This meme makes it seem like a group of troops are volunteering to fly abortion seekers around the country. The truth is much different, less impressive and mostly unrelated to the meme.
▪️Elevated Access is a volunteer pilot network that seeks to fly people in private aircraft to access abortion and “gender-affirming care.” It has no affiliation whatsoever with the military, and volunteers couldn’t wear their uniform or use military assets in any way.
https://elevatedaccess.org/about
▪️The organization claims to have 800 pilots who’ve volunteered to fly for them, but it’s unclear how many are from the military. The article bringing this to light simply says this:
🔹”The group does not know how many of those have current and former ties to the military because the application does not ask about their military background. But, some pilots have voluntarily shared their military backgrounds or sent photos of themselves in a military uniform.”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/09/us-troops-are-volunteering-fly-abortion-seekers-across-state-lines/377604/
▪️So, maybe there are a handful of veterans or active duty members that volunteered, but it’s certainly not a group of troops doing this, nor does the organization have any affiliation or mention of troops on their website. It’s a manufactured story, any relation is incidental.
▪️Overall, the charity seems to be sort of a gimmick. From their website, they only list one flight launched, from Oklahoma to Kansas back in June. Which shortened a woman’s potential 5 hour drive to 10 min plus a 90 min flight, plus a ride share to the clinic.
https://elevatedaccess.org/news/elevated-access-flies-its-first-passenger-to-get-abortion-services
▪️One would assume they would list the amount of flights taken and women served if it was meaningful, but there’s no mention of it. As for the pilot volunteers, there is no obligation to perform any services, they are just signing up as a part of the network.
▪️In almost all circumstances, it would be far more efficient & cost effective to book an airline ticket or drive to the nearest clinic. Any charity seriously focused on providing access to services would go that direction. Offering private flights seems geared towards attention seeking.
▪️The requirements for pilot volunteers are only 200 hrs and a private pilot certificate, so beware. This isn’t a commercial outfit, recipients are guaranteed little more than an airplane ride from someone they don’t know, who might not be qualified to fly into inclement weather.
https://elevatedaccess.org/pilots
▪️This quote concerning their pilots might also give people some pause 😂
🔹“The easiest part is checking their pilot credentials,” Mike said. “The other part is having them send in statements of support for abortion and gender and affirming care, as well as talking to two references from them about their support for those things.”
https://www.flyingmag.com/hundreds-of-pilots-sign-up-to-provide-transport-for-womens-medical-care/
▪️It should also be noted this charity incorporated in April, before the leaked Dobbs decision even made news, so it wasn’t started initially in response to that.
It’s funny to see the left use the same conspiratorial rhetoric as the right did a year ago regarding the jobs numbers being downwardly revised. So many on the right, who knew nothing of how the jobs numbers are calculated or why they revise them, were convinced the downward revisions were a conspiracy to help Biden win.
If people want to have a debate about the birth death model or the survey methods, ok, but that’s not what’s happening here. Most people are under the delusion that the BLS report is the govt reporting every job created and lost, and are thus easily swayed it’s rigged when it suits their political ends.
This is almost laughingly misleading, as it leaves out everything before the letter.
▪️After being repeatedly lampooned by the Smothers Brothers over Vietnam, Johnson finally had enough. One night at 3 am he called the head of CBS William Paley, demanding that he “get those bastards off my back.”
▪️Paley then asked the heads of CBS entertainment to get them to back off of LBJ. However, instead of backing off the Smothers Brothers doubled down, booking a folk musician performing “Waist Deep,” an anti-war song about a soldier being stuck in the mud while “the big fool says to push on,” clearly a dig at LBJ.
▪️At the last minute, CBS cut the song from the pre-taped show to the outrage of the Smothers. They continued to push the boundaries off and on for the rest of his presidency, with CBS sometimes cutting segments that they thought went too far. Basically, it was a soft form of censorship.
▪️It wasn’t until Johnson made his surprise announcement not to run in 1968 ...
