Let's get some facts straight...

This is in response to Ms. Conditt's Nov 5 posting
I’m going to go ahead and go down this list point by point.

1) The Affordable Care Act was passed by congress. So if there is a legitimate issue with the content of the law that you have, take it up with the members of congress who had plenty of opportunity (and did) to amend the bill. Now, you might saw that Republicans didn’t vote to support the bill. Then I would counter with why don’t Republicans have more constituents in Congress? It’s because the American people didn’t vote to put them there. So if Republicans have an issue with laws getting passed, they are more than welcome to get more of themselves elected to stop bills they see as unfit. Although I don’t see that happening any time soon after the landslide victory Obama won in 2012.

2) You say he humiliated the US by sending a delegation to Chavez’s funeral and not to Margaret Thatcher’s. I would say to you that you are categorically wrong that we didn’t send a delegation, and I can even go as far as to give you their names: George Shultz and Jim Baker (both former Secretaries of State) along with their staff. So right away your facts are inaccurate. And sending a delegation to Venezuela isn’t a bad move in my opinion. With the death of a dictator, America has a unique chance to reset relations with a South American power (who also happens to have a crap ton of oil). What better than to turn an enemy into a friend?
            a) the Great Depression
            b) Segregation and civil rights
            c) the Vietnam War
            d) the LA riots (Rodney King)
            e) Post 9/11 racism (yes people actually died from that)
And those are just a few of the more pertinent examples. Because to imply that everything was a rose garden from the 1800’s until now just doesn’t make any sense.

4) According to a September 26, 2011 article in Politico, President Obama did use the term "Shovel Ready Jobs" in a plan to fund $50 billion in improvements to highways, transit systems, railways and aviation. The idea was to put Americans back to work by construction upgrades to 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of train tracks, 150 miles of airport runways and the nation’s air traffic control system. Political According to a September 26, 2011 article in Politico, President Obama did use the term "Shovel Ready Jobs" in a plan to fund $50 billion in improvements to highways, transit systems, railways and aviation. The idea was to put Americans back to work by construction upgrades to 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of train tracks, 150 miles of airport runways and the nation’s air traffic control system. Political reported that experts did not see the jobs being as shovel ready as one would think as "A tremendous amount of money and time is needed to get a project through a detailed design process, permitting, environmental hurdles, public hearings and land acquisition." So what they’re saying is that some leg work needed to be done before everything would be good to go. Which if you’ve ever seen a government program happen, is kind of a no brainer.

5) What exactly has the President done to limit your ability to worship as you see fit? Last I checked, I can still go worship the family of squirrels that live in my front yard and nobody is going to arrest me for it. I think what you’re more likely referring to is his attempts to remove religious influence from government; which is a good thing. You can find examples of almost every founding father being categorically against organized religion holding political power. You can go to the Library of Congress and read their letters for yourself if you’re so inclined!

I tried to get to the last one, but I don’t have the space. Long story short, look up William G. Harding (29^th president, republican). THAT is an example of the most corrupt President in US History.

#endrant

Intelligence...

It almost seems like a buzzword these days. You see it on the news every night and you see it in video games. Hell, even CNN now has a section called "Security Clearance". Filled in these musings are feelings of mistrust, conspiracy, and anger. Perhaps that's drives traitors like Edward Snowden to end up where they are now?

As the "leaks" continue to come out of a stolen laptop that currently sits in Moscow, one really has to ask themselves what really is a play here. As of this week, the newest "leak" was that supposedly the NSA was watching American citizens on the popular game "World Of Warcraft". Now lets seriously ask ourselves what the more likely scenario is... The government is spending millions and millions of dollars to covertly watch you level up your Elf Wizard? Or is Snowden simply trying to rile support from an uninformed and easily provoked public? He and a lot of the media would have you believe that the government is paying a small army of people to watch your every move. To which I would ask: Are you really that important? Personally, I think it's a little self centered for folks to think that Uncle Sam spends billions of dollars to know what you're texting someone or what you said on the phone. Isn't it more likely to assume that there are bad guys within our borders that use the same kinds of things you do? Or do we really think that international terrorists, drug smugglers, and other nefarious people just come into the US and not use any of our technology? What the American public fails to understand (though their own lack of motivation to find out) is that all of these supposed "outrages" are all presided over by federal judges and by members of congress. So the idea that Intelligence organizations just run around without a leash on is just flat out WRONG.

As someone who has actually been there and worked in the Intelligence field, I can honestly say that there are REALLY good people that work in that field that take personal privacy very seriously. And the ones that don't are escorted out very quickly. American's need to realize that these people aren't just government drones but their own family members, neighbors, and friends, that work long hours with little thanks to help keep America safe and one step ahead of its adversaries. Traitors like Edward Snowden would have you believe otherwise; but it's hard to take a person who stole something from the American people, traveled to our 2 biggest global adversaries, and suddenly has a nice new house in Moscow, at his word...

This is a response to Ms. Figueroa's blog on sexual assault in the military. The post can be found here!

This response is for Blog Stage 8.

While I think your heart is in the right place, your severe distrust of Military Justice is unfounded. Also, your status as a civilian unfairly limits your knowledge about how the military actually treats this issue outside of what you see on the news. It’s not directly your fault, but it still disables you from knowing all of the facts.

