In Chapter seven, I present a case that the Dynasty retaliated against those opposed to them under their banner, “Mandate from the Governor.” I present my arguments of how:
- Aggressive news reporting exposed the Dynasty’s Governor mandate as a façade for sexual assaults, harassment, toxic command, retaliation; and
- Implementation of it and California Senate Bill 807–revising conditions for state active duty for service members–was the edict for extrajudicial punishment.
Before proceeding, I want to note that I, and those the Dynasty perceive as my sources, have become the agenda of smoke-filled meetings. I have too much experience with the Dynasty to doubt these reports are true. I expect that the manipulations perceived and reported in this blog series will be matched, if not admirably exceeded, by a flood of direct and indirect assaults on the credibility, motive and editorial perspective of this blog. Whatever the response, it is likely to be ingenious in its manipulation of institutional procedure, networks, fears and agendas. This should make for an interesting series epilogue after I conclude this series. Stay tuned.”
________________________________________________________________________
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin arguably fulfilled Brig. Gen. Charlotte Miller’s apocalyptic prophecies to “do anything to anyone who gets in his way” when he ostensibly unleashed the demonic forces of his Lords of Discipline upon those who challenged his Senate Confirmation.
He disputably staged his assassins and protected his mafia lieutenants. Rather by coincidence or design, a SAD colonel, familiar with the Dynasty’s “Ponzi Rating Scheme” was reassigned from State Headquarters to the 129th Rescue Wing (RQW) where he found his way into the rating chain of at least one of those who publically challenged the command.
Purportedly upon the advice of a prominent state senator, Lt. Col. (CA) Joseph Righello is promoted to COL (CA), reassigned from his investigator general post in Sacramento, and moved to Commander, Camp San Luis Obispo reportedly to elude the State Capitol’s political limelight, and evade NBC Bay Area New’s Tony Kovaleski’s and his Investigative Team’s (I-Team) spotlight. Credible sources tell me that complainants mentioned Righello frequently in conversations with the I-Team.
From all appearances, the I-Team seemed to have Baldwin enveloped on a media battle ground on which he was uncomfortable, and news terrain for which Dynasty’s information ops machine had not prepared him. Baldwin’s military bearing, as it appears in the Kovaleski’s Feb 22, 2013 interview, crumbles when Kovaleski peppers the general with questions of a “toxic command climate” and sexual assaults in the military.
Kovaleski had done his homework. The United States Senate was brining sexual assaults in the military to the forefront in 2013, convening hearings to inquire why sexual assault and sexual harassment complaints had increased so dramatically from 2011 to 2012. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) had said that there is a cause and effect relationship between sexual assaults and toxic commands. And U.S. Army War College studies had defined toxic leadership as “a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance.”
The I-team localized these national stories through interviews of more than two dozen officers and enlisted, corroborating their claims of the Dynasty command’s deception, intimidation, coercion, and inequitable disbursements of justice. Testimonies arguably validating Miller’s assessment of Baldwin’s overly aggressive tendency to do “anything to anyone who gets in his way.”
Kovaleski challenges Baldwin with his own investigations, the Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Petty report, that found “sexual harassment and hostile work environment are commonplace in the California National Guard.” A report that stated “racial tension has been high since 2008.”
Arguably baffled by Kovaleski’s refusal to swallow spoon-fed information, Baldwin resorts to a last line of defense–statistics–figures that prominent U.S. Government statistician Carroll D. Wright said “don’t lie.” But when Baldwin dismisses the Petty report as incomplete, and substitutes it with a Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute’s (DEOMI) report as fact that his command has the most positive climate in the entire Department of Defense, it triggers the investigator reporter’s innate lie detector, and elicits his instinctive skepticism that “liars can figure.”
Kovaleski questions both the clarity and substance of the survey. Perhaps with good reason. I was forced to participate in that DEOMI’s online survey in July 2012. I could feel those “mad (political) scientists” from my academic past, Dr. Lauren McKinsey and Dr. Lawrence Pettit, obsessing over the sanctity of the research instrument and methodology the command was using to conduct the survey.
The Command had their directors keep tallies of all in their section who completed the survey, and report these totals at weekly Headquarters Update Briefs (HUBS). In my own informal survey, I compared notes with my peers, with most revealing that they answered survey questions as they thought the command wanted them to respond, not how they really felt, fearing the command could piece together enough survey data to determine who said what.
