Showing posts with label The roles of men and women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The roles of men and women. Show all posts

Monday, June 9, 2025

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Pretty effective 1970s vintage Army recruiting poster seeking female recruits.

There's been some interesting signs of things to come recently, including where Hegseth is headed on women in the military, and where Trump's close acolytes are headed in regard to his increasing mental decline.

Interesting times.

We'll start with Hegseth.

As anyone who stops in here is well aware, I'm not a Trump fan.  I'm conservative, actually conservative, but I'm not lockstep in line with anyone.  Frankly, anyone who is, just isn't thinking.  Anyhow, The Trump regime is not conservative but populist, and populist in the same way that gave rise to fascism in various European nations in the 30s, or to Communism to others in the teens and twenties.  But I can see how we got here and indeed I'd been warning about this for some time before it happened.  As readers here know, once Obergefell was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court I feared a political breakdown was inevitable.I also thought that claims made at the time that Obergefell wouldn't lead to a more radical development in the category of gender norms were badly misguided, and I was proved correct about that.  The country was headed toward acceptance of homosexual unions as marriages, irrespective of what social conservatives may think of that, but Justice Kennedy and his fellow travelers hijacking the trend line without any real legal weight behind it jump started the country right into the transgender movement which helped radicalize an already radicalizing populist base in the right wing of the GOP.2 

Women in combat roles in the US came the following year, 2016, and was controversial at the time and remains so in social conservative   I recently posted on it, and I remain very much opposed to it.   While I'm not a fan of Hegseth, he's on record as opposing it as well.

Some time ago Hegseth ordered that the service review its physical fitness standards on a gender neutral basis.This isn't really the first time that this has been done and the results can probably be predicted.

Indeed, they can be predicted in part due to the experiences of women in sports competing with men who are surgically and chemically altered to female morphologies, but more on that in a moment.

At the time, I thought that was probably step one towards removing women from combat roles.

Then Hegseth came out with a tweet (I wish government officials would stay off Twitter) endorsing a story in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The article was this one:


Hegseth, in his comment, noted the problems of women in combat roles, although only briefly and vaguely.

Like a lot of things repeated on Twitter, the Tweet falls sort of teh full story:

IDF chief halts mobility unit pilot program for female combat troops

The IDF is just suspending the study and will get back to a new one.

Before all of this, Hegseth ordered that "transgendered" troops leave the service.  That was probably the least controversial thing he could do, and it makes perfect sense.  Gender Dysphoria may exist, but transgenderism does not.  Moreover, if you have to take medication just to keep your morphology, you really aren't ready for the rigors of military life.

Transgenderism in general, which will also get to below, is really a manifestation of, in my view, a mental illness.  It's a trendy one, however, and is part of the culture wars which gave rise to a radicalized far right, and then to Trump.

Ordering that "transgendered" troops get out of the service is one thing, but then there's this:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 85th Edition: Hegseth directs Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk days into Pride Month.

This isn't related to women in combat, but it's certainly a shot in the culture wars and a surprising one.  With the constant storm surrounding the Trump Regime, it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as I thought it would, and that may have been why it was done.  Running that up the flagpole may have been a test by Hegseth to see how much flak he'll get if he orders women out of combat roles.

I suspect it was.

And I suspect that its coming very soon.

Indeed, it has to be soon.

And hence our next prediction.

People have predicted that Trump is running out of steam since day one, but now it appears he really is.  In the old phrase, Trump has "jumped the shark".  Indeed, there's an odd maxim that once something has maximum attention in the public eye, it's probably passed its peak.

There's a lot of evidence of this around, and it makes a big difference to what Hegseth, and others in the Trump Administration, depending upon how savvy they are to trends, are behaving.

Trump is increasingly erratic and weird.  He's also becoming increasingly ineffective.  Having done a lot early on in a flurry of Executive Orders, the Courts, save for the Supreme Court, so far, are effectively saying "hold on Buckwheat" and stopping much of what he's done.  The entire goofball DOGE effort is the same.  Indeed, at least one minor agency is being reconstructed, amazingly, after Musk and his wrecking crew attacked it.4  Indeed, DOGE achieved a mess, but that's about it.  Bill Clinton's effort to cut the size of the government, which lead to a surplus in its day, was much more effective.  

Now the wheels are coming off.  Musk is feuding with Trump.  The Senate may not pass the Big Ugly Bill, at least not in the form the sycophantic House did.  Questions are being razed.

