Daily Archives: September 2, 2011

09/2/11

SEALs Are Not Fungible, Admiral Jackass

By: Ann Barnhardt
Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.

Ann Barnhardt

I have waited patiently all day for one of the websites owned, manned and run by . . . JOURNALISTS to pick this up, but I have yet to see a single word. When I read this late last night I was SHAKING with fury. SURELY one of the sites dedicated to JOURNALISM would be all over this come morning. Nope. Not a word. Unbelievable.

From the New York Times (aka the Litter Box Liner of Record), page A6 in the print edition:

“Admiral Defends Use of Elite Unit in Calamitous Raid”

“Since the crash, which resulted in the greatest loss of American life on a single day in the Afghan war, some analysts have questioned why an elite Navy Seals strike team was assigned as mere backup for an Army Ranger raid on an insurgent cell, and why so many Special Operations personnel were aboard a single helicopter. Admiral McRaven dismissed assertions that the most highly trained Navy and Army commando teams should be reserved solely for the most high-profile missions; he said they were regularly assigned to support commanders of units in a local area of combat if that contributed to the overall mission.

“We have to be fungible as a force,” Admiral McRaven said. “And if we are not fungible as a force, then we are not of value. It is not unusual at all for SEALs or Rangers or Army Special Operations forces to be part of a quick-reaction force, as in this case.”

Did you get that? SPECOPS have to be . . . fungible. This McRaven fool is the COMMANDER of American Special Operations forces. I guess he missed the subtle meaning behind the word “SPECIAL” in “SPECIAL Forces”. Dear God.

See, this is what these slithering degenerate cowards do. They throw out a six dollar word that they know only one tenth of one percent of the people know the meaning of, everyone nods in agreement because they don’t know what the word “fungible” means, and then slick as you like just sweep the entire thing under the rug. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if McRaven himself didn’t know what the word “fungible” meant. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if McRaven thought it had to do with mushrooms.

Here is what “fungible” means.

Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution, such as crude oil, wheat, precious metals or currencies. For example, if someone lends another person a $10 bill, it does not matter if they are given back the same $10 bill or a different one, since currency is fungible.

Are you shaking with fury yet? The commander of U.S. SPECOPS wants to make the special operators he commands LESS SPECIAL. He visualizes a military in which a DEVGRU Navy SEAL could be substituted with a reserve guardsman or vice-versa – because remember, fungibility is all about MUTUAL substitution.

Really Admiral? Really? The 15 DEVGRU SEALs that were killed on that Chinook were literally some of the most valuable tactical human military assets THAT HAVE EVER EXISTED IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. These DEVGRU men aren’t just SEALs, they are the absolute elite of the elite. Most of them are in their early to mid 30s, and have YEARS of combat experience in the other SEAL Teams before being hand-picked to join DEVGRU. Let’s run it down:

SEAL training is the toughest in the world. The first step for a man who volunteers to enter SEAL training is 4-12 weeks of prep courses followed by 3 weeks of “indoctrination”. Then comes the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) course. By the end of this 25-week course the wash-out rate is over 90 percent. There have been BUD/S courses in which every man washed out. For the very, very few who make it through BUD/S, next comes the 26-week SEAL Qualification Training (SQT). Beyond that, many SEALS also go through the 26-week Special Operations Combat Medic course. After all of that, the SEALs then go through 18 MONTHS of predeployment training. It takes a minimum of 30 months to fully train a SEAL for his first deployment.

Oh, but we’re just getting started. After spending YEARS on the ground in combat, gaining priceless experience on top of their already best-in-the-world training, a very, very select few SEALs are tapped to join DEVGRU (United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group). That is why most DEVGRU guys are over 30. They are highly experienced, stand-out SEALS. How much of a complete bad@$$ do you have to be to stand out . . . in a group of SEALs?

DEVGRU is the best of the best of the best. But even DEVGRU is split into four assault squadrons: Red, Blue, Silver and Gold. The Gold Squadron is the “premier” squadron, in other words, the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. Okay, now try to get your head around how special the men are who stand out not just among other Navy SEALs, but beyond that stand out amongst DEVGRU SEALs. Gold Squadron DEVGRU SEALs make Superman feel insecure.

Guess who was on that Chinook. An entire 15-man troop from Gold Squadron DEVGRU. I kid you not. An entire troop of the most valuable human tactical and combat assets in not just the United States Military, but all militaries across all of the centuries of human civilization and warfare – packed into one National Guard transport helo in a massive, massive breach of dispersion protocol, accompanied by 10 (I think) more SEALs (further compounding the breach of dispersion protocol), the Chinook crew, and SEVEN Afghanis who stood a non-trivial risk of being spies/turncoats/suicide bombers.

Citation (This stuff isn’t hard to find, Journalists. There are even further footnotes at the bottom of the page.):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Special_Warfare_Development_Group

And this McRaven idiot has the unmitigated gall to come out and spew some line of crap about FUNGIBILITY? We need to treat Gold Squadron DEVGRU SEALs like interchangeable commodity units?

Again, every single human being is infinitely precious, but when we are talking about war, we have to be able to parse the difference in TACTICAL value between different skillsets among our men. This is in no way immoral. From a TACTICAL COMBAT PERSPECTIVE, the notion of applied fungibility is utter and complete lunacy. It is certifiably insane. It is mission-suicidal and borders on being treasonous. Do you hear me, McRaven? Mission-suicidal and borderline treasonous.

“I’m not sure I know how it ends,” [McRaven] said. “This may be the ‘new normal,’ in terms of this threat that we will have to live with for a long time.”

Let me tell you “how it ends”, Admiral Pantspisser. It ends in swift, total, complete and unconditional victory. Either get your head around that or resign. We The People are sick and tired of politicking, imbecilic, touchy-feely asses like you using the treasure of this nation as cannon fodder to justify your self-serving politically correct agenda and whose dead bodies you step on to clamber your way up the payscale/pension ladder. Admiral McRaven, you have proven yourself wholly unqualified for your position at best, and a disgrace to the United States Navy and a water-carrying oath-breaker at worst. Men like you make me sick, and make me weep for my country and for the men under your command, the soles of whose boots you are not fit to lick. Hope you enjoy that pension, Billy, because you had to sell out your country and your brothers to get it.

09/2/11

DHS Causing Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to go Dark?

By: Arlen Williams
Gulag Bound

Gulag Tales & Rumor Trails

One who has tracked the movements of the Department of Homeland Security recalls that during both the Bush and Obama administrations they have tended to set up localized experiments in encroachment and tyranny, then they observe whatever blow-back they get.

They could get some concerted attention about this.

According to this report (not thoroughly vetted by GulagBound) the Obama/Napolitano DHS is causing the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (in Duval County, northeastern Florida) to go dark.  The press will no longer be able to monitor their radio communications.

Duval County is known for its military installations, port traffic, and the problem of illegal drug traffic.

The DHS is known for their being ever more pervasive throughout America.

If you have tips about this, please enter in our open comments below, or email us at [email protected]

from John Rolls

Sheriff Takes Police Scanners Away from Media – Indicator?

Fri Sep 02 2011 11:13

From: Jeff
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 9:15 AM
To:
Subject: Important: Please do not delete

Hey Everybody,

I just wanted to put the word out there about something that I feel is proof positive that things are getting bad fast now.  I feel this is the worse loss of freedom we have encountered to date and proof that something big is happening.   The Jacksonville Florida Sheriffs Department is one of the largest departments in the Southeastern United States, with over 3,600 employees. This week they contacted all of the News Channels in Jacksonville and told them they must turn in all of their Police Scanners.  They were told the Department of Homeland Defense has ordered this. Even though this article at the bottom of the page does not mention Homeland Defense, my local news talk radio station, AM 690, did report that the order came down from them.  Jacksonville Florida Sheriffs Department are also in the process of changing all of their call codes as well.  There are five local TV channels , they have all been ordered to turn in their scanners as well as the radio channels and also the newspapers.  Now no one will now know what they are doing or saying.

Even our News Anchors on the local channels are visibly upset by these events, they have told the public that they must now rely on them and have all set up phone lines dedicated to receive news from the public and are asking people to please call in anything news worthy because like they said, it can now take hours or even days to report the news to people.

I am sending this out for two reasons, to let you all know what is happening here and to also ask you if this is going on in your area of the country. Please let me know if it is going on only here so far or rather if this is nation wide. Please feel free to send this as far and wide as possible.


Controlled media in Jacksonville

By Kevin Rincon

Jacksonville, FL —

As of Thursday the flow of your information will be filtered, it’ll be delayed and what we report to you will be handpicked.

For the first time ever in Jacksonville police radio traffic will be completely closed off to the public.  Six years ago JSO began operating under encrypted radio frequencies, a result of 9/11.

