The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Trauma Queen: What Do We Know About Christine Blasey Ford?

Posted on | September 17, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

Did you know that “trigger warnings” are actually harmful? The trendy academic practice of alerting students to “problematic” material “reinforce the fear and compound anxiety.”

This information is highly relevant, I believe, to the claims surrounding the 11th-hour hit job on Brett Kavanaugh. We are expected to believe that the accuser, Professor Christine Ford, suffered emotional damage because she was groped by Kavanaugh at a 1982 party when they were both teenagers. The “evidence” of this alleged trauma is her therapist’s notes from when she and her husband were in couples therapy in 2012.

Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection is skeptical:

If this is a “repressed memory” case, then it changes everything against the accuser’s veracity — repressed memory is of highly questionable admissibility and credibility.

Exactly. Why would 30 years elapse before the accuser mentioned this incident to anyone? Beyond that, does it comport with our common-sense understanding of human behavior to think that the alleged incident, even if it happened exactly as it is now being described in news accounts, would be so traumatic as to be relevant to whatever marital problems Christine Ford and her husband were experiencing in 1982?

David French at National Review begins his analysis of the story by hyperventilating about how “beyond the pale” and “egregious” the alleged behavior is, only to conclude:

People who were at the party may come forward with their own accounts. The news cycle is moving so fast that it seems almost absurd to speculate about the state of our knowledge even 24 hours from now, but if this is the core evidence supporting the (very serious) claim against Kavanaugh, it’s not sufficient to derail the nomination of a man with an otherwise sterling record of professional excellence and personal integrity.

In other words, according to French, the accusation is serious, but the evidence is insufficient. Well, OK, but the issue of seriousness is related to the issue of sufficiency. However “egregious” it is for a drunk teenage preppy to grope a girl at a house party, isn’t such misbehavior common enough under such circumstances as to be predictable and routine to those who hang around drunk teenage preppies? Are predictable and routine occurrences “traumatic”?

Having spent my adolescence in the company of dopeheads, hoodlums and rednecks, maybe I’ve got a high threshold for trauma. None of my erstwhile hoodlum buddies has ever been nominated for the Supreme Court, of course, but Lithia Springs (Ga.) High School isn’t Georgetown Prep. Still, if young Christine Blasey made a habit of hanging out with hard-drinking preppies during her teen years, I doubt that this alleged encounter with a drunk Kavanaugh would have been so unusual as to still be a source of emotional suffering three decades later.

What we are being told is that Brett Kavanaugh, although now a widely respected federal judge, was a dangerous drunk as a teenager.

To quote Andrew Breitbart: “And . . .?”

Breitbart was always brilliant at answering ad hominem attacks that way. Somebody accuses you of being a racist: “And . . .?”

What’s your point? How is this relevant to the policy debate?

Rather than getting down in the tall grass to argue about the credibility of Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, we ought to think like Breitbart and reject the premise of the whole thing. Whether or not this alleged 1982 incident happened as described, how is it relevant to Judge Kavanaugh’s qualifications? This partisan hit-job is on a par with the way a 1976 DUI by George W. Bush resurfaced four days before Election Day in 2000.

Going back decades to dig up allegations from the distant past like this is not journalism, it’s character assassination and, in this case, the tactic involves a deliberate attempt to confuse us as to what the #MeToo crusade was supposed to be about. Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey — the allegation was not that these men had a one-time bad incident as drunk teenagers, but rather that they habitually and routinely engaged in predatory and abusive behavior as adults.

While the Democrats may have stockpiled other “bombshell” accusations to use against Judge Kavanaugh, so far no one has suggested that he had a pattern of sexual misconduct. He has categorically denied this accusation and many people have attested to his good character, so what are we to make of the accusation from Christine Blasey Ford?

It’s like how “trigger warnings,” which are supposed to protect the emotionally vulnerable from trauma, actually have the opposite effect, increasing students’ anxiety. Turns out, if you tell kids they’re going to experience “trauma” from reading about bad stuff, they might actually believe you, so that the prediction of trauma is self-fulfilling. Likewise, if you tell people their unhappiness as adults can be traced to traumatic experiences from their youth — which is what a lot of psychotherapists suggest — then you are inviting unhappy people to go digging around in their memories for some trauma to explain their current misery.

