Profiles in Toxic Masculinity, Part 12 – GySgt John Basilone
Appearances Can Be Deceiving
The young man to the right, demonstrating the use of an asbestos glove, might be the head cook in an Italian restaurant. He might be a worker in a steel mill. He could be, and was, a typical, in most ways, son of Italian immigrants, of a type quite common in the Eastern Seaboard in the late Thirties and early Forties. But this man is much more than that: This is Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, hero of Guadalcanal, the only enlisted Marine in World War 2 to be awarded both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross, and the subject of this installment of Profiles in Toxic Masculinity.
His Maculate Origin
John Basilone was born November 4, 1916, the sixth of ten children of Salvatore and Theadora Basilone. Salvatore was an immigrant from Colle Sannita, Italy, while Theadora was the American-born offspring of Italian immigrants, also from Colle Sannita. On his arrival in the U.S. Salvatore had settled in Raritan, New Jersey, while he met Theadora, then living in the neighboring town of Manville. While John was born during a two-year stay by the family in Buffalo, New York, when John was two, the Basilones returned to Raritan.
An adventurous lad, John dropped out of school at age fifteen and went to work as a caddy for a local country club until he was eighteen, when he began his military career by enlisting in the U.S. Army. Yes, that’s right – the Army.
His Adventurous Career
On joining the Army in July of 1934, John was initially assigned close to home; his first duty station was with the 16th Infantry at Fort Jay, New York, which was actually on Governor’s Island in New York City. Looking for a more exciting post, John applied for and was granted re-assignment to the 31st Infantry, then assigned to Fort William McKinley in the Philippines. It was during this tour that Basilone picked up the nickname “Manila John.”
On completion of his three-year hitch, John returned to Raritan and took a job driving a truck. After a while, this work palled, and John felt the itch to return to the Philippines; to that end, he decided to join the Marines, and enlisted in 1940. He served at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba until the beginning of World War 2, when he was eventually sent to the Solomon Islands as part of D company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, in charge of a section of machine guns. The 7th Marine’s first action would be on an island in what Jack London described as “The Terrible Solomons.” That island was called Guadalcanal.
His One-Man War
Wearing the Medal.
During the battle for Henderson Field, which airfield was desperately needed by the Americans for air operations taking the rest of the island, then Staff Sergeant Basilone was in charge of a section of heavy machine guns, those being the Browning water-cooled M1917 machine gun – Great War relics, big, heavy, bulky guns requiring a lot of heavy equipment to operate but very reliable. On the night of October 24, 1942, Basilone’s unit came under attack by elements of the Japanese Sendai Division, who assaulted the Marine line with machine guns, mortars, and rifle fire. Several mass charges were hurled against the Marine line, and at several places the Japanese actually penetrated the line and got into the Marine unit’s rear.
The attacks continued for two days.
At one point, the Marine resupply was cut off by Japanese infiltrators. Staff Sergeant Basilone, realizing the guns were running low on ammunition, single-handedly fought through to a resupply point, and brought ammo back to the beleaguered guns. Moving a reserve gun into the line, John personally fought that gun until it ran out of ammo and then, for some time, actually held off the Japanese assault with a .45 and a machete.
At the end of the second day, the Sendai Division had been virtually annihilated. Of the men in D Company, Basilone and one other Marine were still fit for further duty.
Gunny Basilone’s Medal of Honor citation reads:
For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action against enemy Japanese forces, above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division in the Lunga Area. Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 24 and 25 October 1942. While the enemy was hammering at the Marines’ defensive positions, Sgt. Basilone, in charge of 2 sections of heavy machine guns, fought valiantly to check the savage and determined assault. In a fierce frontal attack with the Japanese blasting his guns with grenades and mortar fire, one of Sgt. Basilone’s sections, with its guncrews, was put out of action, leaving only 2 men able to carry on. Moving an extra gun into position, he placed it in action, then, under continual fire, repaired another and personally manned it, gallantly holding his line until replacements arrived. A little later, with ammunition critically low and the supply lines cut off, Sgt. Basilone, at great risk of his life and in the face of continued enemy attack, battled his way through hostile lines with urgently needed shells for his gunners, thereby contributing in large measure to the virtual annihilation of a Japanese regiment. His great personal valor and courageous initiative were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
John and Lena Basilone on their wedding day.
