Today's Ad Hominem Remarks - Monday, April 27, 2015

A Right to Loot?

     My television screen is filled with video of hundreds of people in Baltimore, Maryland, throwing stones at police in the streets, running into a CVS Pharmacy and running out with as much as their arms can carry, with people bouncing up and down on crushed-in police cars, the air filled with the smoke of someone's burning personal vehicle.  Now it seems stealing from the pharmacy wasn't enough, now they have set it on fire.

Mental Rape on the Social Landscape

     At the same time comes the news that a young couple in Portland, Oregon, have been adjudged guilty by an administrative judge of not baking a wedding cake for a lesbian wedding and must come up with $135,000 to give the lesbian couple for "mental suffering."  The lesbian couple claim they are the victims of "mental rape."  How this young couple of bakers will come up with the $135,000 to give the lesbian couple is anyone's guess, for they were forced to close their bakery and have no visible means of support.

Nine Men Would Sack America

     And then, over in front of the U. S. Supreme Court, great crowds of people are camped out waiting to see if nine people will change the face of this nation by tomorrow.  For the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide if same-sex weddings -- that bedroom action that was once illegal across the land, and which the holy word of God still says is an "abomination" -- whether or not same sex relations and weddings will now become the law of the land.

An Aggressive Agenda Destroying America

     What is behind the seeming surge in activity by the “gay mafia”, by America’s aggressive homosexual agenda, by thugs and abusers?  It is a spontaneous outpouring by those spurred by personal desires and hungers -- because they now believe they can do so with impunity -- against national morals and ethics they feel restrict them.  It doesn't matter that those ethics and morals protect all of us, they get in the way of their "happiness".  Common sense, a respect and caring for others is disappearing all around us.  That should not mean we run and hide, deny our faith in God, but that we stand in His word and say "No!  Not on my watch."  It is a time for heroes and for what is right.  We cannot give in to evil, to "me-first", to cowardly self-pity.  Others are at risk.  It is about others.  It is about standing in Godly faith.

     As a former U.S. Marine myself, I am always cheered to see senior members in the Marine Corps taking a stand for common sense and for what is right.  So I was glad to see a former U. S. Marine Corps Commandant, General Al Gray, standing up and offering, "We must have the moral courage necessary to make bold decisions and accept the necessary degree of risk when the natural inclination is to choose a less ambitious  tack, for 'in audacity and obstinacy will be found safety.'”  Yes.  Yes, General, yes.

God Has His Own Warriors

     I perceive that in this Information Age that God has His own warriors -- some equipped with the sword of destruction, some equipped with such weapons as the love of Christ, truth and the sword of the spirit, His Word. For "the Word of God is alive and powerful...." (Heb. 4:12). Even in this age. But in a time in history when people are so ready to be angry, prepared to be offended, yet the love that rises to the level of God's love allows Him to work through us for the benefit of others. It's about others, it's about Him.  

Not Yet, Not Yet, Not Yet

     It would appear  that as human beings we are not nearly as "civilized" as we would like to believe.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, paleontologist and philosopher, in the early 1900s wrote, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” 

     You were so right, Pierre, and you still are.  We are not there, yet.

 

The National Anthem as You Have Never Heard It Before

For those of you who have not seen this before, it is well worth every second of it's 11 minute length.   God bless America and all of those who have fought and died for our country.   It is only through the sacrifices they made that we still enjoy the freedoms we have today.

If you have never before truly understood the words of the National Anthem, understand them now.
Those men and women down through America's history who have kept that flag of independence and freedom flying, deserve more than that those Americans today wimp out and allow freedom's last bastion to fall, and the flag fall with it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YaxGNQE5ZLA

The System Works! Troops to Receive Millions Under Service Members Civil Service Act

DoD News Release
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128143

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2015 – The Justice Department announced today that under its settlements with five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, 952 service members and their co-borrowers are eligible to receive over $123 million for non-judicial foreclosures that violated the Service Members Civil Relief Act.

The five mortgage servicers are JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A.; Wells Fargo Bank N.A. and Wells Fargo & Co.; Citi Residential Lending Inc., Citibank, NA and CitiMortgage Inc.; GMAC Mortgage, LLC, Ally Financial Inc. and Residential Capital LLC; and BAC Home Loans Servicing LP formerly known as Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP (Bank of America).

In the first round of payments under the SCRA portion of the 2012 settlement known as the National Mortgage Settlement, 666 service members and their co-borrowers will receive over $88 million from JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and GMAC Mortgage. The other 286 service members and their co-borrowers already have received over $35 million from Bank of America through an earlier settlement. The non-judicial foreclosures at issue took place between Jan. 1, 2006, and Apr. 4, 2012.

