Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Obi-Jon]

The US Army is facing severe recruiting problems. Now offering $50k bonuses for a 6 year enlistment. Have removed the requirement for a HS diploma or GED. The Army has found that the targeted recruiting population (17-24 year olds) only 23% meet the physical and mental requirements for enlistment. Yikes.

In 1981, the Air Force changed its recruiting standards to fill manpower shortages and take advantage of the growing unemployment rate. Prior to '78, to become an aircraft electrician (my AFSC), you had to score a 90% AND a 90% or better in the electrical and mechanical sections of the entrance exam to be admitted to the training program. In '81, those standards were lowered to 50% OR 50% for admission. The AFSC went from an elite job to a welfare job placement. The work load was shifted to the old hands as new people couldn't handle anything more technical than the battery shop. It was one of the reasons I left the AF.

Maybe Mike can weigh in on this. The Army article focuses on the infantry.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/20/army-recruiting-crisis-shortage/10098673002/

[Da Geezer]

Sleep on DeSantis at your own peril. He ran circles around blue state governors during the early stages of Covid.

My personal interactions with probable R voters reveal they ALL prefer DeSantis over Trump. DeSantis put on a clinic in leadership during the pandemic and likes to play wack-a-mole with dipshit progs in the culture war. Nearly all of our leaders are 80ish - Biden, Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer is 71. Trump would be 78 to start a 2nd term. Bernie, Warren… old as fuck and coo-coo for coco puffs. DeSantis is 43.

Well said.

I know of no Rs who prefer Trump over DeSantis. Zero.

As you watch the Jan 6 clown show, keep in mind that the committee is making it more likely that Trump cannot win the nomination in 2024.

[Da Geezer]

Gretch the Wretch is at it again


Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) used her line veto power Wednesday to eliminate state support for adoption agencies, pregnancy facilities, and maternity homes proposed as alternatives to abortion.

Before signing the $76 billion state budget, Whitmer cancelled a $2 million adoption tax credit, $10 million to promote adoption “as an alternative to abortion,” $3 million for a maternal navigator pilot program, and $700,000 for the Real Alternatives pregnancy program, which promotes “childbirth, alternatives to abortion, and grief counseling.”

Whitmer’s budget will, on the other hand, significantly grow state government by adding some 535 full-time positions to the public payroll, the Detroit Free Press reported, a whopping single-year increase of more than 1.3 percent.

A staunch supporter of Roe v. Wade and a right to abortion-on-demand, Whitmer said she is “pulling out all the stops” to enshrine abortion rights into Michigan state law, which helps explain her hostility to programs designed to offer women choices to abortion.

State Republicans reacted strongly to Whitmer’s line vetoes targeting pro-life initiatives, insisting that by doing so she was limiting women’s real-life choices, rather than expanding them.
Whitmer’s vetoes “support only one option for women in a crisis pregnancy — the deadly choice of abortion,” said State Rep. Thomas Albert, chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

In addition, Whitmer vetoed a bill that would have made it a felony to apply for multiple absentee ballots in different jurisdictions.

[Mike]

Well said.

I know of no Rs who prefer Trump over DeSantis. Zero.

As you watch the Jan 6 clown show, keep in mind that the committee is making it more likely that Trump cannot win the nomination in 2024.

I haven't paid any attention to the Jan. 6 hearing and I hope you're right. However, it's highly doubtful that any of Trump's base will turn against him as a result of the investigation. The real backlash will come from his handling of Covid and his signature accomplishment, Warp Speed. There's recently been a steady drip of studies coming out that paint the vaccines in an increasingly negative light - far less effective and far greater side effects than we were originally told. Trump was at a rally last week and wanted to brag about Warp Speed and told his audience that he's not supposed to mention it because they'd boo him.

Contrast that with DeSantis' handling of Covid in Florida where he kept the schools and economy open while protecting the most vulnerable. The ground beneath Trump's feet is shifting.

[Tom W]

Whitler just keeps serving up the rocks that are needed to stone her re-election to death. Meanwhile, the R's keep serving up a bunch of far right nutjobs.

[Da Geezer]

This is a reply to an editorial today in the WSJ. Guy has a vocabulary. Your word for the day is kakistocracy.


Disillusioned and bewildered that voted against Trump, more than for Biden, thought they voted for moderation and normalcy but got an overreach of sweeping, radical proposals.

Oil averaged ~$50, gasoline ~$2, inflation ~1%, a home mortgage ~3%

⏤A solid, stable economy in 2019 with the lowest recorded unemployment ever, the highest wages, particularly for women, minorities according to the USBLS, and America energy independent without which there is no sovereignty, no self-determination. No new wars, peace abroad with the Abraham Accords done more for Middle East peace since 1948 with now 7 Arab states recognizing Israel, building cultural, economic exchanges, embassies.