Trump is being publicly mocked as "Taco".

The bloom is off the rose, Trump's authority is declining, and the looming 25th Amendment is getting warmed up.

Have you noticed that  James Donald Bowman, aka J. D. Vance, whom we heard from constantly early on, is now pretty much silent.  That's not an accident.  Vance will take over when Trump is booted, and my guess that he doesn't want to be tainted with Trump any more than he has to be.  He's gone from insulting Ukrainian Presidents for not wearing suits, to just not being there.

Which brings this back around to women in the military, and other social issues.  National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist rode into power on Trump's back as they knew that they could.  They also know, however, that they need time to completely overhaul the nation to look like they want it to, and 18 months, all the more time I've given Trump before he is hauled off to an assisted living wing of Mar A Lago, isn't enough.  Four years isn't either, and frankly the Democrats are going to retake the House of Representatives nexts year.  If Vance doesn't secure reelection after this administration is done with, much of what the National Conservatives/Christian Nationalist did during their four years will just be dust in the wind.

In order for anything to stick, it has to be done quickly, so that the electorate is acclimated to it by 2028, or there has to be a plan to stay in power in 2028.  My guess that Vance's disappearing act is part of that.

I fear what else may be.5

Back to some rambling.

As is often the case, a certain element of synchronicity tends to work on these posts, with various things coming up with that cause the thread to be posted.  Just as I started contemplating the women in combat topic, again, a couple of such things did which are related.

I subscribe to Mandatory Fun Day on Instagram.  A buddy of mine who had been in the service sent me some of his clips and they're hilarious, if you've been in the Army.  If you haven't, they're probably completely baffling.

Anyhow, as I subscribe on Instagram, they started coming up on Facebook as "reels".  No problem.  The fact that they did, however, meant that I'd get suggested reels by other service members following in the creator's wake.  They were uniformly pretty bad.

All of a sudden, having not taken interest in those, Facebook started suggesting reels by female service members, a large number of which are service women in their t-shirts being cute in a college coed fashion, or worse.  Dancing female soldiers show up, and even twerking ones.  Women showing how they dress in their uniforms, starting with pretty much only skivvies on, is another.  Perhaps the one most illustrative of why I regard this all a problem was one in which a female soldier photographed herself in GI trousers, and regulation brown t-shirt, showing "how I feel when I see my man in uniform", which involved clutching her breasts and and having her free hand south of her fly.

And all of this is observable just on the suggested feed, not on what shows up if you click on it.

One I did click on, as it was so oddly titled, involved a cute young woman making babyish "moo" sounds, in an item entitled "she found her moo".  The voice of the filmer was also female.  Apparently the moo thing is some sort internet trend.

Anyhow, relationships, and you can use your imagination as to what I mean by that, are a problem in college dorms where nobody is expected to kill anyone. They've been a huge problem in the service, and the Marine Corps had to take steps some time ago to order female Marines to knock off seductive filming, some of which featured female Marines nude.  Young women acting like young women away from home and in college dorms isn't surprising, but it sure isn't conductive to unit cohesiveness in organizations in which death and destruction is a routine norm.  

Put another way, the "man" whom the young woman touching body parts which used to be referenced in the Jody Call "The Prettiest Girl I Ever Saw" is going to be a problem in any unit, let alone one in which a soldier may be expected to leave her behind to be killed.7

Moo.

Anyhow, while noting all of this, I also saw a series of stories recently about women being upset by having to compete against men, who are "transgendered".  Also, UW is now being investigated due to Artemis Langford being in a sorority, at the same time that sorority sisters are trying to keep him out.

That caused me to realize how often its women who lead the charge in this are. Women know they are women and they justifiably feel that in sports they shouldn't have to compete against men.  And they aren't the only ones. An international body that regulates boxing has imposed genetic tests on female boxers to make sure they're female.

The reason for all of this is that even second rate male athletes turn out to be almost unstoppable competition in female sports, when they compete as transgendered.  Women resent it, and rightfully.

But oddly enough society hasn't seemingly noted something that Hemingway noted many years ago.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not saying that war is nice. Quite the contrary.  But in some ways its the ultimate athletic endeavor, even now in the era of high tech weapons. And let us be honest  Killing is part of it, but there's never been a conflict anywhere in the world where brutalization and rape haven't been part of it, nor has there ever been one in which some women took advantage of their assets in a wartime pinch.

Women don't belong in combat.