My first bone to pick is with the statement “Women are more likely to be sexually assaulted than to die in combat”. To which my answer (sorry to say) is “no shit”. Women are going to be statistically likely to do just about anything more than die in combat because THEY ARE NOT ASSIGNED TO COMBAT ROLES. Women servicemen can serve in combat zones sure, but they are not assigned to direct combat roles. IE they are not on the front lines fighting people. Do they end up getting shot at sometimes? Sure. But that doesn’t mean they do the same amount of fighting as their male counterparts. So I could also say “Women are more likely to get called a bad name than to die in combat” and it would be equally as true as the statement you cited.

My second issue is with the idea that women that have legitimate issues have to “stay silent”. That is categorically false. They have a myriad of options to report a sexual assault. One would be to come right out and accuse another member, in which a very serious investigation would result. If that investigation was carried out by her command and she feels there is a conflict of interests, she can request her respective service Internal Investigations to conduct one (they are biased since they don’t answer to her chain of command). But say she didn’t want to go through all that and let everyone know what happened to her; there’s something for that too! It’s call a “Restricted Report”. The only people that will know about what happened are the Sexual Assault coordinator, the Commanding Officer, and any medical staff the service member requests for help from. Other than that, nobody else knows. And if at any time she decides to go forward and press and investigation, she can go ahead and do so.

The idea that the DoD takes this issue lightly is absolutely not true. For example, we receive quarterly (every 3 months) training on sexual assault that consists of a (yes I’m serious) 4 hour power point presentation, followed by group discussions and ending with the leadership talking about it with everyone in the command. It literally takes an entire day to complete this evolution and document it all. So over the course of a year, that’s 16 hours of power points, and probably another 6 hours of discussions and speeches, ending us with about 22 hours a year worth of Sexual Assault training… I challenge you to find a civilian organization that does more than that. I highly doubt you’ll find one.

Broken Military Justice?

Is our military justice system broken? A recent opinion article in the New York Times suggests that the military services are suffering from a serious conflict of interests when it comes to trying cases in military court; especially those cases concerning rape.

A little background in military justice:
A small infraction of regulations can land one with something as simple as getting yelled at by a superior or up to actually putting a reprimand on paper; which for most work place violations is enough. Moving up the chain in terms of severity you can land yourself in what's called a Non-Judicial Punishment (Better known as NJP or to us Navy folks, Captains Mast). An NJP or Captains Mast is when the Commanding Officer and his junior officers have found sufficient evidence of a more serious rule infraction and the Commanding Officer can award that member things like reduction in pay, reduction in rank, or even time in the Brig.
But for the most serious of offenses, what civilian courts would consider felonies, we have Court-Martial. A Court Martial is the military's version of a trail, but it is conducted by a military chain-of-command and the lawyers are military officers. All offenders are charged using the military's book of law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (or UCMJ for short). Every single member of the armed forces is subject to the UCMJ at all times.

Not all Commanding Officers have the authority to convene a Court Martial, but the ones that do face a conflict of interest when trying a subordinate, according to the articles author(s). The authors claim that a victim who's trail is tried directly by their own chain-of-command has no chance of getting a fair trail because the Commanding Officer has direct control over the outcome. Therefore, if the case or a certain outcome would look bad upon himself or the command, the Commanding Officer could issue a certain decision whether or not it would actually be in the best interests of the victim. The authors point to a new bill that is being presented by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) that would change how military proceedings happen, especially in cases of rape or sexual assault.  The biggest change this bill would bring would be removing Commanders with "built in conflicts of interest" and give the decision making authority to "independent and professionally trained military prosecutors"

The authors, the "Editorial Board", make a good point. Commanding Officers who have to make those decisions face an inherent conflict of interest when presented with these situations. On the other hand, not a single one of the authors have ever served a day in uniform (according to their provided bios). By not having any actual military experience, they approach the situation from a purely civilian mindset. To me, this creates a serious issue. While I agree that Commanders have a conflict of interests in these situations, the processes we have in place were designed how they are for a reason. Say for instance a Court Martial was convened in a combat zone during wartime: should that Commander be forced to delay proceedings until one of these new independent officers arrive? I for one, think that's impractical. The authority to hold Court Martial's should not be removed from Commanders entirely. However, with the inherent conflict of interests that can arise in certain situations, some cases should be made mandatory to be presided over by an independent Officer who is removed from the outcome of the case. Things like rape and sexual assault would fall into that category. Sweeping regulation that would affect every Court Martial however, I feel goes to far and could interfere with a Commanders ability to maintain good order and discipline.

High-Level Meeting Set Between Kerry, Iranian Counterpart

Something interesting is happening in Washington and New York that hasn't happened in years. The Rouhani administration of Iran is set to possibly start serious negotiations with the US and other nations over their nuclear ambitions. A meeting between Secretary of State Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif could signal a thawing out of relations between the US and Iran after years of tension and rhetoric. This could be a major shift in relations between the two nations, as Rouhani signals that he wants to present a new face of Iran to the West. As a major player in Middle Eastern politics, it would be a huge victory for the US if we can get them in step with the rest of the international community on their nuclear program and other regionally significant issues.

Iran has been something of a thorn in the US's side ever since the Islamic revolution.  Between the embassy hostage crisis to mining the Straights of Hormuz, Iran has always been confrontational with the US. In turn, we spend quite a bit of federal time and money on the issue. By bringing our two nations closer together, we could help stabilize the Middle East and ease a lot of our political issues in the region both diplomatically and militarily.

Read the story on NPR here

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