Category: Military

Pentagon’s “UFO Report”

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Military officials say they have no real idea what’s going on, and need lots of money to find out. And, BTW, they couldn’t figure out what they were looking at 143 times out of 144 reports!

The Pentagon’s long-awaited report on UFOs details 143 sightings of aerial objects that cannot be explained. Titled “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” the report is a product of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). It’s nine pages long and while its findings are “largely inconclusive,” the report states that a small number of cases where UFOs “appeared to display unusual flight characteristics or signature management” can’t be explained without “scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them.”…

This report didn’t come to many conclusions, but it did pose a few possible ideas. “UAP probably lacks a single explanation,” the report said. “Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall ‘other’ bin.”

Crap report masquerading as a less-than-crap report.

Black WW2 vet finally gets his Purple Heart

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Seventy-six years ago, an Army private named Ozzie Fletcher fought in the bloody Battle of Normandy. A crane operator, he barely escaped with his life when a German missile came screaming down, killing his driver. But since Fletcher was Black, he wasn’t awarded the Purple Heart — until now.

The chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. James McConville awarded Fletcher — now 99 years old — the long-overdue medal at the Fort Hamilton Community Club in Brooklyn on June 18.

“It was an honor and privilege to pin a long overdue Purple Heart on a great Soldier and member of the Greatest Generation, Mr. Ozzie Fletcher,” McConville told the Washington Post. “This week, we were able to pay tribute to Ozzie for the sacrifices he made in service to our great Nation during World War II.”

This is a man who understands service to the community as well as his nation. He went on to serve in the NYPD for 26 years…Founded the Guardians Association for Black law enforcement professionals. Then he taught high school for another 24 years until retirement. The man deserves a bushel basket of medals.

What does official Washington have to say about UFOs?

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“American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military, according to senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report.”

Which means:

1) There’s no evidence that the various UFO sightings over the years are aliens.
2) The US government has no idea what these aircraft, in fact, are…

“US intelligence officials have found no evidence confirming that unidentified flying objects encountered by US Navy pilots in recent years were alien spacecraft but also have not reached a definitive assessment as to what these mysterious objects might be, according to five sources familiar with the findings of an upcoming report on UFOs that is expected to be delivered to Congress later this month.

“According to three of those sources, the report does not however rule out the possibility they are alien spacecraft.”

If there is anyone around who really knows WTF is going on up in the sky…they ain’t telling us!

“Wokeification” scares the crap out of rightwing nutballs

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Alex Brandon/AP

A commander in the US Space Force was removed from his position following comments he made on podcasts promoting his new book that claims that Marxist ideologies are spreading in the US military…

“That wasn’t just prolific in social media, or throughout the country during this past year, but it was spreading throughout the United States military,” he added. “And I had recognized those narratives as being Marxist in nature.”

[Cue the theme from TWILIGHT ZONE]

He also said practices like mandatory diversity and inclusion training, which Republicans have also rejected, create divisiveness in the US, according to Military.com.

So far, it seems that opposing racist and sexist practices are dangerous symptoms of being “woke”. Guess I’ve been “woke” for several decades. I always thought I was standing up for the best advice we ever received from the founders of this nation. And beyond.

After defeat, Trần Tố Nga vows to continue fight for justice for victims of Agent Orange in VietNam

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Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

The landmark trial between a 79-year-old Vietnamese-French woman and 14 chemical multinationals was always going to be a David and Goliath legal battle.

Trần Tố Nga has breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart and lung problems, a rare insulin allergy, and other critical illnesses.

In 1966, then a war reporter in Vietnam, she was hiding in an underground tunnel with resistance fighters…When she briefly came out, she was sprayed for the first time by the highly toxic herbicide, known as Agent Orange, used by the US military during the Vietnam War.

Like many other Vietnamese people, she continues to feel its destructive effects and claims she is a victim of the herbicide.

In 2014, Trần filed a lawsuit against the 14 agrochemical firms that manufactured and sold Agent Orange to the US army, including US companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto, now owned by German giant Bayer.

