From John Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II:
First an Obama campaign website called out Romney donor Frank Vandersloot. Next the IRS moved to audit him—and so did the Labor Department. Reported on the Wall Street Journal here.
John Strassel has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney. An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records.
Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This investigator — a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm. Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government.
In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).
Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.
Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers. The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three. All are from Mexico and have worked on the VanderSloot ranch—which employs about 20 people—for five years. Two are brothers. Mr. VanderSloot has never been audited for this, though two years ago his workers' ranch homes were inspected. (The ranch was fined $8,400, mainly for too many "flies" and for "grease build-up" on the stove. God forbid a cattle ranch home has flies.)
This letter requests an array of documents to ascertain whether Mr. VanderSloot's "foreign workers are provided the full scope of protections" under the visa program: information on the hours they've worked each day and their rate of pay, an explanation of their deductions, copies of contracts. And on and on.
Perhaps all this is coincidence. Perhaps something in Mr. VanderSloot's finances or on his ranch raised a flag. Americans want to believe the federal government performs its duties without fear or favor. Only in this case, Americans can have no such confidence.
Did Mr. Obama pick up the phone and order the screws put to Mr. VanderSloot? Or—more likely—did a pro-Obama appointee or political hire or career staffer see that the boss had an issue with this donor, and decide to do the president an unasked-for election favor? Or did he or she simply think this was a duty, given that the president had declared Mr. VanderSloot and fellow donors "less than reputable"?
Mr. VanderSloot says he "expected the public beatings" from the left after the naming, but he "also wondered whether government agencies, anxious to please their boss, would take notice of the target he had apparently placed on me. Now that I'm being singled out for audits, I can't help but wonder whether there is a connection."
As for other Romney donors: "It is un-American and irresponsible for a president to target individual, law-abiding citizens for political retribution, and it is inconceivable that any U.S. agency would stoop to do the bidding for this campaign's silliness," says Louis Bacon, an investor and conservationist who also made the Obama list.
We don't know what happened, and that's the problem. Entrusted with extraordinary powers, Mr. Obama has the duty to protect and defend all Americans—regardless of political ideology. By having his campaign target a private citizen for his politics, the president forswore those obligations. He both undermined public faith in federal institutions and put his employees in an impossible situation.
Every thinking American must henceforth wonder if Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted for inquiry because of his political leanings. And every federal servant must wonder if his inquiries into an Obama enemy will bring suspicion or disgrace on the agency—even if the inquiry is legitimate.
As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically motivated—given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the man who targeted him? (The White House did not return an email requesting comment.) If this isn't a chilling glimpse of a society Americans reject, it is hard to know what is. It's why presidents are held to different rules, and should not keep lists. And it's why Mr. Obama has some explaining to do.
Cowboys and the Tea Party political movement have a lot on common. Both believe in individual responsibility; judging a man by his actions not words; and, both are disgusted with government intrusions into our lives and particularly our God given rights.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
WAKE UP AMERICA!!
Wall Street Journal Sizes Up Obama. A "deadly" article regarding Obama, in the Wall Street Journal, which today is the most widely circulated newspaper in America. Article from the Wall Street Journal - by Alan Caruba:
"I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he's led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.
In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? "Dreams of My Father" was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The "Audacity of Hope" followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a "communist with a small 'c'" was the real author.
His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley's formidable political machine at his disposal. He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.
How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before? He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed "cool" in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.
And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984's Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat. The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.
Now, 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters. Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to "wish away" some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West.
Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain . The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign "world tour" were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.
Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party's hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.
Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an "obstreperous" Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against "jumping to conclusions" about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted "Allahu Akbar." The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber "an isolated extremist" only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.
He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity.
And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame. The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.
Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual's life. When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.
We laugh at the ventriloquist's dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States?
"I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he's led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.
In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? "Dreams of My Father" was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The "Audacity of Hope" followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a "communist with a small 'c'" was the real author.
His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley's formidable political machine at his disposal. He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.
How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before? He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed "cool" in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.
And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984's Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat. The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.
Now, 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters. Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to "wish away" some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West.
Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain . The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign "world tour" were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.
Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party's hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.
Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an "obstreperous" Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against "jumping to conclusions" about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted "Allahu Akbar." The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber "an isolated extremist" only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.
He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity.
And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame. The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.
Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual's life. When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.
We laugh at the ventriloquist's dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States?
Friday, July 27, 2012
Obama Fundraising Email
Sad but still funny is the Obama Fundraising Email Telling Supporters to Comb Their Hair, Put on a Clean Shirt Before Meeting the President.
The above linked PJMedia article goes on to explain that the Obama campaign has sent out yet another strange fundraising email. This one builds on the presidential raffle that the campaign has ridden to second place in a two-horse fundraising race, by selling the idea that raffle winners could get family photos taken with the president to prove that they actually met him.
"Maybe you’re already thinking about which family photo you’ll use in your next holiday card — or maybe your Facebook photo is due for an update. I’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime solution: President Obama is coming to New York City for an event in a few weeks — and you could get to meet him.
Chip in $25 or whatever you can today and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to get your family photo taken with the President. Here’s what will happen: You and up to five of your family members will get to your reserved spot at the event, where a photographer will be waiting. You’ll all meet the President of the United States, and we’ll take the picture to prove it.