⏤American statesmanship of the first order. As opposed to the last 18 months of instability, inflation not seen in 40 years, from a Biden-assembled kakistocracy of serial incompetence. After a disastrous Afghan withdrawal arming terrorists, Washington seen as weak prompts the advance of Chinese and Russian tyrants and the retreat of Liberty and the civil society. President Biden outsources to OPEC, the spectacle of negotiating with tyrants in Caracas and Tehran, and a proxy war without end. Never accepting responsibility for the colossal disasters left in their wake, our Dems “move on” with adolescent collectivist mindsets, ideas that don’t work, utterly intolerant of those that do.

Everything is a crisis and a national emergency.

The war on the wind and the weather is a hoax. 0.3˚F, a barely noticeable temp reduction would result 80 years from now, 3+ generations of Americans if the whole country went carbon-neutral tomorrow. At its maximum extent, the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a glacial cover of North America during the Pleistocene Epoch, 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago, spread as far south as latitude 37°N, included San Francisco, Denver, St. Louis, Norfolk, and covered ~5,000,000 sq. miles with a thickness ~10,000 feet. 95+ million cattle in America today replaced roughly the same number of vast herds of American Buffalo that roamed the Great Bison Belt of grasslands from Alaska to Florida since 9000 BC. Our entire human existence has been so brief on the long timeline of the earth, but a grain of sand on the timeline of earth’s long evolution of eons. How delusional, so swayed are Leftists worldwide, led by fad and pop culture veiled as a science, to conclude current human activity and bovine flatulence can somehow significantly alter the nature of our planet’s continued evolution, including its climate, over time, eons, time immemorial. Climate has always changed, always will. It’s all about earth’s nature, ebb and flow, not us. With epistemic certainty, I assert the Sun has been, is, and ever shall be maker of our earth’s climate far beyond time immemorial, for eons, since the beginning of time in this galaxy of millions of stars.

[Tom W]

Contrast that with DeSantis' handling of Covid in Florida where he kept the schools and economy open while protecting the most vulnerable. The ground beneath Trump's feet is shifting.

I don't think there was very much ground to begin with- and most of that was compost from the D's who have been using it to distract from the sheer ineptitude of Biden and the Progs.

[Mike]

Whitler just keeps serving up the rocks that are needed to stone her re-election to death. Meanwhile, the R's keep serving up a bunch of far right nutjobs.

The R field is a joke. Really disappointing that the bench is so bare. Whitmer will coast.

[Da Geezer]

Just announced: Biden tested positive for Covid.

[lineygoblue]

The US Army is facing severe recruiting problems. Now offering $50k bonuses for a 6 year enlistment. Have removed the requirement for a HS diploma or GED. The Army has found that the targeted recruiting population (17-24 year olds) only 23% meet the physical and mental requirements for enlistment. Yikes.

I don't understand. Where are all the transgender homosexual lesbians that should be lining up at the recruiting offices to fill the ranks? Certainly with all the new policies making the military a 'safe zone' for ALL, you'd think that the recruiting offices would be filled with people. Not only should transgender homosexual lesbians be signing up, but woke people everywhere should be signing up for the military to celebrate the new woke policies of the military. Weren't the new policies supposed to throw open the doors of the military to everyone? Where did everyone go?

Someday (soon?) this country is going to order the military to war, ... and the military is going to respond, "with what?"

[THE_WIZARD_]

AOC in "handcuffs".

Worst oppression I've witnessed since Jussie Smollett...

[lineygoblue]

The R field is a joke. Really disappointing that the bench is so bare. Whitmer will coast.

Yep. We're stuck with the Queen for another 4 years. Fortunately, there's term limits. She's gone after this one.

Term limits is the only way Michigan managed to rid itself of Gennifer Grandholm. Otherwise, voters would have stupidly voted for her again as well.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Soooo...we've established that Michiganders are stupid.

Next topic?

[lineygoblue]

AOC in "handcuffs". Worst oppression I've witnessed since Jussie Smollett...

She got what she went there for. She doesn't give a squat about 'abortion rights'. She cares about the cameras. She's a performer.

And the fools who put her in office think she's doing a great job.

Maybe she and Kamala can go have word salad for lunch.

[lineygoblue]

Soooo...we've established that Michiganders are stupid.

Next topic?

Not all. Just those who automatically vote for do-nothing incumbents.

Deb Stupidnow has a 11:30 appointment today to stand behind Chuck Shumer and nod "yes".

She'll wear the brown dress.