On Monday, May 10, a French court dismissed the case, calling Trần’s complaints “inadmissible”, and saying it did not have the jurisdiction to judge a lawsuit involving the US government’s wartime actions…

“Justice and law do not go together. This was proven today, but sooner or later, it [justice] will come,” Trần told Al Jazeera.

She fights on behalf of the tens of thousands of VietNamese people, combatants and civilians alike, who were victims of the American military and the chemical warfare they used in that futile war. The United States joined the French as they failed in their military repression…extending the VietNamese armed fight for freedom from 10 years to 30-plus. A vain attempt to save the imperial rule of Western nations in Asia.

Evidence that Greenland once was warmer…and greener

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The ice sheet that covers the northernmost reaches of our planet has expanded and shrunk over the past 2 million years — but it was thought that Greenland’s bitter cold and miles-deep ice had been a more or less constant feature.

However, new evidence has suggested it was once a much warmer and greener place than we are used to today. What it took in the past to melt the ice and cover it with plants could be critical for predicting how the Arctic will respond to climate change in the present day.

A long-lost core of earth drilled up from beneath mile-thick ice in northwestern Greenland in the 1960s has shown that in the past 1 million years — and perhaps as recently as 400,000 years ago — it was once home to a vegetated landscape.

Scientists had expected to find sand and rock in the dirt but were instead surprised to see twigs and leaves.

Yup. “Lost” for 60 or 70 years. Pretty good illustration of how our nation’s perpetual concern over science, research, providing historic discoveries to institutions of education and knowledge…when we’re condemning other nations…in practice, is OK when it’s OUR MILITARY that’s aiding the research.

Even by accident.

GOUSA spent billions on buildings, infrastructure in Afghanistan…now it’s called “ZOMBIELAND”

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Stars and Stripes

The United States spent more than $2 billion since 2008 on buildings and vehicles in Afghanistan that are now either in disrepair, not being used as intended or completely unusable, according to a recent review by a government oversight group…

“Of the nearly $7.8 billion in capital assets reviewed in its prior reports, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction…SIGAR identified about $2.4 billion in assets that were unused or abandoned, had not been used for their intended purposes, had deteriorated, or were destroyed,” the report said…

I doubt there is any branch of the United States government that can waste more money than our military. There probably is a secret department in the Pentagon set aside just for the creation of excuses for mismanagement and cost overruns.

Racism is part of our daily life – and no surprise when it shows up in our military

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Mike Blake/Reuters

The U.S. Navy’s top admiral on Tuesday condemned two new racist incidents involving hate symbols on warships, which sources said included a noose that was left on a Black sailor’s bed…

While he did not give details of the incidents, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday cautioned in a message to the fleet on Tuesday that racial divisions in the ranks cut at the military’s ability to protect the country.

“If we must first question the intentions of our shipmate standing the watch with us, now, and especially, when taking fire, we will fail when the Nation needs us most in combat,” Gilday said…

Reuters was first to report last month that nearly a third of Black U.S. military servicemembers reported experiencing racial discrimination, harassment or both during a 12-month period, according to results of a long-withheld Defense Department survey.

It took appointment of the first-ever Black Secretary of Defense to drag the stink of racism in our military out into daylight…this time. No news to anyone who can remember when segregation in the US military was “official”.

Veterans cleaning up after Trump’s ragtag insurrection attempt

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Ben Peifer

When Capitol Hill was in chaos on Jan. 6, David Smith was there.

Smith, 40, was distributing hand-warmers to homeless people nearby when the siege started. He watched in disbelief as a menacing mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“It was pretty gut wrenching to see,” said Smith, who retired less than a month ago after serving in the Navy for 13 years.

As a veteran, he was especially horrified, he said, to learn that his fellow vets participated in the insurrection, including Jake Angeli, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” and Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed in the Capitol…

Smith decided he wanted to do something about it, calling on a group of fellow veterans and volunteers to do a thorough sweep of the area around the Capitol and downtown D.C. Beyond ridding the area of hateful markings, Smith hoped to reinforce that the veterans who participated in the siege do not represent them all.

My kind of military. My kind of veteran.