So comb your hair, put on a clean shirt, and start practicing your camera-ready smile in the mirror. (emphasis added in this line)"
The email comes from deputy campaign manager Juliana Smoot. Why does Smoot assume that Obama’s supporters aren’t already combing their hair and wearing clean clothes? Are they renting their email list from The Smoking Gun or something? I suppose Smoot could have added insult to injury by telling supporters to get a haircut and get a real job, but everyone knows the latter is next to impossible in Obama’s economy.
The above linked PJMedia article goes on to explain that the Obama campaign has sent out yet another strange fundraising email. This one builds on the presidential raffle that the campaign has ridden to second place in a two-horse fundraising race, by selling the idea that raffle winners could get family photos taken with the president to prove that they actually met him.
"Maybe you’re already thinking about which family photo you’ll use in your next holiday card — or maybe your Facebook photo is due for an update. I’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime solution: President Obama is coming to New York City for an event in a few weeks — and you could get to meet him.
Chip in $25 or whatever you can today and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to get your family photo taken with the President. Here’s what will happen: You and up to five of your family members will get to your reserved spot at the event, where a photographer will be waiting. You’ll all meet the President of the United States, and we’ll take the picture to prove it.
So comb your hair, put on a clean shirt, and start practicing your camera-ready smile in the mirror. (emphasis added in this line)"
The email comes from deputy campaign manager Juliana Smoot. Why does Smoot assume that Obama’s supporters aren’t already combing their hair and wearing clean clothes? Are they renting their email list from The Smoking Gun or something? I suppose Smoot could have added insult to injury by telling supporters to get a haircut and get a real job, but everyone knows the latter is next to impossible in Obama’s economy.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Random Crap from the News
ABC Exposes their Inner Idiot. In the initial reporting of the horrifying “Dark Knight” shooting in Aurora Colorado, ABC rushed to report that a Jim Holmes, the identified shooter, was a member of a local Tea Party. Brian Ross, one of the lead Idiots on ABC say's: “There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year,....now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it is Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado,” as he (Brian Ross) was talking to George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.
The Tea Party-affiliated Jim Holmes, a retired Law Enforcement Officer, was not pleased. ABC has seemingly lost any last vestiges of credibility whatsoever in his eyes. “What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” Holmes told The Daily Caller. “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?” Holmes furhter went on to say that ABC News didn’t call him before going to air nor has he heard from them or received a direct apology.
18% of Americans Still Believe Bush Responsible for Economic Collapse. Okay, this number is fairly consistent as I remember seeing a USA Today Factoid where 15% of the American people believe that WWF wrestling on Television is real. So we have a pretty consistent percentage of 15% of the population shouldn't vote. I still believe they have the right to vote, just not the smarts to make a rational choice. The good news is that 38% of the population believes Obama owns the failed economy, and own it he should!
Postscript: Rasmussen Poll this morning says 72% of the American people believe that business owners are mostly responsible for their succesess,....however 15% think that government is responsible,.....there you go,......that 15% again!!
Barack cries foul! In an unbelievable attempt at spinning, Obama cries that Romney is editing his words. Obama declares words to the effect that "Governor Romney is splicing and dicing my words and leaving whole sentances out. I don't hate small business,...I support small businesses." Oh yeah!?...how so? by wanting to raise their tax burden like you raised their regulation burden? After all Mr President, you said "if you have a small business,...you didn't build it,..someone elese did it." If America re-elects you again, we'll deserve what we are getting. The good news is that Obama is spending a lot of time trying to spin, re-spin and "clarify" his anti-business comments, taking him away from spreading the manure to a host of different subjects.
The Tea Party-affiliated Jim Holmes, a retired Law Enforcement Officer, was not pleased. ABC has seemingly lost any last vestiges of credibility whatsoever in his eyes. “What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” Holmes told The Daily Caller. “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?” Holmes furhter went on to say that ABC News didn’t call him before going to air nor has he heard from them or received a direct apology.
18% of Americans Still Believe Bush Responsible for Economic Collapse. Okay, this number is fairly consistent as I remember seeing a USA Today Factoid where 15% of the American people believe that WWF wrestling on Television is real. So we have a pretty consistent percentage of 15% of the population shouldn't vote. I still believe they have the right to vote, just not the smarts to make a rational choice. The good news is that 38% of the population believes Obama owns the failed economy, and own it he should!
Postscript: Rasmussen Poll this morning says 72% of the American people believe that business owners are mostly responsible for their succesess,....however 15% think that government is responsible,.....there you go,......that 15% again!!
Barack cries foul! In an unbelievable attempt at spinning, Obama cries that Romney is editing his words. Obama declares words to the effect that "Governor Romney is splicing and dicing my words and leaving whole sentances out. I don't hate small business,...I support small businesses." Oh yeah!?...how so? by wanting to raise their tax burden like you raised their regulation burden? After all Mr President, you said "if you have a small business,...you didn't build it,..someone elese did it." If America re-elects you again, we'll deserve what we are getting. The good news is that Obama is spending a lot of time trying to spin, re-spin and "clarify" his anti-business comments, taking him away from spreading the manure to a host of different subjects.
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Brian Terry Exception
Quick turnaround in federal probes absent in shameful murder case
By Robert J. Nieves, Friday, July 6, 2012
Anyone who has spent time in Washington knows government runs on process. There is a procedurefor everything, and this is especially true in federal law enforcement, where lives are at risk every day. I should know, I spent most of my adult life as an agent with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
As chief of major investigations in the 1990s, I managed DEA's highly sensitive undercover operationstargeting the Medellin and Cali cartels.
