Thousands of American soldiers have been deployed to Poland amid rising tensions with Russia.
Poland’s Prime Minister welcomed the troops today – which US security officials said would “deter and defend” during their deployment.
Around 4,000 soldiers have been sent to Poland as part of an operation intended to boost ties with America’s NATO allies – including Poland.
The move is also meant to be a show of force to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, especially giving the country’s suspected interference in America’s presidential election.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said today: “It’s a great day today when we can welcome, here in Zagan, American soldiers who represent the best, the greatest army in the world.”
Major General Timothy McGuire of the US Land Forces in Europe team said the thousands of soldiers would “stand united on Polish soil to deter and defend”.
He said the deployment was a “concrete sign of the continued US commitment to the defense of Poland and the NATO alliance.”
This is getting out of hand.
I can’t believe I actually have to explain this, but here goes: On January 20th, Donald J. Trump is going to place his hand on a bible in Washington D.C. and be sworn in as our nation’s 45th president. Every one of his cabinet appointments will be confirmed (probably,) regardless of the grandstanding. All of the screaming we’ve heard for the last 2 months will have been for naught. The marching will be for nothing. The tantrums will have been in vain.The shrieking, increasingly hysterical cacophony of liberal anguish will do nothing to prevent this. This is happening.
Clinton supporters, leftist agitators, and MSNBC’s favorite Republican, Evan McMullen, I’m actually going to attempt to speak to you like an adult. I’ve stayed away from the more political stuff here, saving it for the podcast, but bear with me while I flesh this out. Look, I know many are disappointed in the results of campaign 2016. You were confident in your victory, and headed into the evening of November 7th assured that you would go to sleep that evening with Hillary Rodham Clinton being declared the winner and the next president of the United States. Hell, I was sure of it, too. But you know what they say about predictions: They’re worth about as much as six-day-old bear shit. (They say that, right?)
And then the unthinkable happened. The orange-faced madman with the crazy hair, coarse mouth, and generally unkempt persona actually pulled it off and won the goddamn election. Unable to accept this political cardiac event of the century, democrats and others began swinging wildly from one potential obstruction to the next. They demanded a recount. They called on electors to rebel. They called for impeachment before Trump even took the oath of office. But none of it worked. Now, faced with the fact that it didn’t work out for them this time, they are turning increasingly hysterical, lashing out an any perceived slight and/or a Trump tweet in a purple-faced rage, frothing endlessly on social media, declaring every minor cabinet office nominee to be illegitimate. But I’m here to help you through this.
I feel their pain. I have voted in 5 presidential elections in my life. The candidate I voted for has won three times, while losing twice. So I’m 3-2. Therefore, I can sympathize with those disappointed in the outcome of this election. The closest I came to real disappointment was probably 2012. I had held my nose and voted for Mitt Romney, and was sure he was going to win. But, in a crushing defeat, Mitt went down in flames, and we got 8 more years of The Light Bringer in Chief. I remember being bummed out for a day, and then I went on about my business. That didn’t happen this time. We have seen the spectacle of left-wing fury now for two months, and it isn’t slowing down. For some reason, people seemed to assume that the Obama era would last forever. We were all going to huddle together into the bright progressive future, never looking back. The fact that it has all come crashing down has been mentally debilitating to the progressives. Honestly, I’m concerned about the collective mental health of left-wing America. You’re sending opera star Andrea Bocelli freaking death threats? God damn, people, get a grip. Honestly, the only reason I even give a shit about Trump anymore is the anguish his very presence causes in “progressives.” I think he’ll do what every president always does: disappoint me while adding to the national debt. But it is damn amusing watching the daily meltdowns.
