I wanted to use a slightly different title, as in ‘something big’s going down’ but that seemed over the top. Still, there have long been quirky indicators of what’s going on in DC and the country. Crazy as it sounds, so-called Gentleman’s Clubs (strip clubs) have been an unusual but fairly accurate indicator of how the country feels about the economy. It turns out that the ones near military bases are an indicator of major troop deployments. Indications are an awful lot of troops are being prepared to deploy to the Persian Gulf. Scuttlebutt is an age old military slang term even civilians use. It means gossip. Sometimes the gossip is largely, if not pure bullshit but sometimes it turns out to be true. Given what I’m writing about a strip club named Scuttlebutt seemed like an appropriate title picture!
Giving a whole new meaning to the WWII phrase “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, troops near military bases are hitting the strip clubs and lamenting to the exotic dancers they expect to be deployed. To Trump’s stupid war. HuffPost has written about this and I have to admit it’s something I never thought about. We’re all familiar with the way sudden increases in pizza deliveries to the White House or Pentagon get reporters frantically calling sources. It always means something big is in the works. It’s rare that a huge event, say like the mission to kill Bin Laden didn’t get tipped off by this usually reliable indicator.
That monitoring strip clubs would be a good way to get the jump on pending troop deployments never occurred to me. However a video that went viral got HuffPost to do some checking and my concern is that Hegseth is egging Trump on to send lots of combat troops to fight in Iran:
In a recent TikTok post, ****** dancer Charm Daze posted a now-viral video about seeing an uptick in young clients who are openly discussing being deployed very soon. Charm, who is based in San Diego, captioned her video with, “In my nearly a decade in the clubs I have never experienced anything like this tbh.”
Charm’s video, which has been shared over 16,000 times and has more than 1,500 comments on TikTok, has also been widely shared on other social networks and garnered media attention — not all positive. The New York Post shared the story, but claimed troops were “blabbing” and “blowing operational security.” The Sun raised alarm about troops “sharing top secret deployment dates while she doles out lap dances,” and The Economic Times reported the video might cause operational security issues.
@cgetsnakey In my nearly a decade in the clubs I have never experienced anything like this tbh
Yeah, I’d say we’ve got an OpSec (operational security) problem. Strip clubs? It never occurred to me that reporters near military bases might keeping tabs on strip clubs, including developing exotic dancers as sources for sudden deployments! (I wonder how many dollar bills it takes to get them to give good intel on what the troops tell them during lap dances?) I lived in the eastern panhandle of WV for ten years and it was dotted with joints that catered to working class guys (and some gals) but though I read the WaPo regularly (could get it each day at the 7-Eleven just down the road). I’d see stories mentioning the pizza delivery tipped off reporting on events but it never once occurred to me that the strip joints I saw all over the place would, outside a military base would be a rich source of intelligence.
When I was at Camp Pendleton I took heed of what the gunny and other staff NCO’s said in “Liberty Briefs” and stayed out of Oceanside (just to the south of the base) which just driving through it wasn’t nearly as lovely as the name of the town implies. I’m appalled. Maybe I’m naieve about how things were forty some years ago but it’s hard for me to imagine most of the grunts I knew spilling out this kind of info. to a lap dancer or even hooker that set up shop near a base. They sure as hell talk now. The aforementioned Ms. “Charm” went on to talk about the youth, and sadness of her clients. The linked article includes her describing the comments her viral post got from others in her line of work echoing her own experience. HuffPost also includes some other exotic dancer’s comments:
Emma, an adult dancer who also commented on Charm’s video, told HuffPost she’s “absolutely” seen an increase in her military and defense clients. “Mainly the younger guys. Some of the men I hadn’t seen in almost a year until these past couple months.”
Emma said she had a recent client return from deployment overseas, and that he told her they had bombed a village in the Middle East and “killed so many people.” She commented that this client, who is a regular of hers, was not himself: “He was genuinely hollow. He drank so much that night he puked into his hands at the table. He cried and told me they’d likely go back on deployment soon. But most of them seem scared, honestly.”
She wasn’t the only one besides “Charm” willing to go on the record at least under her stage name:
Sol Cirocco, a professional dancer and performer based in Miami who works in nightlife and live entertainment environments, also said she has recently noticed more clients in the military or with defense-related backgrounds.
Cirocco told HuffPost that dancers in “nightlife spaces” notice client behavior and trends before they become more widely visible — like erratic spending, for example.
“Performers and staff tend to notice spending patterns and overall energy fairly quickly,” Cirocco said. She’s feeling a “shift,” she said, and seeing more “high-energy spending” with more “urgency” that’s not typical.
Petey Boy probably is freaked out with indecision. On the one hand he wants “virile warriors”, manly men who are stud enough to hit the strip clubs and actually get a stripper to take them home. On the other he’s clearly got a security problem on his hands as well as a morale problem. Declaring such establishments off-limits wouldn’t go over at all well with the troops. (FYI if one is caught in a place declared off-limits he or she can be brought up on charges.) There would also likely be lawsuits and that would add no small amount of embarrassment to an already embattled Trump and Hegseth.
Well, as I said I’m dumbfounded. Even before joining the Corps at age 26 I knew something of Cold War goings on and that the KGB (and Mossad) specialized in what were called “Honey Traps” – women trained to seduce targeted Americans and coax intelligence out of them, or go through their stuff while they were asleep – after giving them a nightcap with something extra in it! More recently we saw one in the news. Remember Maria Butina gal from Russia that slept her way around (back then top NRA folks had close ties to top Trump folks) and whom Barr got returned to Russia as quick as he could? She is just fine which means she’d got plenty of intel during her trysts. Hell, she’s a member of their DUMA. The point is that yes, people say stuff in, or trying to get into sexual situations.
When you think about it, it’s a lot cheaper and easier to instead of all the time and money it takes to create a high-end escort to just send regular gals with good figures who can shake a tailfeather into strip clubs near military bases. I suppose the only comfort we can take from this current enormous security breach is that Hegesth still uses Signal Chat for stuff he can’t hold back on boasting about to reporters. He clearly is an expert on one thing – telegraphing his punches! Anyway I thought you might find this interesting. Appalling to be sure, but interesting nonetheless.
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