We routinely coordinated with our colleagues in theDepartment of Justice (DOJ) and enjoyed great success. Agent safety always was paramount in our discussions, and we were successful, in large part, because we followed procedures for the review of sensitive undercover operations.
Before commencing a sensitive operation, the field office had to prepare an operations plan detailing
the activities it intended to pursue and the goals of the operation. Once the op plan was received, it was
vetted in DEA headquarters to include coordination with any foreign office impacted by the proposal,
the U.S. Embassy and host-nation counterparts. After vetting, the plan would be presented to Justice for
approval, which included a meeting attended by the field managers, the U.S. Attorney's Office, DEA
headquarters and a deputy assistant attorney general from the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
This careful and tedious review and approval process was carried out by the Sensitive Activities
Review Committee (SARC). Only after a successful SARC review would the DEA administrator and the
deputy assistant attorney general from the Criminal Division authorize and approve the operation. If
an operation was particularly sensitive, the approval process would rise to the level of the attorney
general.
I am aware that the FBI has a similar review committee for sensitive undercover operations.
Wouldn't the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a Justice law enforcement
bureau, have similar procedures for obtaining approval for sensitive undercover operations like
Operation Fast and Furious? It defies logic to assume that the Department of Justice would give ATF a
pass on the review-committee process in a matter as serious as allowing automatic weapons to be
delivered to Mexican drug-smuggling cartels.
Equally illogical is the behavior of the department's "independent" inspector general (IG). He has had
the Fast and Furious case for 14 months but hasn't issued a report of initial findings. At one point in my
career, I was an inspector in DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility. This office is similar in many
relevant respects to that of Justice's inspector general. I have never heard of any case that took 14
months for a report on initial findings to be issued.
Why is the Fast and Furious case taking so long? Is the IG incompetent, or is he being told to delay the
issuance of his report? Either way, the family of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry loses. His parents are
being denied access to the facts surrounding the death of their son, who was killed with one of the Fast
and Furious weapons. To put this in perspective, the FBI issued its first report on the Kennedy
assassination, one of the most complex and controversial cases in U.S. history, just 17 days after the
event.
We recently learned about Secret Service agents consorting with prostitutes in Colombia. During a
nationally televised TV appearance, President Obama called the agents who partied with the
prostitutes "knuckleheads." Mr. Obama told Jimmy Fallon: "What these guys were thinking, I don't
know. That's why they're not there anymore," a reference to the fact that a mere two weeks after the
event, two agents had been fired and several others had been removed from their positions.
What about the Justice and ATF knuckleheads who approved Fast and Furious? What were they
thinking? Have any of them lost their jobs? More than 18 months have passed, and no one at Justice or
ATF who approved this fiasco has been fired - and this case doesn't involve Colombian prostitutes.
This is a case where one of their own, Terry, a federal agent, was killed by weapons provided by ATF -
a tragic case of "friendly" fire by proxy.
One of my bosses at DEA once told me, "Bad news is not fine wine; it does not get better with age." He
couldn't have been more correct. If there is bad news at Justice or in the IG's reports, better to air it now.
Otherwise, everyone will wonder if the information being hidden is another of Washington's
"inconvenient truths."
Now that the president has placed the mantle of executive privilege over the Justice reports, the Terry
family and the families of countless numbers of murdered Mexican citizens may have to wait decades
to know the truth.
There is something very, very wrong with the way the Terry case is being handled. Take that as gospel
from a former fed who wants nothing but the truth to come out so federal agents everywhere can learn
from mistakes made and know the Department of Justice still has their backs. But even more important,
Justice needs to come clean so the Terrys can know exactly what happened to their son.
A few months ago, Mr. Obama commented on the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, saying, "You know if
I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Then he added a statement that made me think of my own
children: "You know, I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this
with the seriousness it deserves, and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."
It's a shame our president doesn't feel the same way about Brian Terry. I have a daughter and two sons.
One of my sons is a federal agent. He looks a lot like Brian Terry.
Robert J. Nieves is a partner in the firm BERG Associates. He retired from DEA in 1995 as the chief of
international operations.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The Outrage Piles On
In the Are You Kidding Me Catagory
President Barack Obama says his biggest mistake since getting to the White House three and a half years ago has been his tendency to tackle the job as national policy issue rather than continuation of the inspiration he brought out in the 2008 campaign. What?!?!? Obama say's: ".........the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times." Mitt Romney said it best when he said: "Being president is not about telling stories. Being president is about leading, and President Obama has failed to lead." Well, you can't lead from a golf course nor while on expensive tax payer funded vacations.
16,000 New IRS agents to enforce Obamacare
Why in the world would Obama need to hire 16,000 more IRS agents to enforce a law that is supposed to be good for us? The truth is simply because the law is an anchor around the collective necks of American citizens and small businesses. People are going to revolt. If Obama gets re-elected, after 4 more years of his marxist-socialist bent policies and usurpations of the Constitution and massive over reach of executive power, one of two things wil happen: 1 - The American people will be s pissed that the election of any Democrats in the new two decades will be impossible, or, 2 - this Country will be no more.
Small Businesses should thank the Government for their Success.
In Roanoke, VA this past Friday, Obama declares small businesses shoud be thanking the government for their successes since "you didn't build it, someone else did". WHAT?!?! His class warfare rethoric picks up speed, pulling the entitlement chain on people and rallying the Democrat base who are the people who demand everyone else pay for them. The problem is that under Obama these people have grown to a large amount of the American population.
