking about this is CA AB5. Enacted by the Democrat Super-majority in the California Assembly and signed by Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom – who has also allotted $20 million to enforce it — it has nearly every self-employed Californian wondering when their next dollar is coming from.

Remember: CA’s Political Left wants only three kinds of people in the state: the rich, the dirt poor, and the illegal. AB5 is just another winnowing tool in a long line of them.

So, all the actors, film crews, artists, musicians, hairdressers, costume designers, set designers, and whatnot who have been contracting out their talent for decades have seen  all their livelihoods nearly obliterated by AB5 — the handiwork of politicians put into office by many to most of them.

I’d sure love to see President Trump address how California’s Political Left has betrays them – preferably doing it while holding court the Rose Bowl. Yes, I want to see a Trump rally in Southern California.

Anyway, the California Primary is about to drop off and we will see which one of the Democrats will likely face the president.

I hope it’s Biden because … who doesn’t?

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Justice Thomas Doc — Not on Netflix

Posted: January 28, 2020 by julietteochieng in American Success Stories, media
Tags: , , , , ,

Ginny and Clarence Thomas

by baldilocks

J.J. Sefton of Ace of Spades HQ reviews the new Clarence Thomas documentary.

Besides President Trump, arguably one of the most transformative figures to emerge onto the American political landscape in half a century is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas. Yet, it’s not his stellar legal mind, reflected in scores of brilliant opinions he has penned over the course of his nearly 29-year career at the highest court in the land that earns for him that status. Sadly, it is merely for the fact the he is a black man who, after coming of age in the repressive Democrat Deep South and even embracing the black radicalism of the late 60s ultimately had the scales fall from his eyes and dared reject the political Democrat-Left plantation. But when he was nominated to take the seat vacated by Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court that he became not only their worst nightmare, but an existential threat.

Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, a new documentary slated for release at the end of the month, is a powerful journey back in time, told mostly by Thomas in his own words, and in some segments by his remarkable wife Ginny and mentor and champion, former Senator John Danforth

I’ve always admired Justice Thomas as do most who have read his autobiography My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir. By the way, in the book a reader can find yet another display of the character defects of one Joseph Biden.

And I remember Barack Obama’s public and pointless insult toward Thomas during one of the 2008 presidential debates.

Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, “with all due respect” the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy.

Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that “that’s a good one,” and then adding that “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.” The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.

The nerve of some people. It was like a donkey trying to squash an elephant.

Oh wait …

Anyway, read the entire review. I plan on seeing the documentary when it gets here on the 31st.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

Follow Juliette on Facebook, Twitter, MeWe, Patreon and Social Quodverum.

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Or hit Juliette’s!

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