So in 2012, we are informed, an unhappy Christine Ford and her husband went to therapy together, and this story about Brett Kavanaugh (who was not named in the therapist’s notes, by the way) emerged as somehow explanatory of the problems affecting the Fords’ marriage. Isn’t that rather a far-fetched explanation? How does getting groped by a drunk preppy at a house party cause you marital problems 30 years later?

What was happening in 2012? Ask the right questions . . .



 

Category: Supreme Court

Rule 5 Sunday: Happy Birthday, Fan Bingbing,
Wherever You Are

Posted on | September 17, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing is probably best known to American audiences from her role as Blink in X-Men: Days Of Future Passed, but she’s yuge in Red China and elsewhere in the world, being one of the highest-paid actresses and celebrities in the last four years and widely recognized as a fashion icon. Unfortunately, she’s been completely out of the public eye since July, which may be related to rumors that she’s under investigation for tax evasion. Here’s hoping it turns out all right for her.

From the Chinese edition of Maxim

Ninety Miles From Tyranny leads off with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #377, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism is on the road again, but still made time to send in Rule 5 Why Socialism Fails Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL brings us Jewish girls for Rosh Hashanah, Shera Bechard, Mia Isabella, Florence is Coming!, Dori Myers, Florence Comes Ashore, Gemma Atkinson, and Maria Cucinotta.

A View From The Beach, also on the road, has Tatyana Brazhnyk, Free Swim Friday, Wet Shirt Thursday, Wednesday Morning In Indonesia, The Dating App For Internet Trolls, She Has A Way With Balls, and It’s Hard To Go Wrong With Kate Upton.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Jenny Slate, his Vintage Babe is Sally Todd, and Sex in Advertising is covered by Star Oil. At Dustbury, it’s Maria Bartiromo and Yuja Wang.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

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Amazon Fashion – Jewelry For Women

Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: A Day Late & A Dollar Short

Posted on | September 16, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Thanks to everyone who helped with my moving fund, either through GoFundMe or Paypal.

The Sad Lesson of a Former ‘Fame Whore’ (Or, Why Slut-Shaming Is a Good Thing)
357 Magnum
Whores & Ale
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Powers Of Two
The Pirate’s Cove
357 Magnum
EBL

Fame Whore Update: Relationship Expert Fails and Good-Bye, ‘Reasonable’ Man
357 Magnum
Dalrock
EBL

Who’s Crazy on Campus?
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: Happy Birthday, Kelsey Chow!
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
Proof Positive
EBL

American History 101: No, Emma Lazarus Did Not Write the U.S. Constitution
EBL

Florida Woman Makes Headlines in Pretty Much the Way You’d Expect
EBL

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.10.18
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.11.18
Proof Positive

Another ‘Red Pill’ Exit: Fools Rush In, But Wise Men Don’t Marry Crazy Women
Western Rifle Shooters
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.12.18
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Big Trouble at the ‘Tiffany’ Network: Another ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ Lesson?
EBL

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.13.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Surprised? Obama’s ‘Gender Integration’ Agenda Is Wrecking the U.S. Military
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.14.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers this week:

  1. EBL (12)
  2. Proof Positive (6)
  3. 357 Magnum (5)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

New album from Jason Ringenberg, front man of Jason & The Scorchers
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Category: FMJRA Award

Memories Light the Corners of My Mind

Posted on | September 16, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

In the 24 hours since I last wrote about the Brett Kavanaugh nomination (“Democrats Pull the Sleaziest Smear in Their Long History of Sleazy Smears”), further details have emerged including (a) the name of the accuser and (b) the name of Kavanaugh’s prep-school buddy on the night of the alleged incident in 1982. According to the tale, the future Supreme Court nominee was with Mark Judge, now a conservative journalist, on the night that 17-year-old Kavanaugh allegedly . . . uh, molested then-15-year-old Christine Blasey, who is now Professor Christine Ford:

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Well, what do you expect a “stumbling drunk” 17-year-old to do?