As for this new Red Scare we are undergoing? It is remarkable that literally almost nobody talked about Russia 4 months ago, and now there is a Russian spy under every bed. Go look at Keith Olbermann’s twitter feed; it’s comedy gold. Do I believe that Russia takes every opportunity to spy on the United States? ABSOLUTELY. Does our own intelligence agencies to the same thing, on the reg, around the globe, every single day for the past 70 years? DAMN RIGHT, SON. So it’s a little much to watch all of the pearl-clutching by the punditry as if we don’t do the same crap. What, you don’t think we have our preferred candidates in foreign elections? Hell, forget about national leadership elections. We even have our preferred outcomes when it comes to policy, like the time President Obama traveled to England for the sole reason of campaigning against the Brexit vote. And other countries have their preferred outcomes, too. What, do you think Saudi Arabia gave Hillary Clinton 10 million dollars because they just really liked her stance on transgender bathroom right? Or Ukraine disseminating documents implicating Trump aides in corruption, or conducting opposition research on Trump? This is the game.
The astounding thing that I am witnessing on social media is the cavalcade of political hacks and talking heads now condemning Donald Trump before he even takes office. To these people, Trump is the one who is going to start World War 18. This is rich, coming from the same crew who have presided over the last 20 years of American foreign policy. Take the invasion of Iraq. The same people who have made arguably the worst decision in American foreign policy history (is it even arguable??) are now the ones telling me how dangerous and detrimental to America a Trump presidency will be.
Freaking CHUTZPAH. The last two decades have seen thousands of Americans killed in faraway Islamic lands. Tens of thousands have been horribly wounded, with life-altering injuries and scars, both mental and physical, which they will be dealing with for decades to come. Trillions of dollars have been spent in some sort of Quixotic attempt to turn Afghanistan into America Jr. Iraq is a complete basket case, with Islamic tribal squabbles assuring that the country will be unstable for the rest of our lifetimes. Yemen is a clusterfuck, and Libya is a lawless wasteland. You’d think we would have learned something by meddling in Iraq for THIRTEEN YEARS, with nothing to show for it, but we clearly haven’t. Because the buildup is starting all over again. America hasn’t the slightest goddamn clue about the money we continue to pour into that dump, day after day, playing a game of whack-a-mole with whomever the latest Islamic shit head group is. Because they’ve tuned out. Who in the name of fuck wants to hear one more word about Iraq after 13 years? Who is going to finally pull the plug? What are we doing in Syria and Yemen? What’s the mission? What is the United States getting out of this? Did we declare war? What’s the timeline? What’s the exit strategy?
I have to say it again, because this is the shit that really grinds my gears. These NeoCon bastards, who have entwined America into a hopeless Middle Eastern morass, are telling me how risky Trump is. The balls on this garbage collection. The people who back these never-ending wars should be carried out in nets and thrown into the nearest pit. The same elected officials who have zero problems with the United States allying itself with backwards, primitive religious theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now sounding the drum beats about Russia. Yes, they see nothing wrong with being chums with the Saudis, a barbaric country that funds terrorists killing people daily all over the globe, or continuing the hopeless coat hanger abortion in Afghanistan, where anally raping little boys is considered a hell of a Thursday night, but Russia!!!! Yeah, THAT’s the problem. By political design, this latest NATO buildup in Poland puts Trump in a box from day one. He either leaves the troops in place in the biggest European deployment since the end of the cold war, or he brings them home, and gets to hear all of the leftist chicken hawks scream about being soft on Russia. It is shocking to me to watch the fervor in which ostensibly liberal democrats are ready to go to war. And not with a bunch of Islamic rednecks with a few AKs in the shitbox desert, but a major world power. This is insanity.
The same people, who have spent 16 years sending you and your children to go die for some other country are now sending them to Poland to play babysitter, at huge costs. These people must be stopped. It borders on the edge of lunacy. Where the hell is Code Pink when you need them? It’s as if there were many people who stand to make a lot of money whispering into our elected officials’ ears the constant refrain of war, war, and more war. I recall someone warning us about something of this nature before. No, it isn’t “treason” to want to get along with another country, idiots. What do you think Hillary was trying to do in 2011 with her stupid “reset” button (mistranslated, in case you forgot that dumbassery.) What do you think Obama was trying to do when he was caught on a hot mike in 2012 assuring Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have more flexibility after the elections were over? Was that treason? Obviously not. That’s what you do. You don’t hysterically go around talking about waging war. Particularly when you’re some old asshole that will never see a day’s worth of privation or military hardship of any kind.
