Michael Flynn Should Be Reactivated, Tried Under UCMJ, And Have Retirement Revoked

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency; official portrait

This past Sunday, 30 May 2021, in Dallas, TX, disgraced former National Security Advisor LTG Michael Flynn, U.S. Army (ret.) made remarks at a QAnon gathering which billed itself as a “For God & and Country Patriot Roundup.”

An audience member who identified himself as a Marine, asked Mr. Flynn:
“I want to know why what happened in Minamar [sic]can’t happen here.”

Mr. Flynn replied:
“No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That’s right.”

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Congress should revoke Mr. Flynn’s Army (Federal Government) retirement.

Michael Flynn with Vladimir Putin at RT (Russia Today, a state propaganda outlet) sponsored dinner.

And, he should be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“Under the so-called “Hiss Act,” Members of Congress (and most other officers and employees of the federal government) will forfeit their entire federal employee retirement annuities if convicted of a federal crime that relates to espionage, treason, or several other national security offenses against the United States.”

–– reference: “Loss of Federal Pensions for Members of Congress Convicted of Certain Offenses,” 96-530, by Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney, September 12, 2013, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, http://www.crs.gov

Military retirees are also still subject to the UCMJ. There is also the possibility that Flynn could be reactivated, and charged under the UCMJ in order to stop his retirement.

DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7B, CHAPTER 3 PAYMENT RESTRICTIONS, SECTION C – EXPIRATION OF ELIGIBILITY TO RETIRED PAY, 30321. Conditions

e. National Security Violations Within the Scope of 5 U.S.C. 8311-8322.
Note: The “Hiss Act,” Public Law 769,1 Sep 1954 (68 Stat 1142) codified as 5 U.S.C. 2281-2288. The Act, as amended, prohibited the payment of retired pay to military personnel who were convicted of any

Republicans Are In Trouble

79.

That’s the current number of Congressional resignations from the House, and Senate which will be replaced soon.

The House has 73 resignations, while the Senate has 6, of which 60 are Republicans, and 19 Democrats.

Alabama’s Special Election in which Democrat Doug Jones won was a bellwether (he’s the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the Senate since Howell Heflin retired in 1997, and the first Democrat elected statewide since 2008), and Democrat Conor Lamb’s win in Pennsylvania’s highly gerrymandered 18th Congressional District was confirmation. Lamb, whose district voted for Trump by nearly 20 points and wasn’t supposed to win (The Cook Political Report rated the district R+11), was sworn in April 12. Pennsylvania’s State Supreme Court also ruled that such gerrymandering was unconstitutional.

Here’s another Special Election to watch.

April 24 is the date of Arizona’s Special Election to replace Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ, 8) who resigned amidst claims that he asked at least two female staffers to be surrogate mothers for him and his wife.

The Democratic candidate is Hiral Tipirneni, a former Emergency Room Physician who now works as a cancer research advocate.

Her Republican challenger is Republican AZ state Sen. Debbie Lesko.

Arizona Central newspaper reported from the candidates’ Campaign Finance disclosures, that

How To Enjoy Early Retirement

Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) led a full life, both before and after his relatively late decision to join the priesthood. In his era, a life of holiness was considered the domain of monks and nuns, certainly not of laypeople. But he believed God could and should be found in everyday life and was

Members of Congress: Virtual American Royalty… At Taxpayer Expense

Members of Congress as virtual royalty,
have raised their pay 9 times over 9 years,
but raised Minimum Wage only 3 times in 18 years.
While Congress now pays themselves almost
3x the Median Household Income,
since 2000,
Inflation has totaled 37.4%.
And with 72% subsidies, Employer Contributions,
and other
luxurious perks unavailable to the Average Citizen,
including full Retirement Vestment after 5 years,
and 72% subsidy for Healthcare Insurance in Retirement,
their Healthcare is practically free.
And you’re paying for it.
But yours is not.
And you’re paying for it, too!

Members first received $6 a day in 1789, today they get $174,000 annually, in addition to phenomenal perks, health insurance, and retirement… all at taxpayer expense.

Presently, Congress also gets:

For those who like their newz with a right wring tryst, there’s… yellow reporting via @YHN YellowHammer News.

For those who like their newz with a Right Wring Tryst

Slant…

from a journalistic perspective, it’s colorizing a news report to fit the opinion of the reporter. It’s the polar opposite of hard news reporting, and is more akin to OpEd, or even News Feature writing.