Unlawful Foreclosures

“These unlawful judicial foreclosures forced hundreds of service members and their families out of their homes,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery. “While this compensation will provide a measure of relief, the fact is that service members should never have to worry about losing their home to an illegal foreclosure while they are serving our country. The department will continue to actively protect our service members and their families from such unjust actions.”

“We are very pleased that the men and women of the armed forces who were subjected to unlawful non-judicial foreclosures while they were serving our country are now receiving compensation,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division. “We look forward, in the coming months, to facilitating the compensation of additional service members who were subjected to unlawful judicial foreclosures or excess interest charges. We appreciate that JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, GMAC Mortgage and Bank of America have been working cooperatively with the Justice Department to compensate the service members whose rights were violated.”

Section 533 of the SCRA prohibits non-judicial foreclosures against service members who are in military service or within the applicable post-service period, as long as they originated their mortgages before their period of military service began. Even in states that normally allow mortgage foreclosures to proceed non-judicially, the SCRA prohibits servicers from doing so against protected service members during their military service and applicable post-military service coverage period.

Under the National Mortgage Settlement, for mortgages serviced by Wells Fargo, Citi and GMAC Mortgage, the identified service members will each receive $125,000, plus any lost equity in the property and interest on that equity. Eligible co-borrowers will also be compensated for their share of any lost equity in the property.

To ensure consistency with an earlier private settlement, JP Morgan Chase will provide any identified service member either the property free and clear of any debt or the cash equivalent of the full value of the home at the time of sale, and the opportunity to submit a claim for compensation for any additional harm suffered, which will be determined by a special consultant, retired U.S. District Court Judge Edward N. Cahn.

Payment amounts have been reduced for those service members or co-borrowers who have previously received compensation directly from the servicer or through a prior settlement, such as the independent foreclosure review conducted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Board. The Bank of America payments to identified service members with nonjudicial foreclosures were made under a 2011 settlement with the Department of Justice.

The NMS also provides compensation for two categories of service members:

-- Those who were foreclosed upon pursuant to a court order where the mortgage servicer failed to file a proper affidavit with the court stating whether or not the service member was in military service; and

-- Those service members who gave proper notice to the servicer, but were denied the full benefit of the SCRA’s 6% interest rate cap on pre-service mortgages. The service members entitled to compensation for these alleged violations will be identified later in 2015.

Points of Contact

Borrowers should use the following contact information for questions about SCRA payments under the National Mortgage Settlement:

-- Bank of America borrowers should call Rust Consulting, Inc., the settlement administrator, toll-free at 1-855-793-1370 or write to BAC Home Loans Servicing Settlement Administrator, c/o Rust Consulting, Inc., P.O. Box 1948, Faribault, MN 55021-6091.

-- Citi borrowers should call Citi toll-free at 1-888-326-1166.

-- GMAC Mortgage borrowers should call Rust Consulting Inc., the settlement administrator, toll-free at 1-866-708-0915 or write to P.O. Box 3061, Faribault, Minnesota 55021-2661.

-- JPMorgan Chase borrowers should call Chase toll-free at 1-877-469-0110 or write to P.O. Box 183224, OH-7160/DOJ, Columbus, Ohio 43219-6009.

-- Wells Fargo borrowers should call the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Military Customer Service Center toll free at 1-877-839-2359.

Service members and their dependents who believe that their SCRA rights have been violated should contact an Armed Forces Legal Assistance office. To find the closest office, consult the military legal assistance office locator at http://legalassistance.law.af.mil and click on the Legal Services Locator. Additional information about the Justice Department’s enforcement of the SCRA and the other laws protecting service members is available at www.servicemembers.gov

Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force

Today’s settlement was announced in connection with the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The task force was established to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.

With more than 20 federal agencies, 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and state and local partners, it is the broadest coalition of law enforcement, investigatory and regulatory agencies ever assembled to combat fraud.

Since its formation, the task force has made great strides in facilitating increased investigation and prosecution of financial crimes, enhancing coordination and cooperation among federal, state and local authorities, addressing discrimination in the lending and financial markets and conducting outreach to the public, victims, financial institutions and other organizations.

For more information on the task force, visit www.StopFraud.gov

The Question, Perplexing Everyone, is "W-H-Y"?!