Let's go back to the plight of the UW sorority for a second.

The entire saga here shows how difficult it can be for public institutions in this bizarre era in which we live.  It's obvious that a male should not be in a sorority, and Langford may dress as a female and wish to be regarded as one, but at least the last time I checked on the story, he hadn't "transitioned", which means he's full equipped.  There's no reason that a young woman should be forced to live in close residential confines with a man if she doesn't wish to.

The other sad aspect of this is that this entire saga, in which they've sued, and I don't blame them, and now the Trump Administration is investigating UW, means that his entire delusion has become his identity, when had this been treated as what it was, a mental illness, it might all be past tense by now.  Indeed, just looking it would suggest that it might very well have been.8

Anyhow, stuff like this puts universities in the can't win for losing situation.  Charlie Kirk, a right wing populist babbler, has made comments on Langford, and a right wing populist law student just sponsored him talking on campus.

Pity poor UW.

Back to Hegseth t he White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support him, but there's been no takers.

Again, this Administration has shot its bolt, and its showing.

On other things military, we have this:

June 8, 2025

US Civil Unrest

Donald Trump has federalized some units of the California National Guard and ordered them to Los Angeles in response to violent immigration protests there.

A President federalizing a Guard unit ab initio like this is very unusual.

Some are declaring that this is a first step towards nationwide martial law.  I doubt it.  It's a bad move however.  Troops, including National Guardsmen, make poor police.  They really aren't trained for it, but are trained to use force.

Usually troops, including National Guardsmen, who are deployed in this role aren't given ammunition.  The opposite can happen, of course, as Kent State famously and tragically indicated.  This is a bad look, anyway you view it.

To circle back, how much of what we're seeing now, will stick?  Trump's really on his way out, and it's doubtful the culture has been much impacted, so far.

Footnotes: 

1.  This thread has been getting a lot of views for some reason recently, and is often one of the most popular ones of the week.

2.  Kennedy provides us with another example of the disaster of the very aged being in a position of authority.

3.  The order states:

High standards are what made the United States military the greatest fighting force on the planet. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. We are made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards.

I am directing the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards. The USD(P&R) will conduct a review of these standards and how they have changed since January 1, 2015 . The review will also provide insight on why those standards changed and the impact of those changes. The USD(P&R) has the authority to task the Secretaries of the Military Departments and other DoD Component heads as necessary to provide any required information in support of this review and will provide detailed guidance to the Military Departments.

We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world' s most lethal and effective fighting force. Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards.

4.  None of which has kept the perpetually behind the curve Wyoming legislature from heading off with its own DOGE effort, just as the  Federal effort is sinking. 

5.  Having said that, by any standard Vance will be more normal than Trump, which doesn't mean he will get reelected in 2028.  

6. They must be banned now, but the Army used to have a lot of Jody Calls that were outright foul, but probably serve to illustrate the atmosphere that units of young men tend to have, for good or ill.  In this call, a solder recalls drinking in a bar and touching a woman next to him in various place until she says "GI, you know the rest", resulting in his now having a bunch of children.

7.  As a totally random item:

As more women head to war, IDF uniforms designed for men expose female troops to risks

The army’s one-uniform-fits-all approach means a fifth of combat soldiers are operating in clothes, vests and other gear unsuited to their physiques, harming safety and effectiveness

8.  I don't know all the details, but from what little you can pick up on the net, Langford's parents seem to have gone through a bad divorce and his father obtained custody.  Langford relates that he solidified his view of himself as a woman following a desperate nighttime prayer.  He was a Mormon, and while many faiths recognize praying for guidance, the Mormon faith has a "burning bosom" line of thought on some things.  The LDS are not, however, supportive of transgenderism, which is interesting, and Langford now identifies as an Episcopalian. Some branches of the Episcopal church have been notoriously willing to accept gender trends, which is part of the reason that the Episcopal Church is rapidly declining in membership.

Related threads:

Women and combat


Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 87th Edition. No, "Liberals" are not flocking to Musk.

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Tuesday, May 20, 1975. Seas of blood.

The Khmer Rouge began to purge Cambodians associated with the former government, a move that would feature mass execution.

This is commonly viewed as the beginning of the Cambodian Genocide.

The House of Representatives voted 303-96 to admit women to the previously all-male service academies.   The move was quite controversial at the time.


The Senate would follow suit, with the first women entering the academies in the summer of 1976.

The final episode of the police series Adam-12 was broadcast.