Russia is an autocratic, totalitarian regime with limited civil liberties and a long history of crushing dissent. Russia is not our friend, and neither is anyone else. What, you don’t think our “good friends” also continually engage in espionage against our country? We should engage vigorously in combating any intelligence efforts with our own. That doesn’t mean we should freaking get into a shooting war with them, and this new left-wing paranoia of a Russian spy under every mattress is absurd. China hacks us mercilessly, yet we didn’t expel any of THEIR diplomats, did we? After all, the Chinese government only managed to get mine and thousands of other government employees’ social security numbers. Apparently that pales in comparison to revealing the massive corruption of a hack political party. THAT they are willing to get hostile about. THAT is what gets diplomats expelled. I have no idea whether Russia was behind the Wikileaks hacks or not. Perhaps they were. Perhaps they were not. And, at the risk of sounding like a goddamn commie, if hacking that revealed truthful, accurate and total corruption in a major political party and the media is “meddling,” then bring on the hacking. If they hacked the RNC, hell yes I’d like to see those emails too. At the same time, I want us to get into Russia’s business, especially if they were the ones that interfered with us. What I don’t want to do is start a shooting war over some bullshit. It kills me that we’re being goaded into armed response by liberals on Twitter. What a time.
Pardon me for daring to have some skepticism about our intelligence agencies. Don’t take this the wrong way: I have a high level of respect for some of the very smart people who work all over the world in service to the United States government intelligence community. They truly are the tip of the spear in protecting America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I’ve personally had the honor of working for some of them. But I also have to face the reality of the track record since World War II. Like I’m supposed to ignore the constant meddling in South America over the 20th century, as these agencies did the bidding of powerful corporate interests, just as two-time Medal of Honor recipient General Smedley Butler warned? Or the “slam-dunk” that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? Or the Bay of Pigs disaster? Or, six months before the fall of the Iranian Shah in 1979, the assurance that Iran was, “…not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation?” Or that the fight against ISIS was a piece of cake and totally not altering intelligence reports to paint the desired picture?
I could go on and on. Because we’ve been lied to so many times, I don’t know what to believe. That’s not my fault, that is THEIR fault. The same thing goes to our media, with their constant barrage of bullshit. So is the 35 page Buzz Feed report true? It’s possible it is exactly true. Could Russia have deliberately fed alleged former spook Christopher Steele false info, in hopes of causing chaos and a constitutional crisis? Sure, that’s also possible. Did Trump pay hookers to piss on a mattress? Maybe. Probably not. Usually blackmail works better when the information has NOT gotten out. But it doesn’t matter if it’s true now; it’s the conventional wisdom. The point is: Take a minute and think, and look for facts. But now, anyone even questioning the Everything-I-Hate-Is-Russia party line in the slightest bit is shouted down by baying liberal mobs. And I’m not sure what is more hilarious: The same Hollywood leftists who were once persecuted by Joe McCarthy now shrieking “COMMIE!!!,” at anyone with a millimeter of skepticism, or the Washington D.C. leftists who have demonized the CIA for years as a tool of the capitalist swine now going to the mattresses in that same agency’s defense. Extraordinary.
Truth be told, this isn’t about Russia. Not the larger picture, anyway. Even if US intelligence agencies definitively conclude that the DNC hacks were the acts of a 12-year-old Korean kid fucking around with his PC in his mom’s basement, all of the hysteria would still be happening. Actually, I’ll go even one better than that: If the hacking had never even taken place and Trump still won (a very realistic possibility,) the protests would still be taking place, the fake hate crimes would still be a near-daily occurrence, and the pathetic celebrity videos would still be being released. This is about an inability to accept an outcome that just didn’t go the way it was “supposed” to go. This is about the opponent not only being wrong, but being a MONSTER. This is about painting the Trump presidency with a coat of illegitimacy. This is about the unwillingness to accept that one’s team took a loss. Get the fuck over it. It happens to everyone.
