Tag: military

Pandemic Second Opinion

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson’s aim, in moderating a panel discussion last week, was to provide, in his words, a “long-overdue second opinion” on the coronavirus pandemic. The senior senator from Wisconsin gathered a wide variety of experts who offered up a lot of information.

Included in the nearly five hours of material is some startling information — data derived from military personnel and their families.

You may remember that the current president has made the “vaccines” mandatory for the military. Well, Ohio attorney Thomas Renz “presented DOD medical billing data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) that paints a shockingly disturbing picture of the health of our service members in 2021,” writes Daniel Horowitz for Blaze.

What was found?

A massive 300% increase in DMED codes registered for miscarriages in the military
Cancer diagnoses: up nearly 300%
Diagnosis codes for neurological issues: up 1000%
Bell’s palsy: 291% increase
Female infertility: up 471%
Pulmonary embolisms: 467% increase
Congenital malformations: 156% rise

Now, these do not represent individual cases, but specific diagnoses, which can be multiple for each patient. Still: alarming.

And in case you might wonder about blaming COVID itself for some of these, consider the miscarriage rate: it was normal in 2020, before the vaccines, and it spiked in 2021, with the vaccines.

These rate increases were based on data going back five years prior to 2021.

While these issues need to be fully addressed, the sad truth is that approved, official government personnel and the pro-vax “expert” authorities declined to participate in the Wisconsin Republican’s hearing.

More evidence that the pandemic has become a partisan issue, with Democrats pushing the official narrative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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government transparency Popular

The Whys Behind the Whats

UFO, navy, flight, tracking, military, disclosure, secret, conspiracy,

“[H]ow quickly our differences worldwide would vanish,” said Ronald Reagan in 1987, “if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

Does that Reaganite talking point give us any hints about the current series of disclosures about Unidentified Flying Objects?

I noted the most recent story to hit mainstream news on Sunday, about members of the U.S. Senate being briefed on the many repeated Navy encounters around the world with Unexplained Aerial Phenomena — “UAP” being the current euphemism for “UFO.”

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the bulk of these news stories have been driven by a cadre of former government officials and contractors who have investigated UAP as part of a Pentagon research program. Now members of a non-profit educational corporation, they are on a mission to break the government-imposed silence and compartmentalized lock-up of knowledge about the phenomena.

This being America, the effort also has a History Channel tie-in.

But much of the buzz appears to be coming from outside that core group, some of it focusing on leaked documents relating to a 2002 meeting between a scientist and a Navy admiral. The subject matter includes a secret program studying actual, hangered examples of ultra-strange flying craft* kept deeply secret — even from current military command — in the corporate wing of the military-industrial complex.

A new threat to unite us all? Or just another excuse to throw taxpayer funds down the Pentagon/military-industrial complex rathole?

The ongoing UFO disclosure might be neither of these yet still not what it seems.

We should keep our minds open, but our suspicions set on high alert.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The technology in question, in this document as well as in the footage disclosed in 2017, purportedly does not use propellers, jets, or rockets to move extremely rapidly, change course immediately, and hover.

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national politics & policies Popular too much government

Seriously Not Serious

Trump, deficit, spending, military, cuts, budget

While one segment of the voting public regards President Donald Trump as a heaven-sent savior, a louder mob treats Trump as the Beast, a veritable Anti-Obama.

I am in neither tribe.

To me, Mr. Trump must be judged on what he does. Nominating Neil Gorsuch? A‑plus. But The Donald has also reneged on a number of important campaign promises, not the least being his pledge to “eliminate the national debt in eight years.”

Sure, it was never quite believable. But is this administration even making progress?

If all goes according to the new plan, “the country would run a deficit of $631 billion in 2025,” writes Eric Boehm. That is not much of an improvement over Barack Obama’s final-year deficit of $666 billion.

Boehm’s Reason article is titled “Trump’s Budget Would Add $7.9 Trillion to the National Debt Over the Next Decade,” which gives a serious picture of Trump’s under-performance.

Now, you could react to the news and just say “less than $8 trillion — could be worse!”

But by accepting such a high number, we set the bar awfully low. It just isn’t serious.

And speaking of frivolity, it is “hard to take the president’s calls for belt-tightening seriously,” Boehm writes, “when the cuts only apply to some parts of the federal budget.”

You can guess which part of government is being given a free pass. Trump’s team is attempting to hide something: “spending increases for the Pentagon.”

Now, if American foreign policy were not the incoherent mess it is, we might make excuses.

But it is.

Serious Americans would exempt no part of the budget from intense scrutiny.

And real cuts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency national politics & policies responsibility

Overkill, Not Parsimony

defense, defense spending, war, budget, military, protection

Two truths: national defense is a necessity; national defense is a racket.

The latter is the case because the former is the case. Big spenders rely on “better safe than sorry” to always push the envelope, over-investing rather than under-investing.

So, we are trapped — and our new president knows this. Before Trump ran for office, he said that sequestration cuts to the Pentagon budget had not gone far enough. But when he threw his hat into the ring, he promised to “make our military so big, so powerful, so strong that nobody — absolutely nobody — is going to mess with us.”

President Trump now proposes over fifty billion dollars in new defense spending. More soldiers, more ships, more fighter jets.

John Stossel argues that Americans are not necessarily suckers for this game. At least, a majority does not support increasing military spending.

More importantly, Stossel challenges the whole “overkill always” strategy. “America is going broke, and our military already spends almost $600 billion dollars [annually],” Stossel says. “That’s more than the next seven nations spend — combined.”

Now would be a good time to not only rethink Middle East policy, but to re-consider our expensive role as world policeman (speaking of “national” defense). During the campaign, Trump was criticized for questioning our alliances and demanding more of our allies. But he was right. I hope he’ll get tough in prodding our allies to ultimately provide their own defense.

Even more basic? Demand an audit of the Pentagon before new funds are thrown into the five-sided money pit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags budget, defense, defense spending, military, Pentagon, protection, war

general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies The Draft U.S. Constitution

Equal or Free?

draft, conscription, women, servitude, military, illustration

On Tuesday, the Senate voted to force American women, in their early years, to register for the draft.

Just like men have been required to do since 1980.

The White House threatens to veto the bill, though perhaps on other grounds, since the bill also, in the words of Richard Lardner (AP), “authorizes $602 billion in military spending, bars shuttering the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denies the Pentagon’s bid to start a new round of military base closings.”

The Senate’s social conservative ranks made the whole process leading up to the vote difficult for the mainliners, like Sen. John “Maverick” McCain, who is enthusiastic about registering women. Sen. Ted Cruz expressed alarm at the direction “sexual equality” is taking, and didn’t want to see “girls drafted onto the front lines.”

Decades ago, the Supreme Court had nixed a challenge to draft registration on discrimination lines, reasoning that since women weren’t allowed onto the front lines, there was no cause to force them to register for military conscription.

But now there are women in combat positions. So the old ruling no longer applies. If draft registration isn’t expanded to women, it’s likely to be struck down for men.

We have no draft, we are reminded, mere registration — which our government keeps in place mainly to remind men that they may be drafted.

In the House version of the bill, there’s no draft registration amendment. So there will be negotiations. Maybe a compromise can be reached where neither young men nor women face a military draft* or, likewise, signing up for one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* For more on why to oppose the draft, see my essay “The Draft Is Slavery” in J. Neil Schulman, The Rainbow Cadenza, pulpless.com edition (1999).

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Tags Congress, conscription, draft, draft registration, feminism, freedom, military

folly general freedom national politics & policies

Memorial Day Questions

Veterans and the political class, Obama, military, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, political, politics, blood

What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events … with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know … I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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