Captain Jim's Green Flash Sightings

Tax Reform: Let’s all please pay attention and work hard to understand what they are proposing. If they do it in the dark without hearings and openness and verification of figures and clear statement of functions, we are going to be flimflammed big time. Tax Reform, what a subject and we are really in need of some ground truth. Let’s say, everyone who reports their pay through payroll, you know th e statement we get with our pay and withholding detailed. Taxes are withheld, Medicare/SS/Medicaid, etc. Okay, the government IRS has all that info and based on that can, and should be able to figure our individual taxes for 70% plus of wage earners who do not have deductions, just eligible for standard deduction, and even those with home loan interest could be factored without anyone filing or needing to use accountant. The IRS just bills you if you owe more than you withheld or sends you a rebate. This would eliminate the billions spent on our current filing system, time wasted fixing and

Representative, literally or figuratively, serving the Nation's best interests Dear Congressman: You are my elected representative to Congress, the House of Representatives, and as such you are doing a good job of reporting your activities and seemingly complete alignment with President Trump's leadership, rhetoric, and have not commented on his twitter postings. You have enthusiastically supported all of the Republican initiatives and prepared some of your own bills. You are energetic and enthusiastic and work hard in being visible in the district. So far, so good.  What is not so good is that in supporting the GOP agenda you have supported very flawed and misleading legislative activities on Health Care and now are touting the Tax Reform agenda. All of these major undertakings being proposed with little detail, no open hearings, no debate on the pros and cons. The healthcare efforts were deplorable and handled with total indifference to the real harm the GOP proposals would

USS New Jersey departing San Francisco 1985. I was conning the ship from the O-8 level bridge, you can see me if you look real close. I love our flag and what our country stands for in the best possible way, among that commitment to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". What has been going on, led by our President is a combination of: picking fights by calling other Americans unworthy or less important; talking at cross purposes, not arguing about the point but something else, lying and dissembling about motivations; consciously making things worse; and denying problems that are as obvious and needful of working to correct, is NOT the solution and in my opinion does not reflect the majority of Americans aspirations and hopes for the USA. I believe we need to look for the source of the discontent, hear the viewpoints of the discontented and disenfranchised, and seek to honestly and willingly use the tremendous potential this country possesses to fix the problems.

Above - Map showing Indian Tribes in US Estimate population pre-contact for all of the Americas as high as 112 million indigenous people Map of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade https://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/1374 The USA has a history that is often glamorized for our robust and vigorous democracy and opportunities afforded for people to live in freedom, and with rights and liberties. Actually, it is a country that began with European contact by white people who actually invaded in the 1500 and 1600s, established colonies, prospered with the institution of slavery and indentured servitude, wrested lands away from the Native American's by forced removal, genocide and false treaties, fought a Civil War over the institution of slavery, which ended slavery, allowed the southern states to terrorize negroes through agencies like KKK and created segregation laws and practices, suffered an economic depression, fought WW II interning Japanese Americans while utilizing

 What You See Is What You Get Health Care for All. We can do it, really we can. Universal health care is achievable. If is working well and successfully in numerous other countries. We can learn from their example, avoid the mistakes they have learned from and provide a well appreciated and critical service to our citizens. Wellness and preventative health care and screening will save medical problems from becoming chronic in most cases. How you ask?  We already have a great working example in Medicare. As a senior on Medicare with a supplemental insurance policy, my health care has been wonderful and I have numerous conditions that need regular follow-up and monitoring. All I had to do was live until my 65th birthday and paid into Medicare/Medicaid through my payroll deductions. NOTE: If I had passed away before the age of 65 all the money I paid is simply absorbed into the Trust Fund. Incidentally, I am still making a monthly payment for my Medicare coverage - $1560 a year

This explains itself in an easy to understand way. Taxes have given us a great country and a great life. Our patriotism and unity of purpose have allowed us to survive World War II and other challenges and threats. Our current tax system is past due for a major overhaul, not the one the Republicans are planning to ram through, but one that is simple and fair and eliminates the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, special tax exemptions, and special income categories. There are wonderfully effective and successful examples of countries with tax systems that support universal health care, free education through college, social safety nets, social security retirement benefits, and more. It would be very easy to adapt these successful tax programs it would seem. https://www.usafacts.org/the-big-picture?return_to&view=spending or try this site https://www.usafacts.org/