I love America. I’m tired of these wars and the seeming determination of old fools to never end the old ones while starting new ones. That is why I am collectively calling for Americans to take a knee, face outboard, and drink water. Holy shit, get off the internet. Go outside. Jump in the ocean, or go for a walk in the forest. Relax. Get a sense of humor. Talk to someone (in person!!) who thinks differently than you. That last one is especially important. What, you think all of us here at SOFREP.com have the same opinions? We have a wide range of political beliefs. But what we have is a mutual respect for one another as men and veterans and the ability to argue and debate without malice, as men have done since there have been men on earth. I really feel this is a rapidly vanishing attribute; the ability to politically disagree and remain friends, or at least polite. Particularly on the liberal side. I mean, I think on a given issue, say illegal immigration, the progressives are wrong, and I want to lay out a case of why using logic and examples. The progressive, on the other hand, thinks I’m evil, and because I am evil, I am not worth even the debate. It’s tiresome.
So take it easy, man. You live in literally the best time ever to be alive in the history of mankind. You have antibiotics, air travel, and sex robots. You can fly over our beautiful country in a miraculous airplane in six hours, gazing down upon a land that used to take a year to cross, not to mention costing half your children because they’d die of smallpox. You’re made of star-dust and barely clinging on a rock careening through a universe. And take a small piece of advice: stop projecting so many expectations into the office of the presidency. He’s not your daddy, or your older brother, or your gay lover. Trump will come and go in four to eight years, and then another dope will replace him. So calm the hell down.
Follow me on Twitter for our important podcast discussions:
https://twitter.com/BKactual/status/820051609988304896
Camp Lejuene vets may have some cheddar coming:
In a historic decision, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has agreed to pay out billions to Marines exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
Over a period of two years, the federal government will dedicate $2 billion for disability benefits related to eight medical conditions linked to exposure to contaminated drinking water, the Associated Press reports.
“We have a responsibility to take care of those who have served our nation and have been exposed to harm as a result of that service,” outgoing VA Secretary Robert McDonald said in an announcement Friday.
The benefits will cover active-duty or reserve Marines and National Guard members who were stationed at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 days from between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987.
So far, there are more than 1,000 applications submitted in the queue to the VA for access to the new benefits.
Veteran will have to send in details of their service to the VA to qualify, namely evidence that they served during the 30-year period from 1953-1987 and a diagnosis of one of the eight medical conditions.
The House voted on Friday to approve a waiver to allow Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, to serve in the role should he be confirmed.
The vote 268-151, coupled with Senate’s passage on Thursday cleared a final procedural hurdle to allow Mattis to serve as defense secretary without having been out of the military for seven years. A law bars newly retired military officers from heading up the Department of Defense. Mattis, who retired in 2013, fell short of the seven-year requirement.
The vote came a day after Mattis’ confirmation hearing, a hours-long session in which he called Russia a “principal threat.” He joins a growing number of Trump cabinet picks who took strong positing on Russia during confirmation hearings this week. CIA director nominee, Rep. Mike Pompeo, was similarly critical of Russia during his own confirmation hearing Thursday and Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson echoed those sentiments during his hearing on Wednesday.
This is not unusual for my neighborhood… the drunken part, anyway:
SAN DIEGO – San Diego lifeguards rescued an “intoxicated” man from Sunset Cliffs Saturday.
San Diego Lifeguards said the man was walking along the cliff and was soon unable to make it back up in his “intoxicated” condition.
As the man struggles to find his footing up the slope, he is seen in the video throwing his arm in the air, yelling, “Go Trump. Go Trump.”
https://twitter.com/abbyhamblin/status/820366337696378880
A Navy officer who blamed his addiction to sex for becoming entangled in a corrupt relationship with an Asian defense contractor was sentenced Thursday in San Diego to 30 months in federal prison.