When that change occurred a way to keep the public in the know was to provide those radios to the media.  Last month a policy decision was made to take those back.  At the time the only reason citied was a budgetary concern.

(On Wednesday we will provide a detailed look at the reasons most recently offered up by Sheriff John Rutherford.)

We asked a former public information officer at JSO, Ken Jefferson if this decision would limit access to the public’s information, he says it would.

“It will certainly enable them to control the flow of information because you don’t have the scanners to listen to them as it comes out,” says Jefferson. Without the ability to hear it in real time, “as its happening you’re going to have to rely on them.”

When we asked several council members for their take most were unaware of what this one policy decision by Sheriff Rutherford would actually mean.  John Crescimbeni told us, “I don’t think the public realizes what’s happening.”

Most of the elected officials we talked to said there’s nothing they can do because the JSO is its own constitutional office.  So that one small policy decision that will impact you is being passed with no public input, no public comments, no hearings and required only one person’s approval.

Crescimbeni did admit this decision is suspect, “When I see people trying to heighten that sense of secrecy, I have concerns about that.”

From here on out after Thursday, the sheriff’s office will determine when and how we find out about what is going on right here in Jacksonville, which in turn will affect how you find out about what’s going on in your neighborhood, not just through WOKV but through print, on TV and online.

(On Tuesday we’ll go into more detail as to why it’s even important being able to get the information in real time.)

So far the announcement that the radios will be taken back, that’s gotten mixed reviews, some people are fine with JSO having that control, “I think controlling the message is imperative in situations that involve, a serial killer is a beautiful example, when you release too much information, they know what the police are looking for so I think there needs to be some sort of control.”  Kristina Meade told us this seems to be a double edged sword but she’ll side with the sheriff’s decision.

In a situation like that one or in any high stakes investigation JSO switches over to its tactical channels, ones we’ve never had access to.

If there is control of your information it’ll happen across the board.

The other side of it from you the public has been that this is a government agency cutting a line of communication.

“I’m not saying JSO is a bad organization or anything but it’s always good to be able to see things from many different directions and form your own opinion then it is to get things from a single source,” says Tom Harding, “because then you really don’t know the whole story.”

Harding says, in his opinion this is the first step towards a controlled media, “Because as far as I understand it, you all aren’t going to get any information unless its handed to you by the police . . . what would distinguish us from the Chinese at that point?”

Whether it’s an issue of control or anything else the sheriff has made it clear this is a policy decision that will not be reviewed.

© 2011 Cox Media Group.
09/2/11

Tea Party Steps Up on Economy

Today’s government report that there has been no job growth last month is further evidence of the failures of the policies of Barack Obama. Coupled with the news a few days ago that high unemployment will continue through 2012 at least is totally unacceptable to Americans. It is these failed policies that make the Tea Party movement so strong – the American people know what needs to be done, even if the politicians in Washington are clueless.

First, how about cutting the wasteful and repetitive government spending? The Government Accounting Office has pointed to billions of wasted dollars in repetitive and inefficient government programs.

Every household knows you can’t keep spending more than you make. So why is that so hard for Washington to figure out?

Now President Obama is proceeding to propose more government spending and programs to get the economy going when almost every American knows that jobs are created by businesses, mostly small business. That’s the true economic engine that makes America prosperous!

The Tea Party Express is carrying this message of fiscal responsibility and economic growth across the country now in our national bus tour called Reclaiming America. We are pushing all of the Republican presidential candidates to make serious proposals to get the American economy moving forward again. It will come to a head at our CNN/Tea Party Express Presidential Debate on Monday night, September 12th.

You may have seen our Iowa event with the presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. The other candidates are joining us as our tour continues!

You can see the full schedule of the Reclaiming America tour HERE.

Please help us keep this tour going and getting the Republican presidential candidates to seriously address the issues. Every time we pull into a truck stop to fill up our buses with diesel fuel, it sets us about $700 per bus. If you can help keep our tour with your message going, please: CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE.

If you want the Tea Party Express to stand up for the reputation of the tea party and hardworking Americans everywhere, please support our mission by making a contribution.

You can contribute as little as $5 all the way up to the maximum allowed $5,000. And since we’re in a new election cycle, those of you who had previously “maxed out” are once again able to contribute as much as you’d like – all the way up to that $5,000 maximum.

To contribute, just click the button below. We’re hoping more than 500 patriots such as yourself can afford a more generous contribution of $100, $250, $500 or more.

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