Once the fight for Guadalcanal was won, the 1st Marine Division was withdrawn to Australia for some desperately needed rest and reorganization. Staff Sergeant Basilone, however, as a Medal of Honor awardee, was suddenly of greater value to the war effort Stateside, so he was ordered home on a War Bonds tour. One of the first stops on that tour was his hometown of Raritan, which held a parade in his honor on September 19, 1943. To this day, Raritan holds a “John Basilone Day Parade” on a Sunday each September.
While Medal of Honor recipients on War Bond tours doubtless got plenty, by late in 1943 Gunny Basilone was anxious to get back into action. Having already turned down a permanent assignment as an instructor as well as a commission, in December of 1943 he was finally awarded an assignment to a field unit, joining C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. There, while training with the company for deployment to the Pacific, John met and fell for Marine Corp Women’s Reserve Sergeant Lena Mae Riggi. They were married in July of 1944, seven months prior to the 5th Marine Division’s departure for Iwo Jima.
On February 19, 1945, the 5th Marines landed on Iwo Jima only to face withering fire and stubborn resistance from the Japanese. Gunny Basilone led his men forward into the teeth of Japanese machine guns, mortars, and artillery, single-handedly taking out at least one Japanese blockhouse and leading a Marine Sherman tank out of a minefield before being fatally hit by mortar fragments.
Gunny Basilone’s Navy Cross citation reads in part:
Shrewdly gauging the tactical situation shortly after landing when his company’s advance was held up by the concentrated fire of a heavily fortified Japanese blockhouse, Gunnery Sergeant BASILONE boldly defied the smashing bombardment of heavy caliber fire to work his way around the flank and up to a position directly on top of the blockhouse and then, attacking with grenades and demolitions, single handedly destroyed the entire hostile strong point and its defending garrison. Consistently daring and aggressive as he fought his way over the battle-torn beach and up the sloping, gun-studded terraces toward Airfield Number 1, he repeatedly exposed himself to the blasting fury of exploding shells and later in the day coolly proceeded to the aid of a friendly tank which had been trapped in an enemy mine field under intense mortar and artillery barrages, skillfully guiding the heavy vehicle over the hazardous terrain to safety, despite the overwhelming volume of hostile fire. In the forefront of the assault at all times, he pushed forward with dauntless courage and iron determination until, moving upon the edge of the airfield, he fell, instantly killed by a bursting mortar shell.
On a personal note, my mother’s oldest brother was also a Marine, was on Iwo Jima, and took a Japanese bayonet through the shoulder only a few miles from where Gunny Basilone was killed. Carl was very reticent about the war, and the location of his injury is the only thing we know about it.
His Golden Years
Since he died on that mountain on Iwo Jima, John Basilone enjoyed no golden years. Lena Basilone stayed in the Marines and never remarried. You can find Gunny Basilone these days in Section 12, Grave 384 at Arlington National Cemetery. Lena Basilone is buried in the Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California; she was buried still wearing her wedding ring.
John’s legacy, though, lives on. I recently spent a year and nine months maintaining a second residence in Raritan, NJ, Gunny Basilone’s hometown, and attended two consecutive Basilone Day parades. He is a real, major hometown hero, and believe you me, the whole town turns out for the parade.
After one of these events I had occasion to talk to a local, a man about my age, who was wearing a USMC cap. I asked him if he was originally from Raritan, and he answered in the affirmative.
“What happened in boot camp,” I asked him, “when they found out where you were from?”
“Oh boy,” he said, “I got a twenty-minute lecture from a DI on living up to Gunny Basilone.”
John Basilone is one of the Corp’s major heroes, second perhaps only to Chesty Puller, with whom he served. His iron courage, dedication and determination should be an example for the ages.
John’s memorial stature in Raritan, NJ.
Caddies are the cucks of the golfing world.
Marines are the cucks of the military world. They aren’t even their own branch of service. They are the Navy’s gayer little sister.
Let me guess, some Marine…
1) stole a girl you wanted,
2) beat you up,
3) embarrassed you somehow.
But you have your mighty e-revenge now!
Broke-cheddar is clearly yanking our chain: way too obvious. Not his best effort. I’ll give it the capacity grade: D-
Be better, Cheddar! Gunny Basilone was worthy your best efforts. This is mailing it in… and we all know what the USPS has become.
I larfed.
Did really work as a chain yanker, since I am Army (making fun of the other services is mandatory!)…just really weird coming from someone I do not recall was ever in the military.
If he wasn’t, he’s got a really shitty travel agent for his vacations
You can be one of the endless civilian contractors.
That’s true. Although I think he’s mentioned it before when he let his asshole/axe murder persona slip a bit.
Now Mr Lizard, there was someone who kept in character always. Hope he’s doing ok out there on his hot rock.