The hazards of mixing alcohol and teenagers were as well-known in 1982 as they are today. All kinds of bad things happen as a result of such a combination, and this tale, if true, certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing a drunk teenager ever did. This alleged incident was originally reported as “attempted rape,” although the details do not seem to justify such a description. Getting groped by a drunk preppie “clumsily” attempting to undress you would be unpleasant, but it’s probably not a felony. Professor Ford’s claim that this alleged incident inflicted permanent psychological trauma on her strikes me as dubious. At times in my youth I was the victim of rather serious violence and I’ve seen guns drawn in anger, which is an adrenaline-pumping experience, but trauma? No, I sleep peacefully at night, and I find it difficult to believe that Professor Ford has spent the past 36 years in a state of emotional suffering due to this alleged incident at a house party in the summer of 1982.

It is not necessary to say Professor Ford is lying to say that her claim should have no bearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. There are probably sitting justices on the Supreme Court who did bad things as drunk teenagers, but there was no #MeToo movement in 1994, so senators did not grill Stephen Breyer about his adolescent behavior which, for all we know, was much more shocking and sordid than groping a girl at a party. This whole business of reaching into the distant past to dig up dirt on one’s political enemies has gotten completely out of hand when a 53-year-old federal judge, against whom no other similar accusation has ever been made, can be required to answer for what he may or may not have done as a “stumbling drunk” 17-year-old. Brett Kavanaugh never drowned a campaign aide in an Oldsmobile, did he?

Excuse me for being cynical about Serious Journalists devoting themselves to reporting what sounds like a scene from a screenplay for Prep School Boys Gone Wild, as if it were the most important news in the world. If the American people’s opinion of our political class sinks any lower, the Senate might become even less popular than the media.

That’s all this is, really — a political hit-job, promoted by partisan propagandists engaged in character assassination.

Mike Cernovich says that Professor Ford is a “far left wing activist” who recently scrubbed her social-media accounts to delete evidence of her political radicalism. Chuck Schumer is using Professor Ford’s accusation as an excuse to delay the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. My hunch, however, is that Mitch McConnell will ram this through come hell or high water, and won’t waste any time doing so.

UPDATE: In the time it took me to write this post, Sen. Jeff Flake has announced that he is “not comfortable” voting for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Senator Flake, a Republican from Arizona, is comfortable with a lot of things most people wouldn’t find comfortable, if you catch my drift, but he can’t vote for Kavanaugh? How about we start asking around about what young Jeff Flake was doing when he was 17, huh?



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

Amazon’s Digital ‘Fahrenheit 451’

Posted on | September 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Amazon’s Digital ‘Fahrenheit 451’

 

An unbook by an unperson gets unpublished:

Every day now seems to bring more news of people being banned from social media, fired from their jobs, or even targeted for violence for expressing disagreement with liberals. Recent victims of this ongoing purge include Infowars host Alex Jones, White House speechwriter Darren Beattie and bestselling author David Horowitz. Evidence continues to accumulate that the billionaire Democrats who control companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google are pursuing a campaign to suppress or silence conservative voices.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 seems to have inspired a climate of paranoia in Silicon Valley. Anyone suspected of dissenting from progressive orthodoxies could become the next target in this digital purge, where accusations of “hate” are used to justify the suppression of politically incorrect voices. However, the most remarkable — and perhaps the most ominous — example of how out-of-control the Left’s anti-free speech agenda has become involves a target who isn’t even involved in politics.
Daryush Valizadeh, a/k/a “Roosh V,” is a legendary 39-year-old pickup artist (PUA) who became notorious for a series of books describing his libidinous forays in European countries (Bang Iceland, Bang Estonia, etc.). His popularity eventually made him a target of feminists, and the Southern Poverty Law Center actually declared Roosh’s website Return of Kings a “hate group.”All of this, you understand, because Roosh shares advice to help single guys learn how to “score” with women. Males who pursue heterosexual activity are now guilty of “misogyny” and “male supremacy,” according to the SPLC.
College kids nowadays probably won’t believe this, but once upon time, even liberals approved of heterosexuality, which was a favorite activity of such notable Democrats as former President Bill Clinton and members of the Kennedy family. Unlike the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick), Daryush Valizadeh has never left a girl to die in the backseat of a submerged Oldsmobile, but times have changed and any man advocating heterosexuality in the 21st century risks being placed on the SPLC “hate list.”
The Left’s crusade to abolish heterosexuality reached frightening new extremes this week when Amazon banned Roosh’s books. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.



