Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged by reports that Hillary Clinton supporters are already distancing her from Obama and Democrats on the ballot in 2014 are unlikely to want Obama campaigning for them. They also groan as the Obama administration engages in more pointless spin as Obamacare’s roll out continues to sputter. And Jim unleashes an epic rant over the controversy of wishing someone a Merry Christmas.
Earlier this year, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey announced they were lifting the ban on women serving in ground combat operations, a move one vocal critic says is the result of an aggressive feminist agenda and military brass unwilling to stand up to politicians and champion military readiness over political correctness.
“If you look at the chiefs of the services, none of them have direct ground combat, so they really don’t know what we’re talking about here. There’s a radical feminist agenda here and they never would have been selected by the Obama administration…unless they agreed that they would move forward on these particular agendas,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis, author of “Deadly Consequences: How Cowards Are Pushing Women Into Combat.”
“They know what the facts are but they’re cowering with a silence, much like the people on the Hill are cowering because they have a constitutional obligation to stop this, but they’re going ahead with it,” said Maginnis, who quickly points out that bowing to politically correct forces was commonplace in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and is not unique to the Obama presidency.
The most common argument for allowing women to serve in ground combat is one of equality, that women should have the opportunity to serve anywhere men can serve. Maginnis says that may sound like a nice argument, but the facts tell a very different story.
“The overwhelming evidence out there on physical, psychological, historical and medical reasons, say no. when we’re talking about direct ground combat, I’m talking about smashing heads, shooting at short range, wrestling people in a death struggle to the ground,” said Maginnis. “The question that ought to be asked is whether we want to be that kind of society that really puts women into ground combat. Are we that society and what are the consequences for men, women and children?”
He also says this decision will ultimately lead to American women being drafted for military service on the front lines.
“When, not if but when, because of all the economic and world turbulence issues, we return to a draft and a conscription military, women will be drafted for the infantry and every other position that must be filled,” said Maginnis. “We used to call them cannon fodder. Well, your daughters of America will be cannon fodder just like your sons because of spineless people today making decisions that are not in the best interests of our families, much less our country.”
Ultimately, Maginnis believes the obvious differences between men and women will hurt readiness if these policies proceed.
“Most people need to understand what every mom and dad in America understands and that is that. by and large, women are not little men. They are, according to the Army, about five inches shorter on average, 32 pounds lighter, 37 pounds less muscle mass . They have about half the upper body strength of the average man and three-quarters of his cardiovascular fitness,” said Maginnis, who believes the military’s solution to those discrepancies is very troubling.
“Standards are being jeopardized and we see that even today with the experiments that the Army and Marine Corps are conducting where you see in the media that women are going through the infantry officer course down at Quantico. Of course, none have graduated yet because it’s so tough and rightly should be,” said Maginnis. “You had a couple that graduated from the enlisted infantry course recently. What you don’t hear is that they had to abide by two different tests that had gender norm standards. In other words, the standards are different.”
While the push for gender equality is behind many of these policy changes, why are feminist organizations so eager to place women in the most dangerous positions possible?
“They want women to be forced into all positions, whether it be direct ground combat, special forces or infantry. They say there should be no prohibition even if it means it’s detrimental to readiness,” said Maginnis. “The radical feminists believe in an androgynous world.”
With military leaders saluting and accepting these cultural changes in the Armed Forces, members of Congress hardly making any protest and three-quarter of the American public on board with women in combat, reversing this policy seems very remote. Maginnis says only one factor can make the government change course.
“Only if our American people recognize the insaneness of a decision that will push their own daughters into direct ground combat against their own wills. Once you’ve opened Pandora’s box, and that’s what we’ve done with this decision, we’ve gone against history and against psychology and all the physical differences. We’re pushing in a direction that will jeopardize the very safety of our nation,” said Maginnis, who used a football illustration to explain the deliberate disadvantage the U.S. would be facing on the battlefield.
“If we go down to the University of Arkansas and tell them, ‘You have a winning schedule but this coming game you’re going to have to put three women on the front line.’ If they put three women on the front line on every play, guess what’s going to happen? They’re going to lose and they’re going to be the laughing stock of the NCAA,” said Maginnis.
