Like rust eats away at metal.

I was under the impression that this forum did not welcome phonies. There are so many online possibilities where the left can air their intolerant and bigoted views and find themselves in like company. But I realized, they are not interested in that; rather they like to settle on healthy and normal estates that are immune to their corrosive ways.

The mindset of those who believe all of this crap appears to be going above the average of common intellect. There is no are such thing as free shit yet we have a fully staffed free shit army. The promotion and funding of this FSA is by the political forces who in essence are paying the price for the votes they need with our tax dollars. We see a TV commercial all the time, 1-877- Kars for kids, Donate your car today. Just a bunch of young kids playing fake instruments. Digging into the facts behind this organization will show the money from the donated cars goes directly to a Jewish Hasidim sect and hard to say just how much of the actual cash actually gets to anything of value to those who make the donations. They will accept anything, motorcycles, boats, property and probably your old dog or mother in law. We can always just buy some TV hawked item and get a second one free just pay a separate fee and they wonder why we are going so un-trusting.

He is an arrogant phony who pretends to be objective.

No surprise that Marrotta does not respond to your reasonable comment. He just stirs the $chict
Typical liberal stink comes from him.

Marotta, what are you doing on this forum? The NYT is a better vehicle for what you want to say which is not much.

Mike, what is your point? Why the sneaking hostility toward Trump?

Weather he shows up or not does not change the fact who he is. Don't look for "others" to support your opinion. Either you know what your objectives are or you don't.

Ouch

Idiot!

We went around on this back in November.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

I gave different numbers from a different perspective that supported the general statement that the military is not solidly behind Pres. Trump, apart from his being the Commander-in-Chief.

I pointed out that college education among officers who self-identify as Republican correlates with a disapproval of the President's policiies. You condemned the officers as apple-polishers.

I think he is cleverer than a Pragmatist. Much, if not most of his actions have long term consequences. They may seem pragmatic because they treat the promblem immediately, but note that they either end the problem or continue to treat it. The guy is deeper than you might suppose.

I love that quote.
", then inquired Did Hitler say that?"
I wonder what he meant? Maybe one of these:
- The quote is evil because voting money from the treasury is a good thing.
- I disagree with you and therefore associate you with Hitler. (Godwin's Law)
- It sounds like a famous quote from history, but I can't remember where.
- Who'd want to destroy a Republic on purpose? Was this from Hitler's private letters about how he destroyed the Weimar Republic on purpose to gain absolute power.

It's hard to imagine he was saying the people voting themselves money is a good thing, but anything's possible.

A few of my sources: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/20... ; http://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/mi... ; https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/... ; https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Amer... this last is interesting, as it reflects a drop in Republican declared alignment, but no corresponding gain in Democrat, which implies a growth in Independent military members.

I note that your single source is a blog, and the numbers quoted that claim of an unusually large percentage of liberal military are not supported in the blog's sources. Where did that number originate?

This reminds me of a Facebook post from about six years ago ... when I posted the following "When the people find that they can vote themselves money from the treasury, that will be the end of the republic."
One of my neighbors, who is a government school teacher, then inquired "Did Hitler say that?"
I am serious. Dead serious.
I had to then reply that it was a paraphrase of a quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

So there you go ... if a bit of philosophy -- or an observation from reality happens to disagree with statist dogma, then its source must be Hitler. This is what we are dealing with in the government schools. The kids come out after 15 years of indoctrination dumber than when they went in. And these kids think that they will find economic salvation in the likes of Bernie Sanders.

The fact that matters what military personnel as a group think about politics is precisely why I think a large standing army and permanent arms industry are undesirable.

"that moment passed... and the President is on to the next thing..."
He's probably contemplating something you and I can't think, with high outrage-to-substance ratio. I try to think of them:
- Laughing about a freak accident
- Saying virgins and grandmothers deserve a special kind of respect.
- Saying he may be guilty of a federal crime, but he won't say what law he broke or turn over the evidence
- Musing about working out an agreement to annex northern states of Mexico into the US.

See mine suck. He's thinking of some truly inane things that will get people fired up and angry. And as someone on this site said, if he's making people furious and fired up about nothing, that's his main job. It's an odd thing to aspire to in life.

No excuse is necessary for those here from another country however they will need to know some of our history if they hope to become citizens. We or at least I was taught what all these American holidays commemorated back in grade and middle school in the 50 s & 60 s. Too bad the kids today are not taught American History these days and this is why most of them are clueless as to what the significance of these holidays really are.

"As for your view of enlisted men, 20% of them are women"
Only the transgenders...

Thanks for your point Gary. I have seen a few YT videos that clearly make light of the lack of basic knowledge and understanding of United States history. I make it a point to expressly use the phrase "United States Independence Day" instead of "4th of July" -- I do this, in part, since several of my coworkers are Ukrainian contractors and they have their own "Independence Day" (August 24, starting in 1991). Plus, I believe that there has been a very real and covert plan to remove the word "Independence" from the public vocabulary... and so we have this mushy "4th of July" or its variants "celebrating the 4th." When on social media, if I am commenting on another friend's post regarding "the 4th of July" and its attendant activities, I will use "US Independence Day" as part of my commentary. The idea is to bring the word Independence back into mainstream use.

Here is an example of a soldier who cited Atlas Shrugged as a book that influenced her, and who worked for the Obama campaign.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

As I told Dr. Zarkoff, my numbers come from research by Gen. James Mattis and others.
"Do You Know Your Military?"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

One of my liberal sociology professors, Dr. Ron Westrum, wrote *Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake" published by the Naval Institute Press.

Liberals are no more unpatriotic than conservatives are racist.

As for your view of "enlisted men," 20% of them are women.

I cited my figures here in the Gulch before, and in that, I cited my sources, which you did not.
See my earlier post "Do You Know Your Military."
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

As I recall, you were a USAF LTC. So, what I read from you is just attribution fallacy and confirmation bias.

My military service did not amount to much. I was a
4-by-10 Naval Reservist and was discharge for epilepsy (Honorable). But my father, a (now-deceased) Naval veteran of World War II (and proud of it) expressed a dislike and disgust for military parades.

Marotta, like many with a liberal mindset, has an obnoxious habit of making up facts. I checked a number of various polling organizations, and military members who identify as conservative make up the highest percentage of both officers and enlisted, in the high 30+%. What is more striking is that the number that identify as liberal is in single digits, with libertarians just in the double digits. When it comes to party, military that profess to be Republican mirror the conservative tag, in the high 30+%. What is more surprising is that the independents outnumber Democrats by almost double. As a caution, the number who declined to respond either way were nearly a quarter of those polled, protecting their privacy. Anyhow, them's my numbers, and I stand by them.

I have a hard time with the assertion that such a high percentage of enlisted men identify as liberals. This appears to fly directly in the face of the attitude most liberals have toward our country. Military men and women think exceptionally highly of this country and I would think your typical liberal would rather stay home and protest against it.
As for military officers...they ARE college grads, after all.

Well said. While I stand firm that Trump, like any politician or person in a public position of authority, requires continual scrutiny, I do not see much fault in the orchestration of this parade. I do find his handling of knees jerk naysayers to be masterful. First mention the parade, wait a week or so letting everyone vent their concerns and then inform it's intended to mark the anniversary of the end of WWI. Military parades are nothing new but, even as a veteran, I do not care for their connotations (despots, communists and dictators), but I do think you are right about the reintroduction of the military to the American public; and its a good thing. Friends, vets, from the Army and Marines said from the beginning this was good and it took some time to come to trust their assessment.

Time will tell. I have little doubt that President Trump will be there.