Obama touting Jobs Created. Obama and some of this administration flunkies were talking about the 80,000 jobs created in the past month. With 23 million Americans out of work and the real unemployment rate at around 18%, these numbers are dismal. What they don't want you to know is that 30% of these jobs are temp jobs without benefits! And around 25% of all the jobs created since 2008 are Government jobs,.....and remember these government jobs do not create any product or commodity.
President Barack Obama says his biggest mistake since getting to the White House three and a half years ago has been his tendency to tackle the job as national policy issue rather than continuation of the inspiration he brought out in the 2008 campaign. What?!?!? Obama say's: ".........the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times." Mitt Romney said it best when he said: "Being president is not about telling stories. Being president is about leading, and President Obama has failed to lead." Well, you can't lead from a golf course nor while on expensive tax payer funded vacations.
16,000 New IRS agents to enforce Obamacare
Why in the world would Obama need to hire 16,000 more IRS agents to enforce a law that is supposed to be good for us? The truth is simply because the law is an anchor around the collective necks of American citizens and small businesses. People are going to revolt. If Obama gets re-elected, after 4 more years of his marxist-socialist bent policies and usurpations of the Constitution and massive over reach of executive power, one of two things wil happen: 1 - The American people will be s pissed that the election of any Democrats in the new two decades will be impossible, or, 2 - this Country will be no more.
Small Businesses should thank the Government for their Success.
In Roanoke, VA this past Friday, Obama declares small businesses shoud be thanking the government for their successes since "you didn't build it, someone else did". WHAT?!?! His class warfare rethoric picks up speed, pulling the entitlement chain on people and rallying the Democrat base who are the people who demand everyone else pay for them. The problem is that under Obama these people have grown to a large amount of the American population.
Obama touting Jobs Created. Obama and some of this administration flunkies were talking about the 80,000 jobs created in the past month. With 23 million Americans out of work and the real unemployment rate at around 18%, these numbers are dismal. What they don't want you to know is that 30% of these jobs are temp jobs without benefits! And around 25% of all the jobs created since 2008 are Government jobs,.....and remember these government jobs do not create any product or commodity.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Obama Taken to School by Navy Vet
Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert. I enlisted in the U. S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate.
Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country. One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes. I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish. I can't figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: " We're no longer a Christian nation" " America is arrogant" - (Your wife even announced to the world," America is mean- spirited. " Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House. After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals." Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected. Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue .
You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves. And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight?
You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists. One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out.
The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of. You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle...
Sincerely, Harold B. Estes
Monday, July 16, 2012
Disrespectful President
The invasion of France on June 6, 1944 was a triumph of intelligence, coordination, secrecy, and planning. The bold attack was also a tremendous risk.
Ultimately it succeeded because of individual soldiers' bravery in combat. An invading army had not crossed the unpredictable, dangerous English Channel since 1688 -- and once the massive force set out, there was no turning back.
The 5000-vessel armada stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting over 150,000 men and nearly 30,000 vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Six parachute regiments -- over 13,000 men -- were flown from nine British airfields in over 800 planes.
More than 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over coastal Normandy immediately in advance of the invasion. By nightfall on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more than 100,000 had made it to shore,securing French and coastal villages.
In recent times, only 3 presidents have failed to go to the D-Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed on D-Day.
Those 3 Presidents were:
1. Barack Obama 2010
2. Barack Obama 2011
3. Barack Obama 2012
For the past 70 years, all presidents, except Obama, have paid tribute to the fallen soldiers killed on D-Day. This year, instead of honoring the soldiers, he made a campaign trip on Air Force One to California to raise funds for the upcoming election. You aren't surprised are you?
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Obama's Transformation of America
This article came from Steve McCann and the American Thinker magazine, published in May 2012. The possibility of this coming to pass should get everyone's attention. His actions have supported this premise and all Americans should be worried. If you aren't, you should be.
Obama's Second Term Transformation of America Plans.
Is it already too late? The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.
The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama's first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of "transforming America" in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.
The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.
During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelming controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama worshipping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.
The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.
For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they "shall" do something and more than 200 times when they "may" take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the "Secretary determines."
In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014. The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation's financial, banking and investment sectors. The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.
Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.
None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress. The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages. It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.
Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago style political tactics.
The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists. The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.
Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g. the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history.
In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election. Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.
Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism. Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.
The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.
What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them.
Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships. Steve McCann May 12, 2012
Obama's Second Term Transformation of America Plans.
Is it already too late? The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.
The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama's first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of "transforming America" in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.
The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.
During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelming controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama worshipping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.
The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.
For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they "shall" do something and more than 200 times when they "may" take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the "Secretary determines."
In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014. The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation's financial, banking and investment sectors. The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.
Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.
None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress. The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages. It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.
Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago style political tactics.
The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists. The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.
Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g. the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history.
In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election. Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.
Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism. Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.
The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.
What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them.
Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships. Steve McCann May 12, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Wasserman Schultz - Hypocrite Extraordinaire
"Americans need to ask themselves, why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?" Wasserman Schultz asked on a Sunday Talk Show.
Then the truth came out,..under reported as it is on main stream news, but coming out none the less on Wasserman Schultz’s investments in foreign drug companies and the state bank of India,…not to mention having some funds, either now or at one time, in Swiss accounts! And the real overseas investor is Barack Obama himself who funds this country on money borrowed from the Chinese! We even had to go to the Chinese for uniforms for our Olympic Athletes!!