A professional, but persistent, Kovaleski pressures Baldwin to account for allegations of command transgressions. Pressure, Baldwin obviously can not handle, as he melts down and verbally attacks Kovaleski’s journalistic professionalism and principles: revealing a vindictiveness Miller alluded to; and exposing the Dynasty’s powerlessness when confronted with an investigative reporter armed with an arsenal of facts.
But as perhaps predicted by Miller, Baldwin arguably was not going to let facts get in his way of retaliation. According to published reports, he breaks all implied promises to the Senate Rules Committee. His Lords of Discipline banish that female Army aviator who testified against Baldwin to an armory on the Cal Guard frontier. She had implicated one of the Dynasty’s own of festering a Hostile work environment during Senate Confirmation hearings. She remained hidden from the media until pressured to retire, while her alleged bully faces no accountability. A female Air Guard captain whose career the Dynasty reportedly held hostage under Righello, but since the voice and activist for those the Dynasty allegedly oppressed, is quietly fired.
_________________________________________________________________
…my leadership obviously wants me to die”–Master Sgt. Jessica Brown
_________________________________________________________________
And the Dynasty allegedly pounds Master Sgt. Jessica Brown with its “Ponzi Rating Scheme” system to the point of her attempted suicide, leaving a suicide note, according to news reports, naming that SAD colonel reassigned from state headquarters to her unit. The Dynasty’s Lords of Discipline apparently pursue her directly into intensive care, hiring a private courier/process server to dodge hospital security and serve her termination orders.
Her leadership justifies their behavior as “an appropriate decision given MSgt. Brown’s uncooperative behavior.” Having linked suicide to toxic commands, Dr. Dave Matsuda, an Anthropologist and Cultural Advisor to the U.S. military, might argue the command decision was inappropriate. As well as arguably Gov. Jerry Brown who signed legislation in August 2014, removing the Dynasty’s authority to investigate sexual assaults, transferring it to civilian law enforcement for independent investigation as a result of Kovaleski’s and his I-Team’s stories.
But the Baldwin command does address sexual assaults–arguably with statistics. In one case, Baldwin’s command overturns a general officer’s decision clearing a colonel outside the Dynasty’s inner circle of borderline fraternization. The command reverses the decision, administers a general officer memorandum reprimand (GOMAR) , forces his retirement from his federal military slot, downgrades his SAD rank, and allegedly rolls him up into the statistical database demonstrating the Dynasty’s progress in addressing sexual assaults. A statistic perhaps included as part of a packet the Command submits to the National Guard Bureau (NGB) for the “first annual” Sexual Assault Prevention Innovation Award.
But most are skeptical, believing the Dynasty’s strong lobby convinced NGB to create the award for a self-serving command to allegedly deceive California law makers once again. Most believe the I-Team reports are factual. Facts with which the I-Team riddled the Dynasty Legend, apparently forcing Baldwin to retreat behind the walls of state headquarters, and arguably pushing his Lords of Discipline to work overtime repairing the Dynasty’s legacy with, to quote Mark Twain, “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Code Red
And the Dynasty, in essence, admitted to many of those being relieved under the Governor’s mandate that they were statistics, or to use their words, “collateral damage.”
That’s what Dynasty directors told many of those during “Town Meetings” and Staff calls promulgating California Senate Bill 807, revising conditions for state active duty for service members. The Dynasty could not explain to more than a hundred of incredulous Guard personnel, especially those at the bottom of the food chain so to speak, that they were part of a good old boy network responsible for fraud and corruption. The Dynasty acknowledged that the majority of these people had done nothing wrong, that their separation was not personal, and requested they understand they are “collateral damage.”
But SB 807 was debatably a Dynasty statistical hoax. The Dynasty, in my observations, conceived SAD reform to deceive Sen. Joe Dunn in the aftermath of the ’05 spy scandal, used it as a political crowbar to dislodge adjutant generals, and advertised it as cleaning up a “good old boy” network of past adjutant generals.
On the other side of legend rests facts, or as a celebrated Radio Commentator, the late Paul Harvey might say, “the rest of the story.” The Dynasty reportedly resented Maj. Gen. Paul Monroe’s early decisions to repair a faltering mentoring program by encouraging experienced, retired active duty officers, to compete for SAD jobs and mentor a younger, talented generation of officers. These younger officers, in my estimation, saw Monroe robbing them of their entitlement to advance up the SAD career ladder and stealing their divine inheritance to the adjutant general throne.