Lt. Cmdr. Gentry Debord, 41, a supply officer based in Singapore, became the seventh current or former Navy official to receive prison time in a sex-for-secrets scandal that has dogged the maritime service for more than three years. Three other officers, including an admiral, have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in San Diego, the hub of the investigation, but have not been sentenced. Many others remain under scrutiny.
In a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, Debord admitted to taking bribes over several years in the form of travel, entertainment and prostitutes from Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a Singapore-based contractor that provided fuel and supplies for Navy ships at Pacific ports…
…When Debord wanted to arrange for a tryst during a port visit, he would email Francis or Glenn Defense staffers and request “cheesecake” or “bodyguards” — coded language for prostitutes. He also sought, and received, paid apartment or hotel rooms for his assignations at ports throughout Asia.
For example, when Debord was serving on the USS Essex in 2008, he emailed one of Francis’s employees ahead of a visit to Thailand. “Is it possible to get us two hotel reservations,” he inquired. “Also, I would like some cheese cake.”
Airmen looking at award upgrades:
The Air Force is recommending upgrading the awards of a dozen airmen to the Medal of Honor or the Air Force Cross, the service announced Friday.
The upgrades to the service’s two highest valor medals stem from review boards that met in May, according to Brooke Brzozowske, a spokeswoman for the Air Force.
“The boards were charged with reviewing [Global War on Terrorism] Air Force Cross and Silver Star nominations for possible upgrade,” she said in an email. “Specifically, [the] Air Force Cross Review Board reviewed all Air Force Cross nominations [and] Silver Star Review Board reviewed all Silver Star nominations.”
The recommendations have been forwarded to Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James for further action.
WASHINGTON – Eight upgraded Navy Crosses and eight upgraded Silver Stars were presented Friday to Navy SEALs at a ceremony held in Virginia Beach, Va., the Navy announced.
The SEALs, including active-duty and former members of East and West Coast Naval Special Warfare Commands, had been previously awarded medals for their actions in the war on terror. The upgraded awards are part of the Pentagon’s review of all Silver Stars and service crosses awarded for actions in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.
Two of the medals were awarded posthumously, including an upgrade from a Silver Star to Navy Cross for Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV, who died May 3, 2016 during a firefight in northern Iraq against the Islamic State group. According to his Silver Star citation, Keating was honored for his role in assisting U.S. and Peshmerga forces on March 4 fending off 100 Islamic State fighters.
The Army general who heads the D.C. National Guard and has an integral part in overseeing the inauguration said Friday that he will be removed from command effective at 12:01 p.m. Jan. 20, just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the middle of the presidential ceremony — classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.
“The timing is extremely unusual,” Schwartz said in an interview Friday morning, confirming a memo announcing his ouster that was obtained by The Washington Post. During the inauguration, Schwartz will command not only members of the D.C. Guard but also 5,000 unarmed troops dispatched from across the country to help. He also will oversee military air support protecting Washington during the inauguration…
…Two military officials with knowledge of the situation said the Trump team decided to accept the resignation. A person close to the transition said transition officials wanted to keep Schwartz in the job for continuity, but the Army pushed to replace him.
Troopers say a man is being evaluated at a Pittsburgh hospital after he crashed his car into a Connellsville house and ran down a highway, naked, afterward.
The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, is accused of crashing into the home along Route 119 near the city of Connellsville border with Dunbar Township. It happened around 8 a.m. on Friday.
Witnesses said the man stripped naked as he ran down Route 119. State troopers stopped him in the parking lot of Excursions Salon. Investigators said he punched a trooper and told them that his name was Jesus Christ.
The suspect was taken to Highlands Hospital and later transferred to Allegheny General Hospital for evaluation and treatment. Troopers said he will be charged.
That’s it. Looking forward to next week’s roundup, after all the riots and violence have taken place during the inauguration. Can’t wait, actually.
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