I was Army, deployed to Iraq.
I expect a thank you for my service, Swiss. Thank me.
Thank you for your twenty dollar service last night in the Shop-Rite parking lot.
I expect a thank you for my service, Swiss.
Ah, fuck. Bruschettawad is really Mat Best.
Funny, I picture him more as Corporal King.
we all know what the USPS has become
The industrial-scale fraud arm of the DNC?
There is always somebody, tougher, braver and more heroic than oneself out there… this guy, for sure.
I woke up feeling masculine today, but after reading this…I need to go do push ups.
Well, there’s always tomorrow. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
One of the most badass Marines to ever wear the the uniform. Also was the Army’s Philippine’s boxing champion while stationed there (light-heavyweight I think).
He didn’t have to go back, he could have rode out the war as doing the bond tours, but that’s not how he rolled.
What more proof do you need of how toxic his masculinity was?
If you want to see this story well-depicted, watch the HBO series “The Pacific.” It’s the true tale of three interlocking-narratives – one of those stories is John Basilone’s. It’s 7 episodes and it is as good as anything on the subject.
The other two men whose stories are depicted would be equally worthy of inclusion in this series. Robert “Bob” Leckie would go on to be an accomplished writer, including of many historical fictions, and Eugene B. “Hammer” Sledge, a quiet man whose war memoir “With the Old Breed” is considered among the finest first person accounts of war ever written – ever – as in, up there with Thucydides. He cribbed notes in a pocket bible he kept with him during his campaigns, which included the battle that led to the Atomic Age: The Battle of Okinawa.
Watch it, but be warned, it depicts the full gamut of the savagery (and courage and pathos) of total war.
I know the scene probably never happened like that – but the scene where Leckie is resting after a fight on Guadalcanal and 1/7 comes marching by with Chesty Puller and John Basilone in the front – that was seeing all my heroes in having a meet-up.
Yeah, that’s a great scene. Funny as shit, too. The SgtMaj who washed his junk with a GP brush was, by all accounts, a real human being. Multiple reports of that lunatic from different sources.
That was rough when he broke.
Nods solemnly.
/Shuffles to the WC so wife can’t hear
Great series. I especially enjoyed the last episode as the survivors try to come to terms with their survival.
The hunting scene with E.B. and his old man is pretty tough to watch: among the most powerful scenes I’ve ever watched, but it may be particular to me.
As a Marine myself, this is probably blasphemous for me to say, but……*quietly* I prefer Band of Brothers.
Not that The Pacific isn’t good, but I like the structure of BoB better. While peripheral characters come and go in the various episodes, there is a core of characters like Winters, Nixon, Malarkey, Lipton, Bull, etc who are present throughout. You get to know them well and feel connected to them. Because The Pacific keeps jumping back and forth between Basilone, Sledge, and Leckie, all of whom served separately in different units, you just don’t get as invested in any one of them.
Teen (doesn’t matter which one) says “This is hard!” or “This is impossible!”
Dad goes to the TV, ques up BoB Bastonge episode and asks them again if what they are doing is “hard” or “impossible”.
Teen: “Yes. I just told you that. You never listen.”
Was the response the first time, but now its routine and they just move on once I commandeer the TV remote and they know its going to be that.
There are times when it’s just astonishing what men can endure
In the middle of a disaster, your focus becomes survival and other supposed existential quandaries fade away. Only the bored and unchallenged have time for pointless navel-gazing.
It’s akin to flying a plane. When the shit hits the prop, everything suddenly comes into sharp focus.
Dad goes to the TV, ques up BoB Bastonge episode
I watched that series with my grandfather who had been at Bastogne.
I stopped by my grandparents house. He wanted to watch the series with me. He had it on VHS courtesy of a relative. He puts one tape in the VCR, hits play, then sits down. After he sits down, he realized he put the wrong tape in the player. We were starting in the middle of the series.
My grandfather started to get up to to swap the tapes around. I stopped him and told him, “Grandpop, we know the story turns out. You and I are sitting here talking.”
He laughed, said “Yeah, you’re right”, and then sat back down.
We watched the series out of order. It was a good night.
“We’re Paratroopers, We’re supposed to be Surrounded”
BoB is superior
Nuts!
The other problem with The Pacific, particularly if you’re going to do a series with both that expansive of a name and the definitive “the”, is the entire Marine focus. They did have good PR writers. And still do.