 

Category: Amazon

Democrats Pull the Sleaziest Smear in Their Long History of Sleazy Smears

Posted on | September 15, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

As someone remarked on Twitter, Democrats are now trying to turn Judge Brett Kavanaugh into Roy Moore, and it’s disgusting. It’s also predictable and, in fact, was predicted in a prescient email that “a very smart conservative” lawyer sent to Weekly Standard writer John McCormack. On Sept. 5 — eight days before Sen. Dianne Feinstein pulled this stunt — the lawyer warned that Democrats would drop a “grenade” after the Senate confirmation hearings, a repeat of the tactic they used with Anita Hill’s smear of Clarence Thomas. (Hat-tip: Allahpundit.)

This actually surprised me. After the four-day Soros-funded protest carnival of the hearings, I expected the Kavanaugh nomination to proceed rapidly to a Senate vote. Like, OK, Democrats put on their little TV show and now we’re done, right? Certainly I could not believe that such a sober clean-cut, Catholic judge, who has served a dozen years on the bench, would be made the target of this cheap smear:

The allegation dates back to the early nineteen-eighties, when Kavanaugh was a high-school student at Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland, and the woman attended a nearby high school. In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself. Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.

This stinks to high heaven and reeks of election-year desperation.

Stripped of dramatic embellishment, what is alleged is that circa 1982, teenage preppie Brett Kavanaugh got to third base with a girl at a party. For his part, Kavanaugh denies this flatly: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.” And the classmate who was allegedly Kavanaugh’s accomplice likewise denies it: “I have no recollection of that.”

This is an excellent lesson in Anglo-American common law. Among the rights we are guaranteed under the Constitution is to face our accusers in a court of law. We also have a right to a speedy trial. Furthermore, there are statutes of limitations that prevent us from being dragged into court to answer charges involving decades-old incidents where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find evidence or witnesses by which we might defend ourselves. It would be one thing if a woman went to police and said, “Brett Kavanaugh raped me last night.” In such a case, the time and location of the alleged offense would be clear, and police could examine evidence or question witnesses relevant to the accusation. But how in the world can we expect to obtain knowledge of what happened at a high-school party in 1982? This is almost certainly impossible.

Because we cannot know what happened — there were no charges filed at the time, and it is unlikely Kavanaugh’s accuser could specify what date this incident allegedly occurred, so that at least we could determine his whereabouts on the night in question — it is unfair even to mention it.

Now, I suppose, if a respectable Republican judge had, as a horny prep-school boy in 1982, actually gotten to third base with a girl at a party, we might view that as somehow related to his character. Perhaps you could say he’s a hypocrite, although if every middle-aged man in America were dragged in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and forced to answer for what he did as a horny teenager, the hearings would never end.

Characterizing such a claim as attempted rape? Whoa.

We have traveled far down the road toward a radical feminist dystopia, a nightmare regime of anti-male hatred, if we are willing to destroy the reputation of a federal judge by accusing him of attempted rape in such a case as this. It is a fact of nature — the science is settled — that any teenage boy will go as far as a girl will let him. If it could somehow be proven that Brett Kavanaugh actually did attend a party with this girl, and that he actually did engage in some sexual activity with her that stopped short of actual intercourse, how are we to differentiate between that incident and millions of other similar incidents where teenage boys get to third base without hitting a home run? We are told that Kavanaugh’s anonymous accuser has suffered “ongoing distress” as a result of her memories of this particular night, and has “sought psychological treatment” and . . .? Yeah, she’s crazy.

During the 1990s heyday of Bill Clinton, Democrats employed what came to be known as the “nuts and sluts” defense. Team Clinton was notorious for siccing their private investigators on any woman who came forward to assert that Bill had engaged in improper sexual behavior. The investigators would dig up dirt on the woman and leak it to the media to discredit her as mentally unstable, promiscuous, dishonest, etc.