“That’s what we’re being told here. For political reasons we’re being told we have to have a certain percentage of women in direct ground combat and the consequences they could care less. Unfortunately, you don’t have the experience on the Hill and the generals are too cowardly to say what is obvious. The American people may end up paying a very high price when we do go to war and we will go to war in a serious way in our not so distant future,” he said.
A high-ranking U.S. Secret Service agent gave up his lucrative career after watching political cronyism up close and he says Americans need to do much more than vote if they want to see positive changes restored to the American system of government.
Dan Bongino served as an officer for the New York Police Department before joining the Secret Service in 1999. He later became part of the protective detail for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Distressed at the way the nation was headed, Bongino left his job in 2011 and won a crowded Republican U.S. Senate primary in Maryland in 2012 before losing to incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. He is now a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland’s sixth congressional district.
He is also the author of “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All.”
While Bongino says he didn’t witness much of Obama’s actions on policy, working at the White House as the health care debate intensified forced him to enter the public arena.
“A particularly acute incident was being behind the scenes as a Secret Service agent and just seeing the carousel of insider interests coming in and out of the White House as Obamacare was being passed and just the horror of the American people actually believing that this was meant to give them better access to health care,” said Bongino. “It was an insider-rigged system from the start. There’s no question about it. If there was one moment that was a tip of the spear more than others, that really frustrated me. I knew I had to do something and leave it all behind and take on a bigger cause.”
Bongino says another incident that crystallized the “bubble” mentality in Washington came while he and other agents provided security for a trip President Obama made to Afghanistan. As Obama prepared to meet with various military leaders, a Delta Force officer waited patiently in full gear to have his turn with the commander-in-chief only to have an administration staffer request that the officer disarm before entering the meeting.
“I laughed at him asking me to tell this guy to leave his weapon at the door. The utter absurdity of it really sums up in one story what the book tried to get at, this insulated insider atmosphere that has really destroyed what was the best system of government we’ve ever had, which really represented the interests of the people,” said Bongino.
When asked to explain why he believes the system is already destroyed rather than endangered, Bongino unflinchingly says it’s destroyed because both parties are now contributing to the destruction.
“At least we used to have one side fighting against this insiderism, this cronyism. Now, I feel the real battle is not Democrats or Republicans anymore. I think there are weak Republicans and Democrats all in cahoots together to prolong this insider system. I think the real battle now is government elitist fois gras for lunch crowd versus American populists, just regular middle class Americans trying to get the government to leave them alone. I think they’ve really ruptured that relationship,” said Bongino.
“My diagnosis is that (we have a) polluted DC cesspool of insiders that are really corrupting. It’s not the people that get up and go to work in the morning that are causing the problem. It’s these bow tie-wearing bureaucrats that are really corrupting the system and making what was a representative government only representative of the special interests and that interest isn’t yours,” said Bongino.
The solution, according to Bongino, is a very engaged citizenry that will dedicate their time and resources to restoring America’s greatness.
“Voting is not enough. It’s not. You haven’t done your duty by voting. If you’re not calling your congressman, if you’re not sending letter to the office, if you’re not volunteering for campaigns or volunteering for a cause, if you’re not donating money to a cause or a campaign, even a dollar, then folks you’re not part of the (solution), you’re the problem,” said Bongino.
“We need you. We need your voice. The left has been experts at this for years at whittling away our freedom, Voting is not enough. I cannot say that enough. You have to do. Talk is cheap. Action matters. Action is what changes the world. Talk is only good if it changes action,” said Bongino.
Bongino is challenging freshman Democratic Rep. John Delaney in Maryland’s most competitive district. It was held by the GOP for years until redistricting made it more favorable for the Democrats in 2012. Bongino says the district officially leans left by just a couple of points but he expects to have much larger volunteer forces and be very competitive in the money fight.
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged that non-conservatives like David Brooks of the New York Times and Chuck Todd of NBC News suggest Obamacare’s disastrous debut is proof that government fails to do many things well. They also rip the Obama administration over the IRS auditing a cancer patient who told Fox News he would ‘let nature take its course’ rather than pay much higher premiums and deductible. And they react to Amazon.com planning to use drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes of placing an order.