Chip – BoB is undoubtedly the better series, but I don’t think that’s an insult to “The Pacific” because BoB may be as good as it gets for that genre. Clearly the Gold Standard. My recollection is that Spielberg and Tom Hanks both did “Pacific” after significant badgering by Pacific veterans of WW2. After all of the love that had been given to the European theater with both BoB and “Saving Private Damon,” they decided they owed some treatment to what had happened far away in the Pacific Island.
As I noted here in my article about my grandfather, he was a part of the follow-on forces after the Battle of the Bulge and carried a bazooka all the way to Berlin. My dad was in the Air Force, as well, so despite my brainwashing by the Corps, I managed to still appreciate the rest of the Armed Forces… eventually.
For Brochett:
My buddy who was in the Navy (and off of the coast in the South China Sea) during Vietnam: “Man, the Marines aren’t even their own branch of service. You’re a part of the Department of the Navy.”
Me: “Yes, we are… the Men’s Department, sweetie.”
(Wish I could say it was original, but some old salt from WW2 said that to me one time and I had been saving that line up for decades for just that moment).
So what you are saying is that Basilone was an early version of Antifa.
No, he wasn’t fighting Nazi’s in Germany and he also checks all the boxes on that Smithsonian document so that makes him a white supremacist.
Hmm, no doubt Roman Catholic, dark-skinned… what kind of white supremacy is this these days?
There are white BLM protesters assaulting black people, so…
While on a War-Bond tour (before meeting his wife-to-be) Basilone had a reportedly very steamy relationship with actress Miss Virginia Grey. She couldn’t get enough of that toxic masculinity.
Another wholesome Mormon girl.
SM::Sees the statue: “Put your blouse back on devil dog!”
“And where’s your dadgum cover?”
When I was in Afghanistan, I had a buddy who was a former Marine, but now in one of those ‘special’ units. One day we went over to a larger airfield near where we were staying because it had a coffee shop. While we were there, we saw a SgtMaj dressing down some troop over proper wear of his cover in a particular area of the base. My buddy spit some dip and then says,
“Well, looks like my war’s over…”
“Really?? How’s that?”
“Bro, when Sergeants Major are doing Page 11s about proper wear of the cover on a base, it’s time for me to be movin’ on. When Big Mil shows up with its attendant bullshit, I’m out.”
Ugh, that gives me flashbacks to some bitchass MP at Al-Asad who gave me and my buddy shit about walking around wearing our beanies around base.
“Where is your reflecting belt?!?!?!”
/Bagram AF CSM
And of course how slow were they to realize the threat from Fit-bits (and other run trackers).
This thread sent me down a rabbit hole of Bill Mauldin cartoons. He mocks the same behavior in the European Theater of WWII, particularly Patton’s order that all soldiers were to be clean-shaven at all times, even in combat.
I have “Up Front”. It was a good read.
The young man to the right, demonstrating the use of an asbestos glove,
Uh, to the left? Unless the Marines use a different left and right. I wouldn’t put it past them.
I took that as “to the right of the text you’re presently reading,” which would be correct. It was a momentary awkwardness for me to think about how it was written.
Ok, that makes more sense.
To the right, you will see a photograph with two men with the man on the left demonstrating a glove . . . .
That took several attempts to figure out.
Fucking autists.
There was one goddamn guy in the picture wearing a glove. Does it fucking matter?
Does it fucking matter?
You’re really going to ask that question here?
Lol.
You are correct. I retract my stupid question.
You should because the text says Basilone is demonstrating the glove, not that he’s wearing it.
Wow. My T went way up just reading that.
Basilone would have been a movie star had he survived.
Carl was very reticent about the war, and the location of his injury is the only thing we know about it.
Interesting. My grandpa’s younger brother was a Marine in the Pacific. He had a bullet crease his scalp, but he never, ever talked about it either.
Those men were pretty fucking amazing.
A friend from high school had a grandad who was a WWII Marine. We could get him talking sometimes – he was a crazy old jarhead. But his stories were always either about stuff that happened between battles or stuff his even crazier friends did. Still great stories.
I once worked with a dude who did a couple tours of VN and loved it. He, too, would tell lots of stories but they were all like you mentioned, crazy shit he and his pals did, but really nothing about the battles.
I recall a hilarious story about too much weed and tracer rounds.
My father in law was a Marine grunt in Vietnam and he is the same way. He’s got all kinds of wild Nam stories, but none of them are combat stories. He’s talked my ear off about Vietnam without ever telling a single story about fighting.
“Louie” was on the Wasp when it got torpedoed and sank. Nothing to say about the terror of jumping off a burning aircraft carrier, but a great story about getting into an argument with the squids on a destroyer who fished him out of the sea 18 hours later.