The following is a guest post from my friend and fellow Marine John Boring.
John is a very intelligent senior citizen, a once active duty Marine who has lost none of his ability to "improvise, adapt, and overcome."
In the following post, John addresses a problem nagging at many of us these days, regardless of background, race, religion or political persuasion.  And the overwhelming question is ... why?!

by John Boring

Okay, here's the thing. I hold short of calling our president an evil man. I'm not sure he's evil at all. I do know he is an intelligent man, maybe even beyond intelligent. So, when he intentionally refuses to acknowledge what the entire world knows to be true, I have to ask myself 'why is he doing this?' ISIS is not killing Christians or burning alive Jordanian pilots for the fun of it. They aren't doing it to promote travel to the mid-east. What ISIS is doing is Islam in action. They are promoting Islam. The entire world knows this. ISIS has not made a secret of why they behead journalists or people who simply cross their path; they do it in the name of the prophet. For Islam. So, I have to keep asking myself, why won't our president, the guy we elected, the nominal head of the free world, the man who is supposed to honor us by protecting and serving the constitution of our nation, open his mouth and let those words come forth: ISIS is acting in the name of Islam? Why hasn't he condemned the evil that is being perpetrated on the innocents by this evil group? Why has he bothered to explain their actions as justified by medieval acts when we know we are seeing evil in action in present-day time? Why will he not even admit that ISIS is a Muslim organization? I'm perplexed. I find it hard to respect such lack of leadership from my commander-in-chief. My words aren't meant to be political for they pertain to us as citizens, not as republicans or democrats or tea party people or independents. As citizens we deserve to have a leader who loves and respects us beyond and above any other nation in this world. We deserve a president who will call it like it is; not feed us pie in the sky. In my humble opinion, we don't have such a president right now.

Robert Hall, The Old Jarhead's Blog -- Last News and Comment Post Before Surgery

GUEST POST

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2015/01/update-posting-again-today-as-my.html

Feel free to forward or post.

Posting again today, as my cataract surgery is tomorrow and I don't know when I'll be able to post again. ~Bob

-- 

Semper Fidelis

Robert A. Hall
www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com

Pope Francis Denounces Religious Fundamentalism

"Words" have power, emotion, and consequences, depending on how they are interpreted by those hearing or reading them. In his latest statement on the Muslim massacre in France, Pope Francis, for whatever reason, avoids pointing the finger at Muslims and attacks "fundamentalists." He basically says the only purpose of fundamentalism is to control people. That IS the purpose, and always has been, of Islam. But there is no reason to paint fundamentalist Christians or others with the same bloody brush.

Different dictionaries pretty much agree the definition of "fundamentalism" is "strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline." Where a religion is concerned, that could also mean simply staying as close to the truth as possible. That is not a bad thing. Violence in that adherence is the bad thing.
When dealing with violence of any sort, plain speaking and truth are important. The Chinese warlord Sun Tzu, writing on warfare, listed as one of the basic precepts, "Know your enemy." That is a primary building block for strategy.
Fundamentalism is not the enemy.
People who murder people are the enemy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/12/pope-francis-religious-fundamentalism-terror-attacks_n_6454708.html

Where Have All The Fighter Pilots Gone?

Take a minute and read this.  It may convince you now is the time to dig in your heels and refuse to back up.  It’s titled “Where Have All the Fighter Pilots Gone?”, but it exposes more than that.

I think it is meaningful that there is another post out there on the Internet about where all the real cops went.  Society wants real men of action to solve its problems when diplomacy fails, but the PC crowd of limp-wristed failures and assorted wannabee liberals is aimed directly at the subjugation of such warriors.  They fear leadership they can’t control.  Society is now geared towards driving adult, mature, individualistic hero attributes out of our men and women who have always had those attributes and applied them to our benefit. The result is that they have very nearly succeeded in crushing the warrior culture and excising any would-be warriors from our midst.  In other words, they have almost assured our inability to protect ourselves from brute savagery. 

From Richard R. Waters via Richard Bugda….

Where Have All The Fighter Pilots Gone?‎
I think we have plenty of Fighter Pilots and heroes at the Lt., Cpt. and Major level who have been great leaders in the recent wartime environments.
The problem is that these young warriors are astute and smart enough that they can see what is happening to the military leadership over the last six years (& probably much longer) and they are vacating the services as soon as they are eligible. Just look at the fifty or so General Officers that the Obama Administration has relieved!
What a future for the brightest and best to look forward to. Only the politically inclined are staying and moving on.

