Woke, Broke, And Bankrupt

In no particular order, because it all works together …

Navy destroyer USS John Finn’s commanding officer fired

This has been happening a lot. Commanding officers getting in trouble, colliding with other ships, being removed for incompetence. A lot of these officers—like the current one, Angela Gonzales—happen to be females. Coincidence or woke promotions? Don’t believe me? Do some really simple searches. This isn’t a navy that’s ready for war against significant world powers—like Russia and China.

The biggest threat to our military just might be DEI indoctrination

This is Glenn Reynolds writing:

Sometimes I look at the destructive things done in the name of DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — and I wonder: If a foreign power had infiltrated us and was trying to weaken and destroy our institutions, what would it do differently?

The answer is “Not much.”

And now a large group of retired senior military officers — generals and admirals all — is raising the alarm on the pernicious influence of “woke” ideology in military DEI programs.

When Reynolds says “a large group” he means 160-Plus Retired Military Brass Urge Congress To Root Out DOD’s Poisonous ‘Diversity’ And ‘Equity’ Programs.

In an open letter addressed to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Armed Services Committee and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairmen, they warn the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion, and political correctness generally, is getting in the way of the military’s actual mission: to fight and win wars and, by being able to do so, deter adversaries from starting anything.

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It’s all related …

Jim Rickards

@JamesGRickards

After taking in hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate contributions, paying millions in bonuses, and buying million dollar mansions for founders, BLM (Bolshevik Lives Matter) ran a deficit. Progs and cowardly CEOs fall for these scams every time.

BLM recorded $9M deficit last year but still paid millions to execs:...

Black Lives Matter ended last year on a nearly $9 million deficit — while still paying out millions to organizers as well as relatives of controversial co-founder Patrisse Cullors. Tax...

11:56 AM · May 24, 2023

Larry Johnson also weighs in—and I have to suspect that what he says about the CIA is also to a disturbing extent also true of today’s FBI:

I DISCOVER WHY THE CIA IS IN TROUBLE

… I chatted with a retired CIA buddy who filled me in on the personnel disaster that is transforming the CIA into a fully woke institution. Thirty years ago an aspiring employee had to pass a polygraph and had to be drug free. Prior use of marijuana or other recreational drugs could be a show stopper. That was then. Now? The CIA only asks if the applicant has smoked pot or taken other illicit drugs in the year prior to applying to the Agency. I would not be surprised to learn that once a former drug user is brought on board that there is no obstacle for him or her to continue to indulge the guilty pleasure of getting buzzed (hopefully while not at work).

More disturbing is the current hiring practice — in a recent class for new analysts, 92% of the new hires came from one State. If you guessed Alabama or Virginia you would be wrong. 92% of the analysts hail from one of the most liberal states in the United States. The Agency hiring standard is welcoming the Woke crowd and eschewing men and women who profess traditional values. If you hold Conservative values you need not apply. You probably will not be hired.

I have written previously about the pressure CIA managers face when they write the yearly evaluation on their employees, which plays a key role in determining who gets promoted. If an employee is a minority or openly homosexual or transgender and does not get promoted the manager is required to write an explanation why he or she did not promote said person. Guess what happens? People get promoted because of their social justice status rather than the quality of their work. Is it any wonder that the quality of the CIA analytical product is succumbing to political pressure?

There’s lots more commentary on the futility of sending F-16s to some as yet undisclosed location near Ukraine. For more discussion on this and related topics follow the links”:

Will Schryver

@imetatronink

Can F-16s Fly Combat Sorties Over Ukraine? — A discussion of some of the most relevant considerations — It is effectively impossible to base F-16s in Ukraine. The available runways are woefully deficient, and any aircraft remaining at one base for more than a single sortie are… Show more

Will Schryver

@imetatronink

There is a silly theory floating around that US has planned a surprise attack against Sevastopol using B-61 nuclear gravity bombs dropped from NATO strike aircraft.