Anyway, Hypocrisy is a common Democrat tactic,..smear the conservative candidate and blow out the truth. Change the argument if you have too, but continue the lies, innuendos and smear ads on the Republicans. In fact, I looked up "Hypocrite" in Websters just to make sure I spelled it right and lo and behold next to the word and definition were pictures of Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Barney Mumbles Frank, Eric Holder,.....
Oh yeah,......this news of Wasserman Schultz’s, who has a jaw and set of teeth that no doubt let’s her eat corn through a picket fence, comes out after Wasserman-Schultz (we’ll call her Corncob now) has made demand, after demand, for Romney to release his tax returns,...... after she (meaning Corncob) has refused to release her own. See? That's the definition of a Hypocrite.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Uncle Jay explains Congressional Recess
I hesitated,...for about 20 seconds, before posting this video from Uncle Jay because it paints Congress as a bunch of do nothing, tax payer leaching clowns. This is true as a whole, but there are good people in Congress,...take for instance Allen West (R-FL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT) to name but a few,....actually there are only a few but the aforementioned list isn't ALL inclusive. The Senate, after 3 YEARS, still does not have a budget. I think they need to adopt a "work to standard" as opposed to "work to time" requirement. After all, with a $165,200 annual salary, we need to expect something other than lies from Pelosi and total in-action from Harry Reid.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wisdom from LTG Boykin
Retired Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a decorated former Delta Force commander, U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and Purple Heart recipient, explained in the video a six-step plan used by revolutionaries to bring about Marxism elsewhere and drew parallels to Obama’s actions in the U.S. Boykin’s warning resounds eerily today in particular, as the nation is reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a massive federal overhaul of health care and on the anniversary of Obama’s pledge to establish a “national civilian security force” – two events Boykin warned were markers of a “Marxist insurgency” in other nations.
“We hear a lot about Marxism and socialism, and there are those, particularly in the media, who would say that we should ‘tone down our rhetoric’ about socialism because ‘we’re not moving to socialism,’” Boykin states in the video. “Well, The reality is … I’ve studied Marxist insurgency. It was part of my training. And the things I know that have been done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in America today.”
Boykin laid out a step-by-step plan he says is the model of how Fidel Castro instituted Marxism in Cuba, Mao Zedong in China, Stalin in Russia and Hugo Chavez in Venzeula:
1.Nationalize major sectors of the economy
2.Redistribute wealth
3.Discredit opposition
4.Censors opposing viewpoints
5.Control gun ownership
6.Develop a constabulary force to control civilian population
Boykin then illustrates how each of these steps have begun to materialize in the U.S.: From a form of “nationalization” through government bailouts, to “hate crime” legislation aimed at silencing the pulpits, to the federal government labeling tea partiers and veterans returning from overseas as potential domestic terrorists, to efforts underway to get the U.S. on board with a United Nations small arms treaty, which would regulate private gun ownership.
Boykin takes particular aim at Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which he says federal administrators have already admitted is a wealth-redistribution plan (step No. 2) and he says includes within its 1,000 pages plans for national security forces at the president’s disposal, akin to national police forces socialist tyrants like Adolf Hitler used to complete their revolutions.
Specifically, Boykin alluded to a speech Obama made four years ago today, in Colorado Springs, Colo., on July 2, 2008, in which he pledged to establish a “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the U.S. military].”
“You need to understand this is happening in America, and it fits the model that has been used when societies have moved to Marxism,” Boykin claims. “It should be a matter of great concern,” he says. “Get out and do something to help stop this. Use the constitutional tools that our Founding Fathers gave us. Let you congressman know how you feel about this. Be a pain in their neck by constantly emailing and calling them. Find candidates that represent your values as a Constitution-believing American, and get out and get active in some of these movements that are trying to reverse what’s happing in America.
by Drew Zahn
Drew Zahn is a former pastor who cut his editing teeth as a member of the award-winning staff of Leadership, Christianity Today's professional journal for church leaders. He is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching
http://www.harpandbowlmedia.com/Lt._General_Jerry_Boykin.php
Friday, July 6, 2012
Worst Arguments Yet on Fast and Furious
Liberal mouthpiece Tamara Holder argued that Barack Obama and Eric Holder do not need to, nor should not release any more documents relating to Fast and Furious because to do so would un-necessarily place border agents at risk. Say What?!? Place them at more risk than 2,000 guns imported to the Mexican Cartels did? She also said words to the effect that Conservatives are using Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's death to attack Holder and the President. What!?? Ms. Holder, how dare you even menton Brian Terry's name. You should go back to Jesse Jackson Sr.
Attorney General Holder is now arguing that Congress holding him in contempt is all about the Republicans attacking Obama. Really? Holder dares make that bald face lie like that? No, Mr. Holder this is about one dead Border Patrol agent, 200 or more dead Mexican citizens, you hiding documents relating to who authorized the gun running and all because you and maybe the President authorized guns to be sold to Mexican Cartels in order to generate more reasons and more public opinion to inact restrictive firearms laws here in the U.S.
Holder said that he believes the 2nd Amendment does not grants an individual right to own firearms, and, Obama and Holder have both said that it is the U.S. who is arming Mexican Cartels,....well he's almost right about that........it is the U.S. government who is arming the cartels.