Where Have All The Fighter Pilots Gone?
This is a sad commentary, below, on what political correctness has done.  Beginning with McNamara the powers that be decided to run the US Air Force like an 8 to 5 business. Warrior leaders of General LeMay's stature were no longer to be found. The fundamental job of the military, "kill people and break their things", became seriously hampered by "rules of engagement", whose guiding logic is political, not successful combat.
I agree with the author. If and when the US military is defeated, it will be running the best Day Care centers in the world. We used to go to the Officers Club or NCO Club Stag Bar on Friday afternoons to drink, smoke and swap lies with our comrades. Think about this when you read the rest of the letter below. What happened to our Air Force/Marines/ Army/Navy (or Military)?
Drinking then became frowned on. Smoking caused cancer and could "harm you." Stag bars became seen as 'sexist'. Gradually, our men quit patronizing their clubs because what happened in the club became fodder for a performance report. It was the same thing at the Airman's Club and the NCO and/or Top 3 clubs. Now we don't have separate clubs for the ranks.
Instead we have something called "All Ranks Clubs" or "Community Clubs." They're open to men and women of all ranks....from airman basic to general officer. Still, no one is there. Gee, I wonder why. The latest brilliant thought out of Washington is that the operators ("pilots?") flying remote aircraft in combat areas from their plush desk at duty stations in Nevada or Arizona should draw the same combat pay as those real world pilots actually on board a plane in a hostile environment.
More politically correct logic? They say that remote vehicle operators are subject to the same stress levels as the combat pilot actually flying in combat REALLY... you're bull-shitting me!!!??? Now that I've primed you a little, read on.

Here is a rant from a retired fighter pilot that is worth reading:

"It is rumored that our current Secretary of Defense recently asked the question, "Where are all the dynamic leaders of the past?" I can only assume, if that is true, that he was referring to Robin Olds, Jimmy Doolittle, Patton, Ike, Boyington, Nimitz, etc.?
Well, I've got the answer: They were fired before they made Major!
Our nation doesn't want those kinds of leaders anymore. Squadron commanders don't run squadrons and wing commanders don't run wings.  They are managed by higher ranking dildos with other esoteric goals in mind.
Can you imagine someone today looking for a LEADER to execute that Doolittle Raid and suggesting that it be given to a daredevil boozer -- his only attributes: he had the respect of his men, an awesome ability to fly, and the organizational skills to put it all together?
If someone told me there was a chance in hell of selecting that man today, I would tell them they were either a liar or dumber than shit. I find it ironic that the Air Force put Brigadier General Robin Olds on the cover of the company rag last month. While it made me extremely proud to see his face, he wouldn't make it across any base in America (or overseas) without ten enlisted folks telling him to zip up his flight suit, get rid of the cigarette, and shave his mustache off.
I have a feeling that his response would be predictable and for that crime he would probably get a trip home and an Article 15. We have lost the war on rugged individualism and that, unfortunately, is what fighter pilots want to follow; not because they have to but because they respect leaders of that ilk. We've all run across that leader that made us proud to follow him because you wanted to be like him and make a difference.
The individual who you would drag your testicles through broken glass for rather than disappoint him.
We better wake up!
We're asking our young men and women to go to really shitty places; some with unbearable climates, never have a drink, have little or no contact with the opposite sex, not look at magazines of a suggestive nature of any type, and adhere to ridiculous regs that require you to tuck your shirt into your PT uniform on the way to the porta-shitter at night, in a blinding dust storm, because it's a uniform.
These people we're sending to combat are some of the brightest I've met but they are looking for a little sanity, which they will only find on the outside if we don't get a friggin' clue.
You can't continue asking people to live for months or years at a time acting like nuns and priests. Hell, even they get to have a beer.
Who are we afraid of offending? The guys that already hate us enough to strap C-4 to their own bodies and walk into a crowd of us? Think about it.
I'm extremely proud of our young men and women who continue to serve. I'm also very in tune with what they are considering for the future and I've got news for whoever sits in the White House, Congress, and our so-called military leaders. Much talent has and will continue to hemorrhage from our services, because wanna-be warriors are tired of fighting on two fronts - - one with our enemies, another against our lack of common sense.
Take it or leave it....that's just the way it is, no ifs, ands, or buts...................
Worthy of passing on???
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Editor's Note:  Recent events, decisions and federal actions tell us group think is in; individualism, initiative, and thinking are out. As a result in our military, some of the most talented field grade officers are leaving the military well before they have served 20 years. All that training and education go to the private sector where the federal government holds them hostage to liberal groupthink.  The only ways out, for them, are illegal initiatives.  Why are we surprised?