{"id":13702,"date":"2011-10-25T01:18:41","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T06:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=13702"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:31","slug":"usafa-follows-rules-michael-weinstein-complains-news-at-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/25\/usafa-follows-rules-michael-weinstein-complains-news-at-11\/","title":{"rendered":"USAFA Follows Rules. Michael Weinstein Complains. News at 11."},"content":{"rendered":"

As predictable as the sun rising in the East, the US Air Force Academy sent out an announcement that had a topic related to religion, and Michael Weinstein complained.<\/p>\n

In fact, he’s “livid.”<\/p>\n

The situation:\u00a0 Apparently,\u00a0Air Force Academy Chaplain (Col) Robert Bruno distributed a mass email about an upcoming ‘marriage and family seminar.’\u00a0 The email was approved by the Vice Superintendent, and represented the “regularly” advertised chaplaincy programs occurring daily at USAFA.\u00a0 Michael Weinstein said:<\/p>\n

It could not possibly be clearer that the academy deserves its terrible reputation for fundamentalist Christian bias.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be clear, even the publicized article notes the USAFA email explicitly followed (and even referenced) the Air Force Chief of Staff’s recent memo on religious neutrality<\/a> for which Weinstein claimed victory and credit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even when USAFA follows the rules Weinstein seems to want, he still <\/em>complains.<\/p>\n

As far as Weinstein is concerned, USAFA can do no right.\u00a0 (Fortunately, it appears\u00a0General Gould and USAFA have figured this out<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Weinstein complaint<\/a> (published without examination, as usual, by Pam Zubeck<\/a> at the Colorado Springs Independent<\/em>) also announced Weinstein’s latest salvo in his self-described war<\/a> with USAFA.\u00a0 In his campaign of “agitation,” the latest tactic he’s chosen is\u00a0“death by a thousand paper cuts.”\u00a0 He has, once again, lodged <\/a>another<\/a> <\/em>Freedom of Information Act request.<\/p>\n

This time his FOIA is\u00a0seeking information on USAFA’s Falcon Clips, which is essentially a local version of the DoD’s Early Bird<\/a>.\u00a0 He apparently thinks the content of Falcon Clips is “biased” toward “evangelical Christian information.”\u00a0 Interestingly,<\/p>\n

This request is limited to the 2010-2011 academic year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Guess when Falcon Clips was last in the news?\u00a0 In the fall semester of 2010, Weinstein complained to the Secretary of Defense (and cc’d President Obama, for good measure) over the inclusion of content from ChristianFighterPilot.com in USAFA’s Falcon Clips<\/a>.\u00a0 That has been the only public complaint of the distribution to date, so its unclear what trend exists in the Falcon Clips over which to justify such an accusation.\u00a0 In addition,\u00a0the article about which Weinstein complained contained no “evangelical Christian information.”\u00a0 (Even he described it as a “sarcastic rant against MRFF.”)<\/p>\n

Weinstein also wants to know the “first and last names of all personnel involved” with Falcon Clips’ content.\u00a0 It’s almost as if he’s trying to figure out who on USAFA’s staff is reading this website.\u00a0 Given his penchant for threats and intimidation<\/a>, giving him that information could be ominous.<\/p>\n

For what its worth, the request for names will likely be denied, as the release of their names serves no public interest and would likely violate their privacy. Still, the multi-point request is yet another administrative distraction from USAFA’s ability to perform its primary mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, it is little more than a fundraising or litigation fishing expedition for Weinstein, with USAFA doing the heavy-lifting against itself on his behalf.<\/p>\n

Weinstein is free, of course, to criticize USAFA all he wants; the majority of the public is likewise free to ignore him, as it largely does.\u00a0 One disturbing point, however, is the frequency with which Weinstein publishes rants from self-identified USAFA cadets against their leadership, as he has in this instance.\u00a0 In an email to the MRFF\u00a0a cadet reportedly described USAFA’s conduct with regard to the email as “hypocritical bulls–t”:<\/p>\n

Lt. Gen. Gould and his Academy want you to be a zealous Christian in the USAF more than it wants you to know about the Chief of Staff\u2019s memo on the limits and perils of being a zealous Christian in the USAF.<\/p>\n

Again, bulls–t. Thank you and MRFF for being the only place we can go to protest. If we could \u201cOccupy Lt. Gen. Gould\u2019s office\u201d a la Wall Street we would. But we can\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As has been mentioned before, the Air Force Academy is a leadership education institution.\u00a0 There is no expectation that new cadets fully understand the duties and obligations they will have as future officers.\u00a0 The expectation is simply that they learn.<\/p>\n

Weinstein’s cadet “client”\u00a0appears to have\u00a0quite a few things to learn about serving in the military.\u00a0 Hopefully he soon figures out\u00a0he isn’t going to learn them from Michael Weinstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As predictable as the sun rising in the East, the US Air Force Academy sent out an announcement that had a topic related to religion, and Michael Weinstein complained. In fact, he’s “livid.” The situation:\u00a0 Apparently,\u00a0Air Force Academy Chaplain (Col) Robert Bruno distributed a mass email about an upcoming ‘marriage and family seminar.’\u00a0 The email was approved by the Vice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,5284,1054,2160,189,85,2,5218,7,497,43,1073,10,171,1274,65],"class_list":["post-13702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-chaplain","tag-falcon-clips","tag-foia","tag-michael-gould","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-norton-schwartz","tag-obama","tag-pam-zubeck","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-robert-bruno","tag-usafa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}