More than likely, only the erudite would be aware of the differences. The average Joe is clueless about it, and only knows “where the gas and keys go,” which is another way of saying “if it’s on the Internet, it must be true.”

A one word description for that is “gullible.”

And face it, not everyone is a brainiac… and that’s okay.

What it boils down to is integrity, and truth-telling, which is precisely why journalistic integrity is of paramount importance in a free society like ours. Lack of it is what got “Lyin’ Brian Williams” canned from being the anchor of the NBC Nightly News. It wasn’t “colorful” reporting, it was blatant fabrication of a material fact. In plain language, he lied – and not just once, but several times – about events he reported, including Hurricane Katrina and being under enemy fire while flying in a Blackhawk helicopter.

Such phenomenon is not just limited to teevee news, but journalistic integrity also covers the written word. And there have been

Sodomy: A prime example of what’s wrong with #ALpolitics

A dear friend who is a long-time retiree, aged 78 years, entire subsistence is from a meager pension (earned from a lifetime of work in a unionized organization), supplemented with a paltry Social Security check.

She’s lived through breast cancer surgery (mastectomy) & reconstruction, other major surgeries (knee replacements) and procedures, and lives in a trailer which she owns, situated upon a lot which she rents. She has resided there many, many years.

To save money, she recently

American Entitlement Culture

Recently, I happened across an item which read “When they analyze the demise of western society due to the entitlement epidemic, it’ll trace back to giving kids awards just for showing up.”

Of course, it can sometimes be difficult to discern sarcasm when reading, and I rather suspect there is at least a smidgen of sarcasm in that brief remark.

Sarcasm, of course, can, and is often used to convey a truth, or truths about numerous subjects, and is a teaching tool, as well.

Because I often use dictionaries to aid my understanding, I chose to look up the definition of the word “entitlement.” Here’s what I found:
As a verb, to “entitle” is to give someone a legal right, or a just claim to receive or do something.

For example, in the United States, the First Amendment is an entitlement to

Investigation: Twinkies maker Hostess Brands stole employee pension funds.

It’s been amazing to me to hear that many who have followed this issue – or even had some passing familiarity with the story – have been so blatantly ignorant of the abuses and frauds perpetrated by the corporate executives of the Hostess Corporation. Frankly, those who demonized the unfortunate demise of this iconic American enterprise blamed unions, and completely overlooked corporate malfeasance. However, this enterprise, which, in the course of their operations, once treated their employees well, was miserably raped by greedy and incompetent executives. Why they have not been charged with theft or fraud is beyond my comprehension.

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Hostess Maneuver Deprived Pension

By JULIE JARGON, RACHEL FEINTZEIG And MIKE SPECTOR

• Updated December 9, 2012, 8:03 p.m. ET

Hostess Brands Inc. said it used wages that were supposed to help fund employee pensions for the company’s operations as it sank toward bankruptcy.

Ryan Nicholson for The Wall Street Journal

After nearly 22 years at Hostess, former forklift operator Craig Davis is pondering his future on the front porch of his home in Emporia, Kan.

It isn’t clear how many of the Irving, Texas, company’s workers were affected by the move or how much money never wound up in their pension plans as promised.

After the company said in August 2011 that it would stop making pension contributions, the foregone wages weren’t put toward the pension. Nor were they restored.

After nearly 22 years at Hostess, former forklift operator Craig Davis is pondering his future on the front porch of his home in Emporia, Kansas. Ryan Nicholson for The Wall Street Journal

The maker of Twinkies, Ho-Hos and Wonder Bread filed for bankruptcy protection in January and shut down last month following a strike by one of the unions representing Hostess workers. A judge is overseeing the sale of company assets.

Gregory Rayburn, Hostess’s chief executive officer, said in an interview it is “terrible” that employee wages earmarked for the pension were steered elsewhere by the company.

“I think it’s like a lot of things in this case,” he added. “It’s not a good situation to have.”

Mr. Rayburn became chief executive in March and learned about the issue shortly before the company shut down, he said. “Whatever the circumstances were, whatever those decisions were, I wasn’t there,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Hostess’s previous top executive, Brian Driscoll, declined to comment.

Hostess hasn’t previously acknowledged that the foregone wages went toward its operations.

The maneuver probably doesn’t violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn’t come directly from employees, experts said.

“It’s what lawyers call betrayal without remedy,” said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn’t involved in the Hostess case. “It’s sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately.”

The decision to cease pension contributions angered many employees. After the bankruptcy filing, Hostess tangled with

Something Stinks in Denmark: “TOO BIG TO FAIL,” Bank Corruption, LIBOR, and the Federal Reserve

No… no… no…

Banks don’t need to be regulated.

They’re doing quite fine with all the money they’ve stolen from you already.

No, they don’t need regulation.

And no, we don’t need to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act – the federal law that kept Wall Street Brokerage Houses, Insurance Companies, and Banks separate and out of each other’s business. Right now, as things stand with them, they’re enjoying an incestuous fiscal orgy. And that’s good. We need more incest. We need more orgies. They’re all good. In fact, the more mammon… er, money you have, the more holy you are, the more the Almighty has blessed you – and not someone else (those lazy slobs who don’t deserve anything). {/sarcasm}

But there’s really no reason to worry… the banks will get what’s comin’ to ’em – and the ‘what’ is NOT your money. They have that already.

Come a-courtin’ time (that’d be in the court room), the Banksters be ruled against in a BIG way.

Just wait.

It’s coming.

Next thing you’ll hear in the news are the BIG BANKSTERS wanting legal protection from Congress for the wrongdoing they’ve done.

Just wait.

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Losing With LIBOR: One Trader’s Story

by David Kestenbaum

Listen to the Story All Things Considered [3 min 18 sec] Download

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what’s been dubbed the “LIBOR rate fixing scandal,” where some of the biggest banks in the world have been accused of manipulating a key global interest rate.

London-based Barclays Bank agreed to pay a $453 million fine over charges it manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate — LIBOR — a key global interest rate. Oli Scarff/Getty Images

If those words — “manipulation of a key interest rate” — leave you wondering what the big deal is, and who would be harmed, meet Dan Sullivan. He says the manipulation of LIBOR cost him a million dollars, in just 24 hours.

Dan Sullivan used to work

Q: Where in America can you retire at age 23? A: Bain Capital

“…distributions may be made to a participant who has not separated from service, provided the participant has attained age 23 years old…”

The bigger question is this: Can or will Mitt Romney give all Americans the same opportunity? Can or will his ideas and policy make everyone as rich as Croesus?

Forget “rich.”

Let’s settle for “eliminate poverty.”

I think we know the answer to that one.

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Bain’s Unusually Young Retirement Rollover Age: 23

April 2, 2012, 2:19 PM ET

By Mark Maremont

Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that Mitt Romney used to run, appears to have an unusual early-retirement age: 23.

That’s the age at which, according to a federal filing (PDF, page 25), Bain employees are allowed to roll over their retirement funds from a Bain profit-sharing plan into their own individual retirement accounts, or simply withdraw the money.

Federal law allows employees in such profit-sharing plans to roll over their funds into an IRA only under certain circumstances, such as when they leave their jobs, when they’ve been in the job a certain number of years, or when they reach a specified age, pension lawyers said. Normally, that age is something close to retirement, such as 50 or 55 years old.

“I’ve never seen or drafted a plan permitting a distribution as early as 23,” said Charles M. Lax, a pension attorney at Maddin Hauser in Southfield, Mich. He said the Bain arrangement

We promised to pay your retirement pension, but now, we won’t. Sosumi… you bastards!

For those “in the know,” “Sosumi” is the name of a computer sound which Apple Computer of Cupertino, CA created and has used for quite some time.

I love Apple Computer, well, not genuinely “love,” but have always believed them to be the best – bar none – computer operating system, superior in every way to Microsoft’s Windows OS. Folks used to say, “Oh, the Mac is good for graphics,” and other such nonsense, even when the Mac OS was in v7.x.

Today, I ask folks, “What’s the Internet all about?” Graphics, graphics, graphics, and media, media, media.

And still, some folks continue to use the infection-prone Windows. Oh well. Some folks never learn.

On to Sosumi.

If you’ve ever heard of the “Beatles,” (and who hasn’t?) you should be aware that

Trouble from Huntsville Hospital

NOTE: I share the following with explicit permission.

A dear, elderly and retired friend of mine will, in coming days, be scheduled for surgery. Most likely, the procedure(s) will be performed at Huntsville Hospital.

Because my friend is retired, she receives a modest (meager would be more appropriately accurate) private pension, supplemented with Social Security income. Altogether, she has monthly income of under

“Do you have limited income and resources?”

So began the paragraph on a document sent to a retiree friend of mine.

The next paragraph read in part, “You may qualify for extra help paying your Medicare prescription costs.”

As I pondered the question it was suddenly obvious that everyone has “limited income and resources,” including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

…unless, of course, you’re God.