Attorney General Holder is now arguing that Congress holding him in contempt is all about the Republicans attacking Obama. Really? Holder dares make that bald face lie like that? No, Mr. Holder this is about one dead Border Patrol agent, 200 or more dead Mexican citizens, you hiding documents relating to who authorized the gun running and all because you and maybe the President authorized guns to be sold to Mexican Cartels in order to generate more reasons and more public opinion to inact restrictive firearms laws here in the U.S.
Holder said that he believes the 2nd Amendment does not grants an individual right to own firearms, and, Obama and Holder have both said that it is the U.S. who is arming Mexican Cartels,....well he's almost right about that........it is the U.S. government who is arming the cartels.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Military Culture
This was sent from a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant Major and shows a glimpse of personal honor and integrity lacking with many Americans (mostly Liberal) today and certainly with a large group of immigrants (illegal and legal) who are demonstrating and demanding free stuff,.....health care, social security pay, college tuition, etc.
The background is that within the Army, promotion boards for enlisted ranks up to E-6/Staff Sergeant are held locally at the unit. The soldier's record, performance evaluations, education, military schooling are tallied into points. The final evaluation is a oral board conducting in front of several senior non-commissioned officers (NCO's) who have an interest in selected the best for promotion.
This is what transpired at one local promotion board for Staff Sergeant promotions at a Battalion level:
This is an oral board where the candidate appears in his dress uniform and answers questions from a Command Sergeant Major, 3 Sergeants Major, and the First Sergeant. Sergeant Kim, born in North Korea, escaped at an early age, lived in South Korea and served in the South Korean Army was one of the candidates.
He had immigrated to the US joined the Army, and volunteered for our unit. We were told that he was ready, had studied but that his English was very rough. Sergeant Kim struggled through the questions and he was able to perform above a passing grade.
At the end, the Command Sergeant Major asked him what is in the news today that interests you. He quickly replied, today on June 25, 1950 the North Korean Army began its offensive into South Korea. He went on to say how many US Soldiers were killed in action, wounded and are still missing. He said had the US not helped the South Korean people how he and his family would not be here today. He closed with how proud he was to have the opportunity to serve in our unit now that America is in need, in order to repay what he perceived as a debt.
I think I will remember this the rest of my life.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Former President Carter Off His Rocker Again
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is accusing the current president of sanctioning the "widespread abuse of human rights" by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists. See Yahoo article.
Obama is guilty of ruining this economy and an unprecedented grab at our liberties, so if that is the wide spread human rights abuses, then Carter is right,......for once in his life. In 100 years from now, if this great Country exists in any form or fashion, we'll be voting for who was the worst President in history,...and the choices will be Carter or Obama.
Anyway, the article continues:
Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president, denounced the Obama administration for "clearly violating" 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the "United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights." "Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends," Carter wrote.
No, not really. It's Obama kow towing to our enemies that abets them, and his anti-Israeli views that alienates our friends who see that if America can forsake Israel, then we can forsake anyone.
While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 .
Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources. In addition to the drone strikes, Carter criticized the current president for keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, where prisoners "have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers."
The former president blasted the government for allowing "unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications." He also condemned recent legislation that gives the president the power to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, although a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect for any suspects not affiliated with the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration," Carter said. While Carter never mentioned Obama by name, he called out "our government" and "the highest authorities in Washington," and urged "concerned citizens" to "persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership."
Okay, Jimmy,...whatever you say,.......now run off and take your Alzheimers medicine.
Obama is guilty of ruining this economy and an unprecedented grab at our liberties, so if that is the wide spread human rights abuses, then Carter is right,......for once in his life. In 100 years from now, if this great Country exists in any form or fashion, we'll be voting for who was the worst President in history,...and the choices will be Carter or Obama.
Anyway, the article continues:
Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president, denounced the Obama administration for "clearly violating" 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the "United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights." "Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends," Carter wrote.
No, not really. It's Obama kow towing to our enemies that abets them, and his anti-Israeli views that alienates our friends who see that if America can forsake Israel, then we can forsake anyone.
While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 .
Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources. In addition to the drone strikes, Carter criticized the current president for keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, where prisoners "have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers."
The former president blasted the government for allowing "unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications." He also condemned recent legislation that gives the president the power to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, although a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect for any suspects not affiliated with the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration," Carter said. While Carter never mentioned Obama by name, he called out "our government" and "the highest authorities in Washington," and urged "concerned citizens" to "persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership."
Okay, Jimmy,...whatever you say,.......now run off and take your Alzheimers medicine.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Top General Accused of Blocking Corruption Probe to Help Obama
From Wired.comhttp://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/caldwell/ comes an excellent article exposing allegations that an Army General is blocking a corruption investigation. With the Army and the larger U.S. military being the great institutions they are, it is important to ensure they maintain credibility, even more so in the wake of the public debate over the military conducting training exercises in American urban areas; the passing of the NDAA which gives the military detention and confinement powers inside the U.S.; and the general disappointment of the military rank and file with their senior leaders upon the Obama administration's changes to military culture vice the mandated gay acceptance.
The article:
One of the US Army’s rising stars stands accused of obstructing an inquiry into widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Afghan forces he mentored. And if the charges are accurate, they could end the career of one of the military’s top officers. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, until last year the US officer in charge of training Afghan security forces, allegedly blocked a Defense Department inspector general investigation into a pattern of misconduct exhibited by the Afghan National Army’s medical division.