But the fathers of the SAD system arguably never intended it as a career path. At least that’s what I learned in 1989 when I was temporarily attached to then State Personnel Director Chief Warrant Officer-5 Robert Borman. I was detailed to this duty because of my background in personnel management. I once was director, Intergovernmental Personnel Act, Montana League of Cities and Towns. I advised, consulted and trained personnel managers in 127 cities and towns on classifying positions, benchmarking salaries, and writing performance appraisal standards.
That old war horse Borman squeezed out every ounce of my experience and training he could in a review of both SAD policy and validation of SAD positions. He was a miser with state dollars, demanding strict cost-benefit analysis to justify each post, and a pinchpenny with directors requests to create new SAD jobs. In a nutshell, if a SAD position was not necessary for the state mission, it wasn’t approved. The duties and responsibilities of each SAD position was meticulously benchmarked against military pay ranks to determine salary, not an individual’s military rank.
The system was intended as a small cadre of full-time personnel with the experience needed to get military personnel and assets out the door, monitor it, and recover it after civilian emergencies. It wasn’t preconceived as organized units with stepping stone rank progression, as the Dynasty envisioned it. That structure already exists with the 95% federally funded military National Guard structure that this cadre surges in support of civilian emergencies.
The remnants of that Monroe military transformation team, the Dynasty’s nemesis, had rediscovered this discipline as they learned more about military transformation and modernization. They were finding that in the post 9-11/Katrina world, that the state headquarters needed two command staffs. A fulltime staff always in place for the adjutant general to use for state emergencies; and a temporary command staff it can surge, deploy, and integrate with other National Guards for multi-state emergencies in support of multi-state civilian task forces.
___________________________________________________________
In Fiscal Year 2014, Defense Department reports show military leaders failing at its mission of “zero tolerance.” The report showed that 75 percent of the men and women in uniform who have been sexually assaulted lack confidence in military justice…Has the Cal Guard’s Dynasty addressed the issue? Or have they systemized sexual assaults and harrassment?
_____________________________________________________________
Under this concept, there would be a “smidgen” of general officer positions (if any), a sprinkling of SAD Colonels and field grade officers, a half-gallon of NCO/Enlisted SAD posts (the workers to get military assets out the door, recovered, and maintained), and perhaps a quart of part-time SAD jobs at the subordinate command levels performing periodic guard drills, in addition to their military drills, interfacing with civilian county and local responders, but funded with SAD dollars. This concept would cost the state less, but facilitate more rapid response.
But SB 807 is arguably the Dynasty’s ruse to override this concept and restructure the SAD program with top-heavy senior officers and NCOs. Or, to use Miller’s words, “reward SAD jobs to “unqualified allies loyal to Baldwin, and punish others who are not part of his inner circle.”
Likewise, the Governor’s mandate is debatably a bogus edict. A written mandate doesn’t exist, at least no one as seen it. It’s arguably a sound bite based on a presumption that four successive commands were corrupt. A mandate without guidance, parameters, or reverence for generations–like Borman’s– of unselfish management of the SAD system maintained in spirit of legislative boundaries, and consciousness of the California taxpayer.
A mandate that is arguably the Dynasty’s instrument for “extrajudicial” punishment, institutionalization of toxic commands, systematization of sexual assaults/harassment, standardization of retaliation, and minimization of military justice.
And although the Dynasty will argue SB 921 provides for an IG who operates independently to the command to advocate troop grievances, its disputable if it functions as its sponsor, Sen. Ted Lieu intended. Most complaints are routed through the TAG’s Judge Advocate General Office for legal decisions purportedly with input from that SJA, now special legal adviser to the TAG, who allegedly bungled legal advice of the filmmaker strong-arming and dozing for dollars reviews.
More likely, the Governor’s mandate is an example of life imitating art. A real life ‘Code Red’ as depicted in the movie “A Few Good Men.” An unofficial order that nearly claimed its own “Private James Santiago,” and make possible the most massive retaliation in Cal Guard History–more than 200 people and counting, according to both news accounts and witness reports.
Historically, it’s been tradition for the Guard’s adjutant general to not only seek Senate confirmation, but, in the words of retired Gen William Livsey, ratification in the hearts and minds” of their troops. That ratification will arguably never happen for Baldwin as long as even one soldier is denied justice, or intimated from seeking it fearing they will be tagged “Code Red.”
___________________________________________
In Chapter 8, I wrap-up my series with my editorial opinion of the Truth and Consequences of the Cal Guard ’05 Spy Scandal.
….
I love looking through an article that can make people think.
Also, thank you for permitting me to comment!