While his squad was waiting to go ashore at Iwo Jima – nothing about the horror they were watching on the beach and waiting to get fed into that meat-grinder. But a hilarious story about a couple guys who didn’t want to wait, jumped into another wave’s landing boat, both got hit, came back on another landing boat, got patched up in sick-bay, and went ashore again with his squad.
My FiL, who passed away in March, was promoted from Private to Master Sergeant in 7 months while in Korea.
He told all sorts of stories such as commandeering a trailer full of booze destined for the O-Club, but never talked about combat.
Until he had a stroke. For a short while after that he would be convinced he was just there, and told me about hiding behind piles of Chinese bodies when the Recon BN he was in was over-run. Him and another ‘black fella whose name he couldn’t remember’ had to survive 7 days behind enemy lines and walked out together.
I believe the stroke took away that guys name from him, because they talked to each other for years after the war until the other guy passed.
Worked with a guy, nicked name Jelly Belly, who manned a radar site in Korea and those were some fun stories with some colorful language. Only ever talked about one encounter with the enemy, other than that, it was as everyone else stated, what stupid stuff him and his buddies would get into.
““Yes, we are… the Men’s Department, sweetie.””
That’s a Keeper!
Profiles in lack of masculinity.
Showtime released a new trailer for its upcoming two-night limited series “The Comey Rule.”
The TV series features Jeff Daniels as former FBI director James Comey and Brendan Gleeson as President Donald Trump. The content is based on Comey’s New York Times bestselling tell-all book “A Higher Loyalty” and was adapted for the small screen and directed by Billy Ray.
“Part one of the series examines the earliest days of the Russia investigation, the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and their impact on Election Night 2016 when Donald Trump stunned the world and was elected president,” it continued.
“Part two is a virtual day-by-day account of the tempestuous relationship between Comey and Trump and the intense and chaotic first months of the Trump presidency – where allies became enemies, enemies became friends and truth depended on what side you were on.”
Sounds like a riveting fantasy mini-series.
To quote the Pontiff of the Prairie:
“I’d rather sit on a park bench and hammer my nuts with a wooden mallet.”
They’re sure going to look like assholes if Comey ends up getting indicted and convicted.
Then Comey would be a persecuted political prisoner.
^^^^This is exactly why they do these TV shows, books, and mass media. Him, Obama, all of them. It’s All Narrative with them, All of The Time.
It’s part of how you pollute any potential jury pool (and get away with it), but more importantly, how you avoid prosecution in the first place.
These MFers perfected their commie predecessors’ propaganda lessons: “Lie, lie, lie – and if you get caught tellin’ a lie? Tell another one.” That was a joke an old pilot used to make about what you should do if you were the subject of an Aircraft Mishap Board. Perfectly describes the Leftists/Elitists cuntes in government. They’ll romanticize Comey, do hagiographies to Obama, and on and on. It’s all “Story Wars.”
It’s how Wilson, FDR, and the rest of the racist, statist pieces of shit got to be Progressive “Heroes of the People” for a century.
Toxic insecurity.
lulz…..imagine creating a hagiographic TV show about….James Comey. James fuckin’ Comey.
And supposedly Heston worried about being too short for the role of Moses.
Sorry to go OT, but maybe not,
The most Epic Rollercoaster you will ever ride,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXFehwLKO6I
No thank you.
I wholeheartedly agree, I like wide and slow rivers,
Most of that looks doable until the 6 minute mark then it gets narrow and quick. Fun stuff!
THAT looked like unimaginable fun!
The only part I winced at was going through that little keyhole outcropping.
We interrupt our regular coverage of Armageddon for this important message to Rodney
Rodney’s Toxic Masculinity may have been misdirected.
Run indeed. That woman is gonna whoop some ass.
This is going to turn out to be a viral marketing thing like “Where’s Herb?“, but crude, crass, and ultra-violent for the Idiocracygeneration.
That’s got to be a put-on, right?
RIGHT?!
Thanks Animal.
I used to work with a bunch of former Marines who would always regale me with stories of Basilone and Puller when they got drunk.
I guess I am done with the NFL.
Goodell issued his lamentations on FS1 host Emmanuel Acho’s YouTube series, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,” on Sunday.
Acho brought up Goodell’s admission in June that the league badly handled the national anthem protests starting in 2016 when Kaepernick first began his protests.
In June, Goodell said it was “wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.”
But Acho pointed out that Goodell did not specifically mention Kaepernick in that June “apology,” and he wondered if the commissioner had anything to add to that apology now.