Aided by his senior staff, Caldwell prevented that inquiry to spare his command embarrassment ahead of US national elections. “How could we think to invite the DOD IG [the Pentagon inspector general] in during an election cycle?” Caldwell allegedly upbraided subordinate officers who favored an outside inquiry in fall 2010. Caldwell, supposedly in an “emotional” state, yelled, “You should know better!”
The accusations are laid out in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta by Rep. Jason Chaffetz who calls the incident an apparent “cover up.” The Wall Street Journal first reported the letter’s contents. President Obama “calls me Bill,” Caldwell allegedly bragged, according to the letter. The general supposedly didn’t want to spoil that first-name relationship with a messy inquiry into corruption and wrongdoing at Afghan hospitals.
Since then, Caldwell has assumed command of US Army North in Texas, one of the Army’s most prestigious posts and the latest in a series of plum assignments. The son of a prominent Army general himself, his career trajectory has resembled that of another prestigious, esteemed general — David Petraeus. Caldwell commanded an airborne division at war (the 82nd; Petraeus ran the 101st); then took a senior appointment to Iraq (as chief spokesman for Petraeus during the surge); ran the Army’s big-think Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth (as Petraeus did before him); and then took a crucial job in Afghanistan running the training of Afghan forces (eventually under the command of Petraeus, who did the same job in Iraq).
With a massive budget, Caldwell’s training efforts were considered the key to extricating the US military from combat in Afghanistan, a critical objective for Obama. Caldwell once told confidantes he considered himself fit to run the entire Afghanistan war. Many of the allegations against Caldwell come from Air Force Col. Schuyler Geller, who served as Caldwell’s command surgeon when Caldwell ran the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A).
A memo from Geller recounting Afghan corruption and Caldwell’s reaction, dated 2011, was acquired by Danger Room under the condition we not publish it. He outlines “a significant level of corruption” by the Afghan military medical organization, which he helped mentor. That corruption, he charges, was “known to be present by NTM-A’s Senior Army leadership.” “Scores of millions” of dollars in U.S. taxpayer aid to the Afghan Army medical corps disappeared from the official balance sheets, Geller charges, and into what looked to Geller like a criminal enterprise for selling pharmaceuticals meant for Afghan troops.
Despite nearly $180 million in U.S. taxpayer money since 2008 for the Afghan medics, Afghan troops far from Kabul have reported a lack of medical support and supplies. “It was clear that financial management at the [Afghan National Army] surgeon general’s office was known by NTM-A Programs leadership in March of 2010,” Geller writes. But it wasn’t just financial irregularities and pill-selling. Physicians, including surgeons, went into the Afghan military based on political connections, since they could earn “five to eight times” in uniform what they could working for the Afghan public-health system. The result was “suspicions of fuel diversion” at the main Kabul military hospital, where Geller says “patients [were] horrendously neglected and abused.”
A medical colonel once had a student nurse beaten for requesting the colonel not be verbally abusive, going so far as to pull out his pistol and chamber a round — all in a dining hall. Geller and his colleagues, all colonels and captains, took their concerns to Caldwell and his staff in the fall of 2010. They sought a top-to-bottom inquiry into the Afghan army medical organization from the Defense Department’s inspector general. Initially, Caldwell’s chief civilian deputy approved the request, calling it a “no-brainer.” Then, allegedly, Caldwell thought otherwise. Caldwell “directed a retraction of the request,” Geller said.
One of Caldwell’s top officers, Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, had “concerns about the Congressional election next week,” and suggested punting on the inspector general request until after the vote. “Three attorneys in the room” told Patton they “recommended against anything in writing to the effect that the decision was timed to the elections.” Caldwell personally reprimanded Geller and his colleagues, allegedly yelling “you should have known better” than to pass the inquiry recommendation to the inspector general, putting Caldwell in the awkward position of retracting it after it came to the inspector general’s attention.
According to Geller, Caldwell limited the scope of the request for an outside inspector-general inquiry to “pharmaceuticals, medical logistics and mentoring,” instead of the “more comprehensive” inquiry Geller wanted. Geller left Afghanistan in February 2011. “[T]o date no improvement has occurred” in the Afghan army medical corps’ hiring practices, he writes in his memo.
Caldwell runs U.S. Army North — the same unit commanded 35 years ago by his father. Last week, Patton, a two-star general, became the incoming leader of the Pentagon’s sexual-assault prevention and response team. Caldwell has previously faced accusations that he manipulated politicians and public opinion to make his command look better. The specifics of those allegations turned out to be less than met the eye — and Danger Room defended the general at time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Caldwell was squeaky clean.
If what Geller is saying is true, then some of the corruption of the Afghan army medical corps rubbed off on Caldwell. It could well make him unfit for command. Generals have seen their careers ended for much, much less. Caldwell is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as any American citizen, and the accusations against him are not proof. (He did not respond to requests to comment for this article.)
Chaffetz is seeking a deeper Pentagon investigation of Caldwell, and demanding that Panetta dig into this “apparent atempt by senior U.S. military officials to delay the exposure of — or cover up — these atrocities for political reasons.” At the Pentagon on Tuesday, spokesman George Little told Danger Room he was “unaware” that the accusations against Caldwell “were known prior to his most recent assignment.” He didn’t specify how this might impact Caldwell’s until-now skyrocketing career.
The article:
One of the US Army’s rising stars stands accused of obstructing an inquiry into widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Afghan forces he mentored. And if the charges are accurate, they could end the career of one of the military’s top officers. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, until last year the US officer in charge of training Afghan security forces, allegedly blocked a Defense Department inspector general investigation into a pattern of misconduct exhibited by the Afghan National Army’s medical division.