No, that ain't gonna happen.

Important Reply Let me clarify with more thoughtfulness: To me it's simply inconceivable that they would attempt to attack Sevastopol or any target in Crimea. Crimea has air defenses as deep and multi-layered as any in Russia. It is almost impregnable to cruise missiles, … Show more

These next items will be a bit of a plug for CTH and AT (as if that’s needed).

CTH has a three part series on the importance of the Durham Non-Report. Yes, of course they recognize that the report is a Non-Report, but one that nevertheless contains valuable information and makes important matters just jump out at analysts. For my money, the first post in the series is the most important

Remember the Russian Diplomats Expelled by Obama?

This is an immensely long post, but the key is in these four points. Read these points in the context of the US launching a major war against Russia—after something like 6 years of the same hoaxters relentlessly promoting false claims about “Russian meddling”. Ask yourself, would there be a war on Russia—which threatens catastrophic damage to US standing in the world—BUT FOR the entire Russia Hoax and Obama’s complicity?

♦ First, John Durham clearly shows in his 306-page report with a 48-page classified appendix, that Russia did nothing to interfere in the 2016 election.  The entire Russian Interference operation was a Clinton fabrication, later enhanced by a Federal Bureau of Investigation who used the fabrication as a cover-up justification to hide their surveillance of the Trump campaign.

♦ Second, accepting the empirical, factual, and inherently true reality of the first point – consider that President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats to retain the Clinton fabrication and FBI lies. Think about this one carefully, the Obama administration expelled Russian diplomats in order to retain a domestic political ruse! President Obama did this *after* CIA Director John Brennan briefed him about the Clinton fabrication.

There were no Russian diplomats involved; there was no Russian election interference; there was no Russian hacking of the DNC; it was all a fraud created by the intelligence community (IC), FBI and Main Justice to support Hillary Clinton’s lies and then cover their own targeting tracks.

♦ Third, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, with the full support of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, indicted 14 Russian entities under completely bogus pretenses. All of that effort was done to assist the Clinton narrative, cover for Obama and then use the special counsel to cover up the Trump targeting operation.  The totally bogus construct explains why the fabricated indictments were sealed in the DOJ National Security Division in perpetuity, thereby keeping the fraudulent construct hidden from public review forever.

♦ Fourth, the only Russian entity who choose to push back against the Mueller/Weissmann fraud was the Russian Concord catering company – literally a ham sandwich operation.  The outcome of that Russian confrontation was Weissmann/Mueller telling the DC judge they had to drop the case because any effort to prosecute the nonsense would create a risk to “national security.”  Nice escape hatch from righteous sunlight on a case that was founded in nonsense.

Yesterday Monica Showalter took that perspective and added additional value by expanding on the basic thesis:

Obama torpedoed U.S. relations with Russia -- to perpetuate lies about Trump, Durham report found

I’ll skip most of the added value to get to the bottom line—as always, follow the link. Keep CTH’s four points in mind as you read:

How would you feel about that if you were a Russian, especially now, reading that it was all a political hoax with you the one chosen to be the whipping boy? You got sanctioned, you got kicked out, you got travel bans, you incurred costs, and some "name and shame" all based on lies.

...

That they were blamed for the result and sanctioned for hacking and colluding they didn't do, and knew they didn't do, and knew that Obama knew they didn't do, surely must have made them angry.

...

In other words, how did it serve U.S. interests to falsely accuse and sanction Russia for something it didn't do?

Stuff like that makes countries mad, and fosters considerable distrust. Was that in the U.S. interest? … The Russians were remarkably patient for a while ...

It's horrible stuff when we consider the bigger picture, and the picture we see today. Right now, the U.S. and Russia are in a proxy war against one another ...

Another h/t to AT. A few days ago, in the course of writing Devin Nunes, Truthteller, I took a swipe at Justice Gorsuch. I acknowledged the importance of his takedown of the Covid Regime and the destruction wrought on the social fabric of America, but pointed to Gorsuch’s callous participation in the equally egregious bulldozing of America in the Bostock decision. The next day Andrea Widburg published an excellent deep dive into Gorsuch’s role in that decision:

Justice Gorsuch’s role in Fox News’s transgender madness

The article starts out with an account of the shambles at Fox, but in the second half turns to Gorsuch’s misguided ideas on jurisprudence. Here’s a sample—it’s clearly written and informative. It also explains why the imprimatur of the Federalist Society shouldn’t be the be all and end all of judicial nominations.

On the other hand, thanks to Justice Gorsuch’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, employers must now cater to the whims of people with sex-related dysphoria.  Gorsuch is a “textualist” who believes that the words in a statute override the legislature’s manifest intentions. This approach, although it sounds like the opposite of activism, is, in fact, pure judicial activism.

One of the long-standing rules of statutory interpretation is that, when parties have a differing take on a statute, the court must examine the legislature’s intent. In the Bostock case, the legislation at issue was the Civil Rights Act and, more specifically, that portion requiring employers to refrain from discriminating against protected classes.

By and large Gorsuch has been a fine justice, but consider what destruction is being wrought across the length and breadth of America by his self indulgent opinion in just one case. The same was true of Antonin Scalia, another devotee of “textualism”. Scalia didn’t wreak the havoc that Gorsuch did in Bostock, but as I pointed out in “Devin Nunes, Truthteller” and elsewhere, his misguided textualism led directly to the abuses of the False Statement (aka “lying to the FBI”) statute that we see today.

Bankruptcy—moral, intellectual, and otherwise.

The G7 Must Accept that it Cannot Run the World

Remarkably, that headline first appeared in the Financial Times, Neocon Central.

“Goodbye G7, hello G20” was the headline of an article in The Economist about the first G20 summit in Washington in 2008, which claimed it represented “a decisive shift in the old world order.” Today hopes for a global economic order based on cooperation have evaporated. The former world of G7 dominance is even more distant than the world of G20 cooperation. Neither global cooperation nor Western dominance looks feasible. What might follow? Alas, “separation” may be one answer, and “anarchy” another.

The moment of US “unipolarity” and the economic dominance of the G7 is in the past. 19 countries have applied to join the BRICS, which already includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. BRICS now appears to be on its way to becoming a significant global grouping. Obviously, what unites its members is the desire not to depend on the whims of the US and its closest allies, which have dominated the world for the past two centuries.

Yes, the G7 must protect its values and its interests. But it cannot rule the world, even though the fate of the world will depend on its members. It is necessary once again to find a way to cooperate”

When FT writes opines in that vein you know the times they are a changin’. Opining in a very similar vein today are the guys at The Duran. But first I need to set the stage a bit. A couple of days ago I read a piece by Andrew Korybko that laid out what he believes is the latest and greatest Neocon fantasy strategy—to somehow rope Central Asia into the anti-Russia orbit. I didn’t mention this because I found it far too fantastic. However, today the guys at The Duran take the whole thing apart in the first half of a relatively brief video (~24 minutes). They simply point out that all public indications—and there are several important ones—are that the entire swath of Eurasia from Moscow to Beijing is solidifying into a “bloc”. With extensions into Iran and India. It’s the shape of things to come, as the FT sees. BRICS is taking shape as a global force.

In the second half of the video, The Duran guys turn to the theme of the video’s title: Biden's historic geopolitical mistake. Like Obama, they are in awe of Zhou’s ability to F things up. “Flabbergasted” may be a better word. And of course they understand that it’s really the Neocons behind Zhou who are responsible. It’s not that they have any sympathy for the Zhou gang, but they actually struggle a bit for words to express the sheer stupidity of it all in accomplishing the exact opposite of what they intended:

They really get going on the enormity of the Zhou screwup just before the 17 minute mark, so, no more than 7 minutes before the end. Highly recommended!