The series had run for 12 years, and in many ways formed the concept for those raised in the 60s, and even the 70s, as to what being a policeman was all about.  Much more gritty television police dramas, and even comedies, would come in during the 70s and change much of that view.

Last episode.

Monday, May 19, 1975. Executive Order 11860—Establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Movies In History, The Six Triple Eight.

This will be the third time I've tried to publish this review. The prior two times it outright disappeared.

Uff.

The 6888 on parade in honor of Joan d'Arc.

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion is a unique U.S. Army unit that served in Europe during World War Two.  Deployed in February, 1945, the unit was tasked with straightening out a massive mail backlog in the ETO, and by all accounts did yeoman's work doing it.  The unit was all female, and all black, including its officers the only such unit to be deployed to Europe during the war.  The unit not too surprisingly encountered racist opposition, which is a large part of the theme of the film.

The film is quite well done, featuring dramatizations of real characters for the most part.  The story, as noted, is dramatized, but with one exception, it does not depart massively from the actual events. The sole exception is a romance between a  rich white Jewish young man and one of the black female characters, before they join the service, which seems to take place in the American South, and which features a desegregated high school.  Desegregated high schools would not have existed in the South, making this an odd error, and while such a romance could have occurred, it would not have taken place more or less openly as depicted.

Material details are very well done, including the depiction of M1943 Field Jacket Liners in use as jackets, which did occur but which is rarely depicted in film.  Indeed, I can't recall it ever being depicted in another film.

Well worth seeing.

Monday, April 13, 1925. Renewed Riffian War, Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Abd el-Krim of the Riffians attacked French forces in Morocco renewing the Riffian War.


Newfoundland granted women the right to vote.  It was not yet part of Canada.

Ford Air Transport Service, the first dedicated cargo airline, began operations with a Stout 2-AT Pullman airplane transporting 1,000 pounds of freight from Detroit to Chicago.

The Larry Semon-directed version of the film The Wizard of Oz was released. Semon himself starred as the Scarecrow, Dorothy Dwan as Dorothy, and comedian Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man.

Last edition:

Easter Sunday, April 12, 1925. Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy (Pyotr Fyodorovich Polyansky) installed as the Patriarch of Moscow.

Saturday, April 12, 2025

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 82nd Edition. The This Is Your Economy On Dementia Edition.

Substitute brain for economy, and drugs for dementia, and you get a picture of what might very well be going on with the administration of the United States right now.

Is Trump Insane?

As Donald Trump’s tariff plan slams the stock market, investors are beginning to wonder if the president doesn’t have some broader economic agenda—but rather if he’s just mentally ill.

As Donald Trump’s tariff plan slams the stock market, investors are beginning to wonder if the president doesn’t have some broader economic agenda—but rather if he’s just mentally ill.

“In the last few days, we have had many conversations with macro fund managers,” wrote Tom Lee, the head of research at the financial analysis firm FSInsights.

“And their concern is that the White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. And some even fear that this may not even be ideology,” Lee continued. “A few have quietly wondered if the President might be insane.”

The New Republic.

They're just asking this now?  Some of us have been stating that Trump is probably demented for a long time.

This is a serious, not a rhetorical, question.

Some psychologist have looked at his behavior and said no, others, have said a definite yes.  For instance, an April 1, 2025 interview of Dr. John Gartner states the following, and accuses the press of "sanewashing" Trump:

He is losing his capacity for coherent speech. We’ve collected dozens and dozens of Trump’s phonemic paraphrasias, in which you use sounds in place of an actual word  (a hallmark of brain damage and dementia).  What happens is that someone is trying to say a word and then they get the first part out but they have to end it or create one because they can’t remember the rest. Trump will say something like ‘mishiz’ for missiles, or “Chrishus” for Christmas, because he can’t complete the word. Then we see also a lot of semantic paraphrasias, in which he uses a word incorrectly, as in “the oranges of the situation” because it rhymes with “the origins of the situation.” This is not within normal limits; his basic ability to use language is breaking down.

So there is that verbal deterioration. And then there is the physical deterioration. He used to be quite graceful, and now he uses a wide-based gait typical of frontotemporal dementia, sometimes he swings his right leg in a semi-circle. He also has trouble getting up the ramp; he has trouble doing physical things.