“Well, the first thing I’d say is I wish we had listened earlier, Kaep, to what you were kneeling about and what you were trying to bring attention to,” Goodell replied. “We had invited him in several times to have the conversation, to have the dialogue. I wish we had the benefit of that, we never did. We would have benefited from that, absolutely.”
Still not listening to his soon to be ex-customers.
Damn your nimble fingers
Heh – Although after I typed I wondered if he views the rubes in the seats as customers. Maybe “customers” to him are just the networks and sponsors?
Yes
The problem arises when the advertisers on the networks flee.
Goodell has never struck me as someone who is in touch with his paying customers.
Oh no, he knows exactly who butters his bread, and he serves them diligently.
Sleepy Joe bases his entire campaign on a verifiable falsehood and then this happens.
Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden said he launched his presidential campaign in April 2019 because of the white supremacists that participated in the 2017 events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and because of how President Donald Trump responded to the incident. Biden, whose characterization of what Trump said is false, has now been endorsed by one the notorious white supremacists who was at the event. …
White supremacist Richard Spencer, who is accused in a lawsuit of being one of the organizers of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and who attended the event, announced on Sunday night that he is voting for Biden.
Spencer wrote on Twitter: “I plan to vote for Biden and a straight democratic ticket. It’s not based on ‘accelerationism’ or anything like that; the liberals are clearly more competent people.”
I wonder how many times Joe will be asked to disavow this endorsement.
https://twitter.com/dineshdsouza/status/1297667356144144384?s=21
The linked Atlantic article is even better in light of this endorsement.
bwahahaha – why, it’s almost as if progressives don’t understand where they come from!
Ahhhh… it’s progressives who voluntary label themselves as such as wrap themselves in the mantle. Even if they didn’t embrace the exact same ideas as the hundred year old progressives did, which they do today, they’re still accountable for the association.
Except that they are substantively and morally alike. They’re just picking different winners and losers than Wilson did. That’s exactly D’souza’s point.
“It’s not racist when we do it”
They absolutely don’t. Those that do have an inkling deny, deny, deny.
Joe Biden worried in 1977 that certain de-segregation policies would cause his children to grow up ‘in a racial jungle’
Did Joe predict BLM?
The gotcha lines in the story are eyerolling
Oh, he opposed court ordered busing as well? Gee, would that be voluntary or mandated?
The biggest opponents of forced busing, at least in Louisville, were the black parents. Well, the white parents who opposed it moved to Bullitt or Oldham counties. The black parents filed lawsuits and got at least 3 different plans overturned.
On topic as a counter-example:
I got called into an “event of unfounded emesis.” Fortunately buy the time got there I was late enough to be put on anti lookie-lou duty. During the debrief afterwards, the IC was bitching about how people didn’t respond under full covid-19 protocol… not even the nurses!
I’m not even sure what that means.
Are you saying you were late and made a security guard?
Yup. Patient privacy is a big thing here.
Nice write-up.
Sadly, there will be no John Basilone Day Parade this year because Governor Fuckstick will not allow large gatherings, except if you are marching for a Marxist front group.
It looks like the sacrifices of Basilone and the men like him were in vain after all.
Animal, I enjoy all the articles you post. But these explorations of Toxic Masculinity are special.
OT: Articles of impeachment for Gauleiter DeWine
State Representative John Becker (R-Union Township, Clermont County) announced Monday that he has drafted ten articles of impeachment against Governor Mike DeWine.
Rep. Becker says the governor has violated the Ohio and United States Constitutions in a press release.
He says the governor’s statewide mask mandate is “offensive, degrading, humiliating, and insulting.”
Becker claims the governor “meddled” in the presidential primary election and takes issue with the essential business order that took place in the spring, as well as mandating masks for school-age children.
Good for him… but I don’t have high hopes DeWine’s going to be removed.
[sniffs] stoopid Commonwealth doesn’t have impeachment mechanism.
It does.
I doubt it will go anywhere even if it gets out of the State House. There are just not enough votes in the State Senate.
PA Constitution reference.
I think based on Section 6 the Health Secretary can be impeached too.
Wasn’t much discussion of the Wisconsin shoot this morning. I’m about as anti-cop as they come and I question why they didn’t restrain the dude or make more of an attempt before he reached his car, but once he got to his car and was reaching in…how is that not a good shoot? The guy willfully disobeyed orders, walks around to reach into his vehicle (with a prior for resisting arrest after brandishing a weapon without even mentioning the fact that he is a registered sex offender) before getting shot. There’s absolutely no way of knowing what he’s going for in that car, but he quite clearly doesn’t want to respond to armed officers telling him to stop.
What exactly are the cops supposed to do by the point he is at his car door bending over to grab something?
And final point – the video starts at the point where the cops already have their weapons drawn and the guy is clearly disobeying their orders. What the hell lead up to it? Whoever released it decided to start at that point.
There is no way in hell these cops get convicted of anything. They don’t even deserve to lose their jobs.
Didn’t see the video.
But as I understand it, the cop was touching the guy with his non-shooting hand? In that case, something has gone terribly wrong if the takedown hasn’t already occurred.
So they should be fired at the very least for gross incompetence.
The guy should have tackled and cuffed before it got to that from what I saw and there’s no telling what was cut out. Also, the police are probably gun shy about slamming people around now even if it’s needed which always has the possibility of leading to situations just like this.
He walks around his vehicle to the driver side while the cops have their guns drawn on him. As he opens the door and bends over to grab something, the cop yanks on his tank top with his left hand trying to stop him then fires. The most puzzling part of this to me was the cops never attempted a take down before that point (and this is, I suppose, where Sloopy calls them incompetent). But this wasn’t a guy interested in complying and I see no rational explanation for his behavior or what he was going for in that car.
The video clip is always chopped and shows only part of the story. Maybe the cops were behaving how they were trained, but I would have thought they would have said “fuck-it”, let him drive off while taking down his license plate so they can quietly arrest him later when there wasn’t a mob around. Of course he could have grabbed a gun and started blasting if they had backed off. Shrugs.
See, he doesn’t even appear to be getting into the car. That’s the thing. He’s bending over as if to grab something.
As Hillary said ‘What Difference At This Point Does It Make?!’
It’s already been used as an excuse for more rioting. The usual people will line up to condemn the cops before the investigation even begins. The usual cop defenders will justify it immediately too.
I feel like I’m watching a rerun.
Of course he could have grabbed a gun and started blasting if they had backed off.
Without having watched a second of this particular incident, reaching into your car when the cops tell you to stop is a recipe for getting shot, and I think it’s a justifiable reaction.
Whether they screwed up before or after is something I don’t know, but the dynamic of him reaching into his car when they’re telling him (at gunpoint) to stop biases me towards the cops to start.
Disobeying orders isn’t a capital crime. Even if it was, cops still don’t get to play judge, jury, and executioner when their orders are disobeyed. Same as non-LEOs, lethal force is only justified when they feel their lives or an innocent party are in danger.
Put a non-LEO in place of the cop shooter. Would it have been a good self-defense shoot for a non-LEO?*
*I don’t think there’s enough info to determine. Failing a gun in the car though that the guy was actively reaching for, I fail to see how this could be a good self-defense shoot for either a LEO or non-LEO.
The situations are different when dealing with cops versus armed non-LEO whether anyone likes it or not. And not just because FYTW but because you have to obey a cops lawful orders. There are numerous videos of suspects pulling guns on cops in these sorts of situations. There isn’t going to be an exactly comparable scenario to this one for non-LEO, but if you had someone break into your home and you saw them reaching for something in their pocket after you pulled a gun on them and warned them to stop and shot, that’s a good shoot in my book regardless if you saw a gun or they ended up having one.
I’d repeat that, again, the suspect here does not appear to be just trying to flee the scene or just disobeying. He’s bending over into his vehicle while being told to stop by armed cops. And it’s not split second. He methodically walks around his vehicle to apparently go grab something.
There are also reports that the cops already used their tasers on this guy.
I could be mistaken, but I think juries are given the same parameters to judge a LEO self defense shooter as a non-LEO self defense shooter. That’s why one of the best lawyers you can find for a self-defense shooting is the same one that provides legal consul for your local LEOs.
The only difference is LEOs don’t have to retreat or have a duty to deescalate if acting as the aggressor before pulling the trigger.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the marxists set up these incidents as an excuse to start shit.
“Whoever released it decided to start at that point.”
No shit. That’s why we wait until the truth comes out.
Ah, the 4-8 year rule.
Interesting article. Animal.
Yeah, no.
Well there’s a parenting fail.
If she can use that skill to make some money, at least she won’t be on welfare.
Always look on the bright side of life.
Don’t yell at the stupid fucking morons.
Don’t yell at the stupid fucking morons.
Don’t yell at the stupid fucking morons.
But they make it so hard not to.
I need a vacation.
I am ver close to being honest with my co-workers. And my honest opinion of their ‘contributions’ is not polite.
No, we do not need another damn meeting, that will not solve anything.
I recall a certain frat meeting where a brother suggested we have a volleyball picnic to get over our differences.
I did not respond politely.
Was the losing team kicked out? Because that seems like it could work.
So we should set up a planning discussion so we can set up the meeting that we could solve the problem?
I SECOND THAT MOTION!
You set that up for a week from Tuesday.
I’ll be on vacation then, so take notes.
This is why I often retreat into “how can I show that I’m valuable to the team without giving half a crap about the end result?”
When I care about the end result, I get stressed and annoyed and want to leave the job. When I care about reporting up my value add, this is a much less stressful job.
Funny thing is that I usually do better for the department when I’m more focused on my personal value add.
What about stupid chaste morons?
Too much pent up frustration, avoid them at all costs.
[tries hard not to yell at UCS]
:-p
HaHa!
https://www.krtv.com/news/montana-and-regional-news/glacier-national-park-is-removing-glaciers-will-be-gone-by-2020-signs
They’re not just covering up that second “2” with a “3”?
I read the same story 30 years ago.
The earth has been warming since the peak of the last ice age, roughly 16,000 years. The ice age is ending, the sky is not falling and no, you can’t have any money.
Glacier National Park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen explained that the latest research shows shrinking of some glaciers, but in ways much more complex than what was predicted.
Interesting, I don’t believe I had ever read “more complex” as a synonym for much slower.
heh. When your models fail to predict what happened, it’s always because the situation is more complex than you thought, not because your going down the wrong path.
If you watch TCM, you’ve probably seen the old Traveltalks shorts. James Fitzpatrick visited Glacier Park in 1942 (sadly doesn’t seem to be on Youtube), and mentioned that the glaciers were forecast to melt in about a thousand years from now. So the melt was under way long before so-called AGW.
As I note the big melt started about 16000 y.a.
A new study shows that leading AI models are 1.5 times more likely to flag tweets written by African Americans as “offensive” compared to other tweets.
It couldn’t possibly be anything else but bias from those white, Asian, and Indian coders.
It would be simpler to just code stuff written by wypipo as racist and leave it at that.
So wait. It’s not homophobic if a Black guy says it? Is that Racsit or Anti-Gay?
Homophobia is prejudice + power. Ergo ipso facto ad nauseum lorem ipsum, Black folx can’t be homophobic. Or antisemitic. Or sexist. Or any bad thing.
Ever since Obama got elected, black people did have the requisite power.
1. Define “offensive”.
2. Do black people write things that meet that definition more than other racial groups?
3. Is the issue with the definition, or the writers?
Well see, this is the problem with the way they see disparites. Modern Sociological thought assumes, and expects any disparity between two racial groups to be accounted for by racism.
The fact that one group gets flagged more often for racism than the other, is a sign that the flagging is racist. No thought is ever made in understanding that what is defined as offensive is largely driven by what white people think.
Would.
If they are Joe Biden supporters why are they campaigning for Trump?
Strange things are afoot these days.
When Trump won I remember people genuinely fearful for their lives. They thought Trump’s win would embolden all those closet Nazis. But in the past 4 years I’ve seen dozens of videos of people attacking someone for wearing a Trump hat or shirt, and not a single video of Trump supporters attacking someone for a Hillary or Biden hat or shirt. Even Jussie had to stage his story. And all those gun nuts with a house full of military-grade weapons haven’t gone on shooting sprees, but Antifa is burning down buildings every night. Funny how that’s all working out.
It was always going to turn out that way. Leftists have always used violence and it is all projection all of the time with them.
Project Veritas filing lawsuit against state recording laws. Wonder what they’ve got cooked up that they feel the need to challenge them?
https://twitter.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1297963046531248128?s=21
Also, love the threads. MSM and fake media could take a lesson from them, and from the media in Hong Kong, in how to dress to distinguish yourself from participants in protests or riots. If that was the actual goal instead of providing cover for their fellow travelers.
If you walk around dressed like that in the scumbag Antifa crowds you may as well paint a target on your back. You’d eventually end up badly beaten and/or dead.
Well yes, because they’re violent criminals, not peaceful protestors. And the media aren’t impartial scribblers of truth.
Great profile of a great man who is unlikely to have considered himself “great.”
If this is toxic masculinity, then i am pro-toxic!
Ladies and gentlemen. If you have a strong need to vomit, I present to thee, the Politico. The only website I have been banned from thrice.
Shmoober, he the manboob
“With Senate Democrats favored to win control of the chamber on Nov. 3”
If you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one.