To quote Clinton strategist James Carville: “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”

Do we really want to go there again? Would it behoove Republicans to employ such Clintonian tactics to discredit Judge Kavanaugh’s anonymous (at least for now) accuser? No, I’m certain nobody in the GOP relishes the thought of a scorched-earth battle on such terrain.

Ace of Spades has a hunch that this nameless woman has psychiatric issues completely unrelated to anything that did or didn’t happen between her and teenage preppy Brett Kavanaugh in 1982, and that the accuser’s dubious credibility explains why Senator Feinstein, who was informed of this accusation in July, waited until after Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing to go public with this sleazy smear.

Senate Democrats should be ashamed of themselves, but if they had any sense of shame, they wouldn’t be Democrats, would they?



 

Category: Democrats, Senate, Supreme Court

In The Mailbox: 09.14.18

Posted on | September 15, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: If Manafort Can’t Help Mueller Go After Trump, What Does Mueller Get?
Twitchy: Ratio In Progress! Potatohead Stelter Comes To The Defense Of Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel
Louder With Crowder: Watch What The Broward County School Board Does To Parkland Survivor Who Questions Them
According To Hoyt: I Feel The Ground Shifting
Monster Hunter Nation: Monster Hunter Guardian Cover Reveal, also, Infinity RPG 3rd Session Recap
Vox Popoli: “Europe Belongs To The Europeans”, also, The West Has Failed

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The World Upside Down Edition
American Power: The Left’s Despicable “Sexual Misconduct” Allegations Against Kavanaugh, also, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media
American Thinker: The Media’s Latest Poll Dance
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Why Socialism Fails Friday
BattleSwarm: Linkswarm For September 14
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Three Faces Of CNN
Don Surber: Fake News Collapses On NYT
Dustbury: Been Here A While
First Street Journal: Not Exactly #FakeNews But Written To Deceive
Fred On Everything: Fred To Take Wheel Of Ship Of State
The Geller Report: Indian Muslim Father & Brother Murder & Mutilate Girl For Marrying Non-Muslim, also, Muslim Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Rams Car Into French Crowd
Hogewash: SDO Sees The Moon Transit The Sun. Twice.
JustOneMinute: Resistance Follies
Legal Insurrection: #StopKavanaugh – Believe Women, Except For The 65 Who Support Kavanaugh, also, “I’m Into Humiliation Porn, That’s Why I Watch You On CNN”
The PanAm Post: The NYT Is Complicit In Supporting Maduro’s Corrupt Regime, also, Howie Carr – 25 Years Of Antagonizing Northeast Establishment Liberals
Power Line: What We Can Learn From John Kerry, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: DeSantis Releases First General Election Ad
Shot In The Dark: If Guns Are Banned…
STUMP: Divestment Follies – An Actual Cogent Case, Kind Of
The Political Hat: Watermelons Of The Global Elite
This Ain’t Hell: Midway Pilot’s Final Flight, also, Former SOCOM Head Gen. McRaven Resigns From pentagon Board After Criticizing Trump
Victory Girls: Working Men & Women Optimistic About Future
Volokh Conspiracy: Another Brutal Review Of Nancy McLean’s Democracy In Chains
Weasel Zippers: UW Snowflakes Declare Ice Cream “Not Inclusive Enough”, also, Red China Cracking Down On Christians
Megan McArdle: Serena Williams, Meet ThinkProgress
Mark Steyn: The Parched Grasses Wait The Spark


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Category: Linkagery

Surprised? Obama’s ‘Gender Integration’ Agenda Is Wrecking the U.S. Military

Posted on | September 14, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

There are some things which must be excluded from military life if morale and esprit de corps are to be maintained. The stark insanity of rescinding Article 125 of the UCMJ was accompanied by a “gender integration” agenda, with predictable results:

One of the first women to enter the Marine Corps infantry is being discharged from the service after admitting to having an intimate relationship with a subordinate — a fellow Marine she eventually married.
On their own, the legal charges against Cpl. Remedios Cruz, 26, are not uncommon in military investigations of American troops. But they highlight the struggle the Marine Corps has had in integrating women into jobs that were only open to men before 2015.