The other way we see deterioration is in his behavior. Actually, this is where people say, ‘Well, how can you tell? He’s a bad person; he breaks every rule of law and decency, what is new?’ But he is much more impulsive and erratic now. He blurts things out; he makes impulsive decisions that he has to then reverse, like his many reversals on tariffs.

‘The Press Has Sanewashed Trump’s Dementia and Mental Illness’: Dr. John Gartner by Diana Hembree

I think there's a lot to this, and have for some time.  I don't think he's a well man. The amazing thing is that there are an army of people backing him up.  Gartner notes some are doing so for their own purposes:

Now people may think that because Donald Trump is demented that he won’t be very effective in his agenda. But the problem is he has the whole Project 2025 team behind him, led by Russell Voight. And he’s got Elon Musk, who is a mental health study in and of himself. Musk is on the spectrum; like Trump, he is hypomanic, and like Trump, he is clearly also a sociopath. He feels no remorse in inflicting pain on people; in fact, he feels a sense of glee and mastery in doing it. He was joking about using a chainsaw (to cut federal jobs), holding one up and laughing about it. He’s taking away the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He’s a monster, just as Trump is a monster, and Trump attracts monsters. Now we have a real Trump problem, because we now have a whole government that is populated by people who have some version of his personality disorder.

‘The Press Has Sanewashed Trump’s Dementia and Mental Illness’: Dr. John Gartner by Diana Hembree.

Okay, that's pretty extreme, but that doesn't mean that he's incorrect on Trump. . . and Musk.

Some related threads on this one:

We should worry.



And there's plenty of evidence of this.  Consider this statement when the Dodgers recently visited the White House:
When you ran out of healthy arms, you ran out of really healthy, you had great arms, but they ran out, it’s called sports, it’s called baseball in particular, and pitchers I guess you could say in really particular.

Donald Trump

What the f***? 

Or this, about the Great Lakes, this past week:

I assume the lakes are all interconnected.

Or this, earlier this month, on groceries.

 An old-fashioned term that we use – groceries. I used it on the campaign. It's such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in it.

The last two comments are monumentally stupid.

By the way, if Trump is demented, this will get worse.  His dementia will get worse, and his erratic behavior will get worse.  His meanness will likely get worse, and its already pretty evident.

And I say this as a person who has witnessed the onset and advance of frontotemporal dementia in a person up close, and personal.  Let's take a look at the symptoms, according to Mayo, keeping in mind they advance over time:

The most common symptoms of frontotemporal dementia involve extreme changes in behavior and personality. These include:

  • Increasingly inappropriate social behavior.
  • Loss of empathy and other interpersonal skills. For example, not being sensitive to another person's feelings.
  • Lack of judgment.
  • Loss of inhibition.
  • Lack of interest, also known as apathy. Apathy can be mistaken for depression.
  • Compulsive behaviors such as tapping, clapping, or smacking lips over and over.
  • A decline in personal hygiene.
  • Changes in eating habits. People with FTD typically overeat or prefer to eat sweets and carbohydrates.
  • Eating objects.
  • Compulsively wanting to put things in the mouth.

Speech and language symptoms

Some subtypes of frontotemporal dementia lead to changes in language ability or loss of speech. Subtypes include primary progressive aphasia, semantic dementia and progressive agrammatic aphasia, also known as progressive nonfluent aphasia.

These conditions can cause:

  • Increasing trouble using and understanding written and spoken language. People with FTD may not be able to find the right word to use in speech.
  • Trouble naming things. People with FTD may replace a specific word with a more general word, such as using "it" for pen.
  • No longer knowing word meanings.
  • Having hesitant speech that may sound telegraphic by using simple, two-word sentences.
  • Making mistakes in sentence building.

Movement conditions

Rare subtypes of frontotemporal dementia cause movements similar to those seen in Parkinson's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Movement symptoms may include:

  • Tremor.
  • Rigidity.
  • Muscle spasms or twitches.
  • Poor coordination.
  • Trouble swallowing.
  • Muscle weakness.
  • Inappropriate laughing or crying.
  • Falls or trouble walking.
For a man in command of the world's most powerful Army and Air Force, and second largest Navy, this should be a matter of grave concern for everyone.

What were you thinking?

That's what those who voted against Trump have been wondering about those who voted for him.  New stats on this, however, suggest that many rank and file Trump voters now are at the point that they understand why those who voted against Trump wonder that. They're wondering a bit themselves.

In spite of the embarrassing spectacle of Trump apologist struggling to keep up with his meandering and dangerous policies from day to day, most Trump voters didn't vote for anything like what we're seeing.  They simply discounted the warnings.