Back in my day, the National Security Council, Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Joint Staff War Planners, to name the major players, developed the National Threat Assessment on a regular basis. This document defined what national security threats the USA were likely to face in the years to come. This assessment identifies who and what kind of threats our military needs to be capable defending and defeating should a conflict arise. The assessment also calls for the nation's armed forces to be able to manage multiple conflicts worldwide at the same time. Example: War in Europe with Russia and South Korea defense against North Korea. An attack on Israel by Iran and China invading Taiwan. There are way too many possibilities, almost all of which would be difficult to deal with for US military even with allied support and forward based ships and forces. Today we are in the 16th year of a Neverending War in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. We have a

USS Kingfish SS 234 - Torpedo’s Mate Second Class James A. Hooper, Jr. My dad served on Kingfish during the early part of WW 2. He enlisted, as did hundreds of thousands of young Americans, in January 1942. He volunteered for the submarine force, they only took volunteers, and finished basic submarine school and training as a Torpedo’s Mate in New London, Connecticut and was assigned to USS Kingfish SS 234 homeported in Pearl Harbor. He completed two wartime patrols before being selected for the V-12 Officer Training Program and returned to the US to go through training and commissioning in Plattsburg, New York. He was commissioned in 1943 and went to Antisubmarine Warfare Officer training in Miami, Florida, before joining his ship USS Brown, a destroyer escort stationed in Boston, Massachusetts. He finished the war operating out of Boston escorting convoys to England and hunting German U-boats. After the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany in April 1945, the German U-boats o

We Americans are all upset or unsettled for one reason or another. I think the daily issues being brought up with the new administration and events in the world are the reason to be concerned and anxious.  One thing that is becoming more and more of a concern to me is that I have no confidence in anything the administration is saying. They have walked back so many things in such a short time and continue to be distracted by election voting fraud and the enemy press. I ask you can you believe anything that Trump says and then is corrected or spun by his surrogates? Spicer is not ready for prime time and Kelly Anne is just an apologist and does not really answer questions. One thing I can say about her is that she is a good hugger and she hugs with great sincerity and emphasis, at least when hugging President Trump. Bottom line Trump just makes excuses and blames leaks from Intelligence and vendettas from media. The real issue is the people he has working for him and his inability to u

This is Jim: A good friend forwarded the following Facebook post regarding Trump's efforts to protect the USA from terrorists sneaking into the country.  This addresses the manner in which popular opinion is managed/manipulated by propagandist (Goebbels of Nazi Germany fame perfected the process.)              From Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College: " I don't like to talk about politics on Facebook-- political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends-- but there is an important non-partisan point to make today. What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from the seven countries (originally selected by the Obama administration) -- is creating what is known as a "shock event." Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming th

Pardon my humor. In fact, it is not meant to be humorous. January 20, 2017. I spent the day avoiding news and images of the inauguration. I truly can not wrap my head around the fact that President Trump is now our leader. His Inaugural Speech was not reassuring or confidence inspiring. His choice of words such as carnage to refer to the state of the country is insult/slur/rebuke to all Americans, that we as a Nation have failed and are failing and now, that now Trump is going to save us from ourselves. Apparently, he will make all the decisions for the Congress, he and the American people who support him and his vision. Somehow he has managed to say that will be all the American people, but there is no evidence from his remarks who among the American people is worthy of partnership in his agenda as he has belittled everyone who disagrees with him or challenges his constant outrageous exaggerations,  divisive remarks, insults, disparagement of people of color and non-white ethnic

Article II, Section 1, last paragraph, U.S. Constitution: Before he [President Elect] shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: - "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." We military types and others who serve in the government all take the oath of office when we enlist and each time we are promoted. Retired military service members are subject to recall to active duty by the Secretary of Defense under 10 U.S. Code, Section 688. So our oath and obligation live with us for the rest of lives. The times in which the framers of the Constitution wrote out these requirements for oaths was a period when an oath was a very solemn and serious act. It was taken at face value that once given, an oath was binding and would be honored and respected. Men and women have died and suffered honoring their oath or