(Oh, “jobs.” That’s all it is to be a Marine, a job. And notice the “struggle” began in 2015? Gosh, whose idea was this?)

“The biggest mistakes I’ve made in the infantry were from my personal relationships,” Corporal Cruz said in an interview. “I really want to move on.”
As part of a deal to avoid going to trial, Corporal Cruz pleaded guilty to fraternization in July and decided to put the Marine Corps behind her. She is awaiting her final separation from the Marines.

(She “decided,” as if this was her choice.)

Corporal Cruz was one of three women who joined First Battalion, Eighth Marines in January 2017. She was accused of three charges — fraternization, adultery and accessory to larceny — in separate investigations that would have been sent to court-martial in June. . . .
Over the years fraternization policies in the American military have changed but broadly prohibit “unduly familiar” relationships among service members of differing ranks. . . .

(She became “unduly familiar” with a private’s penis.)

Of the roughly 184,000 active-duty Marines, around 15,800 are women. As of July, 24 women were serving in infantry billets in the Marine Corps, according to military documents obtained by The New York Times.
The Army, with roughly 740 women who are serving in previously restricted combat roles, has encountered its own issues with integrating women into the jobs. Last week, the Army Times reported an investigation of a relationship between a senior noncommissioned officer and a junior female infantry soldier in the same unit. . . .

(Like every other policy of the Obama administration, this policy is failing, because it is a bad policy, a hare-brained scheme that no one with common sense would endorse.)

Corporal Cruz, of Fleischmanns, N.Y., joined the Marines as a supply clerk in 2013 and completed infantry training in 2014. Two years later, she requested to transfer to an infantry unit after then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ordered that women be allowed in all previously restricted combat roles. The Marine Corps vehemently opposed the change. . . .
Days after she arrived at the battalion in January 2017, she was promoted to sergeant — a rank that probably ensured, as a Marine in an infantry platoon, that she would be considered for a leadership role.
She said she began a relationship with a lower-ranking Marine in her unit and married him shortly before the battalion deployed to Japan in August 2017. . . .

A Marine sergeant marrying a private? “Love wins!”

Let me explain something that perhaps not everyone understands: In 1993, Bill Clinton became president and immediately signed an executive order repealing Article 125, provoking an immediate outcry from every American familiar with military life. Under pressure from the Pentagon and with the advice of Sen. Sam Nunn, then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Clinton then accepted a compromise that became known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” This was profoundly dishonest, a hypocritical wink-and-a-nod policy toward violations of the UCMJ, but the Pentagon was forced to accept this corrupt political deal.

For the next 22 years, as the generals and admirals who had accepted this policy finished out their careers and went into retirement, a new cadre of senior officers rose to replace them who had served nearly their entire careers under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The Democrats won the presidential elections in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, so that for most of that period — excepting only the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush — the military had a Democrat as their Commander-in-Chief, and were expected to implement liberal policies, especially regarding “diversity” and “inclusion.” Thus, the generals and admirals now commanding our armed forces have spent two decades parroting the Official Nonsense of tolerating homosexuality in the ranks and the absurd “gender inclusion” policy. This is not your father’s Marine Corps.

Standards have been lowered, and discipline has been loosened, in order to enable the kind of ridiculous make-believe game that required senior officers (who certainly should know better) to pretend that Remedios Cruz was fit to serve as a sergeant leading men in a Marine combat unit.

A sand-castle of lies has been piled up over the past 25 years. Ignoring everything common sense tells us about human nature, the military has pursued policies applauded as “courageous” and “progressive” by politicians who have no skin in the game, and which may seem harmless in times of relative peace. The Pentagon is competent enough at public-relations that it can usually conceal from scrutiny the problems caused by “gender integration,” just as it concealed most of the problems caused by the repeal of UCMJ Article 125. However, the loss of morale and unit cohesion as a result of these misguided exercises in social engineering is nonetheless very real, and we will not discover how bad the problem is until it is too late to save the lives of those troops who will die as a result of this needless folly. When the predicable disaster finally strikes, we need not doubt that most of the dying will be done by men.

“Equality,” my ass.



 

Category: Military
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