Is White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stupid?


There's a fair number of people who are asking this question.

She is a college graduate, but she comes across as a somebody who obtained her position for her looks.  It's embarrassing.

As a co religious of mine, she's embarrassing.  Married to somebody 32 years her senior (that's odd) and who lies without hesitation, which is sinful, she also comes across as simply dumb.

Catholics, who fit into a group that a lot of "Evangelical Christians" of the type Trump supports that, while being the first Christians, aren't regarded by the latter as Christians, are, I'm convinced, really going to come out with the short end of the stick the longer the Trump Administration lasts and the association of a certain brand of  Christianity, which they aren't part of, with Trump, is going to hurt Christianity in the US overall.

No Female Four Stars


There are 27 four star officers in the U.S. military, including two in the Space Farce.*

Not one of them is a woman.

It hasn't been really noticed, but with dismissals in the Trump administration, they're all gone.

I doubt this is an accident.

Now, this is where I'm probably legitimately a target for the charge of hypocrisy, as I don't feel that women should serve in combat.** I don't object to them being in the service, however.

Now, a person could, an d rightfully, point out, that if women can't serve in combat, it'd be difficult for them to obtain a combat command, and that would be true. . . except history has demonstrated the opposite.

Dwight Eisenhower never had a combat command. Neither did George Marshall.  And the Coast Guard arguably has no combat commands, although a person could argue that.  The Space Farce very clearly has no combat commands and there's no earthly reason whatsoever that the various occupations occupied by their junior birdmen couldn't be occupied by either sex equally well.

Indeed, the dirty little secret of the US military is that at some point after World War One, and before World War Two, most occupations in the military are in fact non combat roles.

And speaking of the Space Farce. . . 

Getting fired for being sane.

U.S. Space Force Col. Susan Meyers, 821st Space Base Group, noted her support for Denmark after J. D. Vance visited her base and got canned immediately thereafter.  She noted that her base in Greenland proudly flew the US and Danish flags.

For Release

Published April 10, 2025

By Space Operations Command Public Affairs

Pituffik Space Base, Greenland --  Colonel Susannah Meyers, commander of Pituffik Space Base was removed from command by Colonel Kenneth Klock, commander of Space Base Delta 1, on April 10, 2025 for loss of confidence in her ability to lead. 

Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.

Colonel Shawn Lee has assumed command.

Col. Meyers may be the first serving officer to publicly criticize the Trump administrations per World War One colonialist views.  She surely knew she'd be relieved and fell on her sword.  Good for her.

J. D. Vance seems to have something against Europeans.  He may really be a hillbilly.  Whatever it is, in spite of being very well educated, he just doesn't seem to like them, which may be proof that you can take the hillbilly out of Appalachia, but you can't take the Appalachia out of the hillbilly, even if he is from Ohio.

I just can't see how this is a good thing.

Degenfelder Cheers Dismantling of U.S. Dept. Of Education At White House Signing Ceremony

Wyoming Superintendent of Education Megan Degenfelder was in attendance.  Governor Gordon begged off, saying he had other things to do.  

Maybe he did, or maybe he just didn't want to be associated with this populist bad idea.

Trump, in signing the executive order, stated; "“We want education to come back to them — to come back to the states — and they’re going to do a phenomenal job".  Yeah, well clearly they aren't all doing a phenomenal job now, and they're already in charge of education.  Frankly, tha'ts a pretty uneducated statement, but then its not like Donny or his family have every had to depend on public education.

The Wyoming Education Association, which is made up of teachers, was less thrilled.

“The Wyoming Education Association stands in strong opposition to the dismantling of the Department of Education (DOE),” 

Wyoming's Secretary of Education stated:

“It’s just a truly momentous and historic day for education in America, and it’s a win for American students,” said Degenfelder. “We’re taking out the middle man in education, putting education back where it belongs — in the classroom and not in D.C. offices.”

Degenfelder ran in the last election against Sergio Maldonado.  I voted for Maldonado who is a Native Wyomingite and Native American.  He's also a professional teacher, which Degenfelder is not, who is a graduate of BYU and Arizona State University. While he's no spring chicken, he's a doctoral candidate at the University of Wyoming.  He had served during the Bush Administration as a member of the National Advisory Council on Indian Education.

He's also a Democrat.

Footnotes:

*What the crap?

**

Women and combat



Related threads: