Niel Smith

Make Yourself Useful! Former Tanker/Cavalryman now in Biotech

[Maryam @hell_line0]

The first time I watched Return of the Jedi, I wondered how we were supposed to believe that a gelatinous slimy mound of evil who could barely move around and wholly depended on sycophants to cater to his every whim could have possibly amassed such a fortune that he would inspire fear and be running things.

I get it now.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Greg Bovino is openly threatening free speech.

He says if you call federal agents “kidnappers” or “Gestapo,” there will be “consequences.”

That’s intimidation.

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

Democratic candidates: take notes. You need to watch this:

[Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 @JoshEakle]

They told us Democrats would turn America into a show-your-papers society.

They told us Democrats would strip away the Second Amendment.

They told us Democrats would jail us for what we say.

They told us Democrats would drag us into more foreign wars.

They told us Democrats would cover up a child sex trafficking ring.

And then Republicans took power and decided to do all of it themselves.

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

@PopTingz trump gets his asshole licked clean by republicans every day for free

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Shared today by Bev Perry in the Expand Dem Values in the House and Senate Facebook group.

I need to say something that's been bothering me for a while, and I'm saying it as a Marine Corps veteran who leans center-right.
This isn't partisan. This is observation.
We've slow-faded into accepting militarized police as normal, and nobody seems to notice or care.
Even as a USMC pilot, I went through six months of infantry training as an officer before flight school. I've worn the gear. The helmet, the tactical vest, the whole kit. And I can tell you from experience, it changes you.
There's a psychological shift that happens when you strap that stuff on. You feel different. You carry yourself different. You start seeing the environment differently. In the Marine Corps, that shift was appropriate because it's a combat culture and organization.
But these are American streets. American citizens. And we've got law enforcement dressed like they're kicking down doors in Fallujah to serve warrants in suburbia.
What happend to high standards and real policing tactics? Think Adam-12...Officers Reed and Malloy. Crisp uniforms. A revolver. A baton. High standards and professionalism. They looked like public servants because they were public servants. They de-escalated. They talked to people. They were part of the community.
Now? Tactical gear, beards, ball caps, Oakley sunglasses, sleeve tattoos, and a tactical kit that would make special operators jealous. And we've turned it into a fetish. We celebrate it. We assume that because someone looks hard, they must be a professional.
They're not.
I loved the Marine Corps. But I'll be honest, I was also blinded by it for a while. Mission first. Unit over everything. And that mentality made sense in that context.
But law enforcement doesn't get that critical examination. "Back the Blue" has become a shield against accountability. A blanket assumption that a badge plus gun equals hero. That tactical gear equals competence.
It doesn't.
Most people who join law enforcement aren't special operators. They're average people who desperately want to belong to something bigger than themselves. I understand that impulse deeply, it's why I joined the Marines. But wanting to belong doesn't make you qualified. Looking the part doesn't mean you can perform under pressure. And wrapping yourself in warrior aesthetics doesn't make you a warrior.
Old school law enforcement represented something. Standards. Bearing. Discipline. Professionalism that was demonstrated, not costumed. A revolver and a baton meant you had to rely on your training, your words, your judgment, not overwhelming firepower.
What I see now in law enforcement is the costume without the culture. The gear without the training. The authority without the accountability.
Are there good people in law enforcement? Of course. I know some personally. But this reflexive "law enforcement can do no wrong" mentality is lazy, dangerous, and intellectually dishonest.
A woman is dead. And before we sort ourselves into teams and start assigning blame, maybe we should ask harder questions:
Why do we accept a militarized police force as normal?
Why do we assume tactical gear equals tactical competence?
Why have we let "Back the Blue" become a substitute for actual standards?
I wore the uniform. I went through the training. I know what that gear does to your head.
It shouldn't be normalized on American streets against American citizens.
And we shouldn't pretend everyone wearing it is qualified to carry it. The fact that he called her a “fucking bitch” after he shot her three times should be a huge red flag for all of us.

[Thad Wells @ThadWells]

The postgame speech that Curt Cignetti and Fernando Mendoza gave last night after Indiana dominated Oregon was a 39 second masterclass on building a winning football program—or any organization.

[JMU Sound Off @JMUSoundOff]

College Football Playoff hype video by @JmuAfton and narrated by @LilJayyy_1
#GoDukes

Clips credit of JMU Creative Services

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

[Chad Pillai @ChadPillai1]

A Retrospective on Captain Travis Patriquin: America's "Lawrence of Arabia" in Ramadi | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University https://t.co/LVD6sxG3k0

[Niel Smith @niel_a_smith]

@Asst_to_the_RM Good thing Doge killed the CFPB...

[Wu Tang is for the Children @WUTangKids]

We’re there

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

CHILLING Message from Jewish-American Governor Pritzker:

“I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.

“After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities — once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends — after that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next?”

“All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history, then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it."

"It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”

[Rev. Benjamin Cremer @Brcremer]

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -Theodore Roosevelt

[Turnbull @cturnbull1968]

Democratic leaders are not prepared for this moment. They’re writing letters while Republicans are taking hostages.

You don’t combat propaganda with logic, you overwhelm it.

Here are some examples:

1. Our sources are telling us that up to 500K Americans may not receive their SS checks because their data was tampered with.

2. You don’t refer to Elon’s team as young kids, you call them hackers.

3. We have reports that the social security numbers and personal data of over 10M Americans was sold on the dark web just last week by some hackers at USAID.

4. A whistleblower is telling us that Trump has redirected over $25B in payments from Treasury to his businesses.

5. We have reports that Trump is shuttering the VA to pay for his Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Wake up and start playing the game by the same rules as the opposition. Also, put the geriatric members of the party in the back and your young members in the front, for fucks sale.

[Will Stancil @whstancil]

This is a constitutional crisis. The richest man on earth has illegally obtained physical access to the US government payment systems and is now shutting down funding to any recipient he personally dislikes. This is money authorized by Congress, he is usurping the Constitution.

[Sandi Bachom 📹 @sandibachom]

Read/copy/repost if you can
From an anonymous OPM employee on Reddit. submitted 3 hours ago by Throwaway918284: "I'm a current employee at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I’m posting this because people need to know what’s going on at OPM. I’ve been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a Federal Employee for almost 20 years. I’ve never witnessed anything even remotely close to what’s happening right now. In short, there's a hostile takeover of the federal civil service.
Let me say this in no uncertain terms — OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen.
The current Acting Director, Charles (Chuck) Ezell is a low-level branch chief. He's the friendliest “yes man” you'll ever meet. He never says no. It’s clear they pushed aside all the high-level non political civil servants who refused to do Donald Trump's bidding, until they found Chuck.
Under his name, they’ve sent numerous requests to all the agencies to collect information on gov't employees that they see as a threat to their agenda. Instructions say to send these lists to Amanda Scales. But Amanda is not actually an OPM employee, she works for Elon Musk. She wasn’t even properly cleared by OPM Personnel Security.
Our CIO, Melvin Brown, (also a non political career public servant) was pushed aside just one week into his tenure because he refused to setup email lists to send out direct communications to all career civil servants. Such communications are normally left up to each agency.
Instead, an on-prem (on-site) email server was setup. Someone literally walked into our building and plugged in an email server to our network to make it appear that emails were coming from OPM. It's been the one sending those various “test” message you've all seen. We think they're building a massive email list of all federal employees to generate mass RIF notices down the road.
The non-political civil servants here at OPM are watching helplessly as our government is being systematically dismantled bit by bit. Even the IGs are being fired to prevent them from investigating the numerous whistleblower complaints we've filed.
Please share this and tell the world that OPM is not the bad guy. We're just as helpless to stop this as the rest of our fellow public servants. Hopefully someone out there can help us, but it’s looking pretty grim."

[Niel Smith @niel_a_smith]

@GregJaffe Congrats Greg!!

[Kayla Haas @kaylahaas]

Today at 8th & I, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced USS McClung (LSM 1) as the name for the first ship in the new McClung-class of medium landing ships.

This name honors U.S. Naval Academy graduate and Public Affairs Officer Major Megan McClung, USMC, who was killed in action while serving in Iraq. This will be the first Navy vessel to bear her name.  

https://t.co/TcnunaiTYR