Aided by his senior staff, Caldwell prevented that inquiry to spare his command embarrassment ahead of US national elections. “How could we think to invite the DOD IG [the Pentagon inspector general] in during an election cycle?” Caldwell allegedly upbraided subordinate officers who favored an outside inquiry in fall 2010. Caldwell, supposedly in an “emotional” state, yelled, “You should know better!”
The accusations are laid out in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta by Rep. Jason Chaffetz who calls the incident an apparent “cover up.” The Wall Street Journal first reported the letter’s contents. President Obama “calls me Bill,” Caldwell allegedly bragged, according to the letter. The general supposedly didn’t want to spoil that first-name relationship with a messy inquiry into corruption and wrongdoing at Afghan hospitals.
Since then, Caldwell has assumed command of US Army North in Texas, one of the Army’s most prestigious posts and the latest in a series of plum assignments. The son of a prominent Army general himself, his career trajectory has resembled that of another prestigious, esteemed general — David Petraeus. Caldwell commanded an airborne division at war (the 82nd; Petraeus ran the 101st); then took a senior appointment to Iraq (as chief spokesman for Petraeus during the surge); ran the Army’s big-think Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth (as Petraeus did before him); and then took a crucial job in Afghanistan running the training of Afghan forces (eventually under the command of Petraeus, who did the same job in Iraq).
With a massive budget, Caldwell’s training efforts were considered the key to extricating the US military from combat in Afghanistan, a critical objective for Obama. Caldwell once told confidantes he considered himself fit to run the entire Afghanistan war. Many of the allegations against Caldwell come from Air Force Col. Schuyler Geller, who served as Caldwell’s command surgeon when Caldwell ran the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A).
A memo from Geller recounting Afghan corruption and Caldwell’s reaction, dated 2011, was acquired by Danger Room under the condition we not publish it. He outlines “a significant level of corruption” by the Afghan military medical organization, which he helped mentor. That corruption, he charges, was “known to be present by NTM-A’s Senior Army leadership.” “Scores of millions” of dollars in U.S. taxpayer aid to the Afghan Army medical corps disappeared from the official balance sheets, Geller charges, and into what looked to Geller like a criminal enterprise for selling pharmaceuticals meant for Afghan troops.
Despite nearly $180 million in U.S. taxpayer money since 2008 for the Afghan medics, Afghan troops far from Kabul have reported a lack of medical support and supplies. “It was clear that financial management at the [Afghan National Army] surgeon general’s office was known by NTM-A Programs leadership in March of 2010,” Geller writes. But it wasn’t just financial irregularities and pill-selling. Physicians, including surgeons, went into the Afghan military based on political connections, since they could earn “five to eight times” in uniform what they could working for the Afghan public-health system. The result was “suspicions of fuel diversion” at the main Kabul military hospital, where Geller says “patients [were] horrendously neglected and abused.”
A medical colonel once had a student nurse beaten for requesting the colonel not be verbally abusive, going so far as to pull out his pistol and chamber a round — all in a dining hall. Geller and his colleagues, all colonels and captains, took their concerns to Caldwell and his staff in the fall of 2010. They sought a top-to-bottom inquiry into the Afghan army medical organization from the Defense Department’s inspector general. Initially, Caldwell’s chief civilian deputy approved the request, calling it a “no-brainer.” Then, allegedly, Caldwell thought otherwise. Caldwell “directed a retraction of the request,” Geller said.
One of Caldwell’s top officers, Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, had “concerns about the Congressional election next week,” and suggested punting on the inspector general request until after the vote. “Three attorneys in the room” told Patton they “recommended against anything in writing to the effect that the decision was timed to the elections.” Caldwell personally reprimanded Geller and his colleagues, allegedly yelling “you should have known better” than to pass the inquiry recommendation to the inspector general, putting Caldwell in the awkward position of retracting it after it came to the inspector general’s attention.
According to Geller, Caldwell limited the scope of the request for an outside inspector-general inquiry to “pharmaceuticals, medical logistics and mentoring,” instead of the “more comprehensive” inquiry Geller wanted. Geller left Afghanistan in February 2011. “[T]o date no improvement has occurred” in the Afghan army medical corps’ hiring practices, he writes in his memo.
Caldwell runs U.S. Army North — the same unit commanded 35 years ago by his father. Last week, Patton, a two-star general, became the incoming leader of the Pentagon’s sexual-assault prevention and response team. Caldwell has previously faced accusations that he manipulated politicians and public opinion to make his command look better. The specifics of those allegations turned out to be less than met the eye — and Danger Room defended the general at time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Caldwell was squeaky clean.
If what Geller is saying is true, then some of the corruption of the Afghan army medical corps rubbed off on Caldwell. It could well make him unfit for command. Generals have seen their careers ended for much, much less. Caldwell is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as any American citizen, and the accusations against him are not proof. (He did not respond to requests to comment for this article.)
Chaffetz is seeking a deeper Pentagon investigation of Caldwell, and demanding that Panetta dig into this “apparent atempt by senior U.S. military officials to delay the exposure of — or cover up — these atrocities for political reasons.” At the Pentagon on Tuesday, spokesman George Little told Danger Room he was “unaware” that the accusations against Caldwell “were known prior to his most recent assignment.” He didn’t specify how this might impact Caldwell’s until-now skyrocketing career.
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