Archive for May, 2010

Memorial Day 2

Posted: 31 May 2010 in Coast Guard, Hero, Military, US Air Force, US Army, US Marines, US Navy, Veterans
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Another Veteran tells us what it’s like as a Veteran on Memorial Day. As a Veteran myself, it is probably the hardest day for me to deal with.

What Memorial Day Means to a Veteran
By T.J. Woodard

When I was a young seven-year-old, I noticed my neighbor’s mother crying. I learned that her brother-in-law, a helicopter pilot, had been killed in Vietnam. I felt bad about it, but to me, it was just a story.

When I was a high school student, my Uncle Bob, a police lieutenant, sat in our living room and told us of a police officer who had been killed in the line of duty. I remember Uncle Bob sitting there, wiping tears from his eyes as he explained the officer’s actions that day. Uncle Bob was on the scene and was about to take command when the shooting occurred. “It was a hell of a brave thing he did,” my uncle reported. Uncle Bob’s story was of valor and sacrifice, but still only a story to me.

Sacrifice became real for me many years later in Iraq. I was the executive officer (second in command) of a newly formed task force — Task Force Tacoma. We had the mission of preventing mortar attacks on the largest American air base in the country, the security “outside the wire” for 20,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and civilians. It was a difficult mission. The area was known as “mortaritaville” because of the constant threat of attack by rocket and mortar fire.

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Memorial Day

Posted: 31 May 2010 in Coast Guard, History, Military, Military History, US Air Force, US Army, US Marines, US Navy, Veterans
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In loving memory of Major Douglas A. LaBouff, KIA 7 January, 2007 in Iraq. You will not be forgotten my friend.

And to all the other heroes our country has lost in wars past and present.

I salute you.

Stole the following from Ace:

“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

God rest their souls…

Time to Impeach?

Posted: 27 May 2010 in Axis of Idiots, Buyers' Remorse, Comarade Obama, Congress, Democrats, Government, Lies, Neo-Marxists, Politics, Socialism, Stupid People
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Time to impeach? Me thinks so.

Either that, or that lying POS Sestak needs to quit the race. Which is it?

Somebody knows something. Somebody better spill their guts.

Karl Rove: Joe Sestak’s lying or he’s protecting a felon in Barack Obama’s White House

Well, it looks like we have an answer now to the question raised in that Monday Ticket item here: Obama White House probe of Obama White House finds no Obama White House impropriety on Sestak.

This Joe Sestak/Obama White House job mess does have legs. The public and the media are not buying the White House’s self-cleansing, self-serving explanation that everything was appropriate, just move along.

The issue of what Democrat Sestak was offered by an Obama aide to drop out of his ultimately successful Pennsylvania Senate primary challenge of what’s-his-name-the-old-former-Democrat-ex-Republican-now-Democrat Specter may well come up this morning at President Obama’s first White House news conference in months. (As usual, we’ll have the full transcript here this afternoon.)

It’s a lesson that White House after White House fails to learn, incomplete answers only raise more questions. If it smells like a fish, good chance it’s a fish.

With an opening oil statement, Obama will try to steer/frame the media focus toward the messy….

…Gulf spill story because a) there’s another bad guy to blame and b) the president has laid on another photo op down there on Friday before he skips the Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery to vacation again, this time in Chicago.

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Follow up:

Exclusive: All 7 Republicans on Senate Judiciary Committee Ask AG Holder to Appoint Special Prosecutor to Look Into Alleged Sestak Job Offer

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder today, all seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee “urge the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Congressman Joe Sestak’s claim that a White House official offered him a job to induce him to exit the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Senator Arlen Specter.”

The seven – Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jon Kyl or Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,  John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma – allege that the offer would appear to violate federal criminal laws, including 18 U.S.C. 600, which prohibits promising a government position “as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity” or “in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office.”

Rep. Sestak, D-Penn., who defeated Specter in the primary last week, told Comcast’s Larry Kane in February that the White House had offered him a position in exchange for not challenging Specter. White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on Monday that White House lawyers had looked into it and judged everything “perfectly appropriate.”

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Issa: Sestak scandal could be Obama’s ‘Watergate’
By Bridget Johnson

An e-mail from Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) campaign suggested Wednesday that the controversy over Rep. Joe Sestak’s (D-Pa.) alleged administration job offer could be President Barack Obama’s Watergate scandal.

In an e-mail with the subject line “The Sestak Affair – Obama’s Watergate?”, the ranking member on the Oversight and Government Reform committee focused on “long-standing questions” about the offer Sestak says was made to him to urge him to drop out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.

The campaign e-mail says the allegations would amount to three felony charges of bribery and corruption.

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WTF Files…

Posted: 25 May 2010 in Axis of Idiots, Buyers' Remorse, Comarade Obama, Congress, Democrats, Economics, Failure, Government, Lies, Neo-Marxists, Politics, Socialism, Stupid People, Tax, WTF Files
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Another WTF moment brought to you by the fucking Democrat assholes in Congress.

The Hypocrisy Act of 2010
Ed Morrissey

Or, as Keith Hennessey suggests in his must-read deconstruction of the big-spending bill Congress will approve this week, the Call It Anything But Don’t Call It Stimulus Act.  Nancy Pelosi calls it the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which forms the acronym AJCTLA, and that sounds like nonsense when spoken.  It’s a perfect match for its title, as Hennessey explains, because it does nothing to help American jobs and everything to allow Congress to help itself to even more fantasy money.

In fact, it manages to both increase the deficit and hike taxes, a rather neat little trick that one might think would embarrass even Democrats in 2010.  The CBO confirms that AJCTLA has the following long-term consequences:

* $40 B net tax increase

* $174 B spending increase

* $134 B deficit increase

How does it manage to do that?  Hennessey gives us the bullet points:

* increases infrastructure spending by $26 B over ten years;

* extends a raft of expiring tax provisions, mostly for one year

* provides funding relief for certain employer pension plans;

* raises a bunch of taxes, mostly on businesses and a certain kind of partnership income called “carried interest;”

* extends unemployment insurance benefits, increasing federal spending by $47 B over the next two years;

* increases Medicare payments for doctors for eighteen months at a $63 B cost;

* increases health insurance subsidies for the unemployed (through “COBRA”) by $8 B over the next two years; and

* increases federal Medicaid spending by $24 B for a six-month policy change.

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Korea Heating Up…

Posted: 25 May 2010 in Military, Politics
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More on Korea…

SKorea resumes psychological warfare with NKorea
By HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea blared propaganda broadcasts into North Korea on Tuesday after a six-year halt and Pyongyang said its troops were bracing for war as tensions spiked on the divided peninsula over the sinking of a warship.

One Seoul-based monitoring agency reported that North Korea’s leader ordered its 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat after South Korea blamed the North for a March 26 torpedo strike that sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 sailors. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.

The South’s restarting of psychological warfare operations – including radio broadcasts into the North and placing loudspeakers at the border to blast out propaganda – were among measures the government announced Monday to punish Pyongyang. The South is also slashing trade and denying permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South Korean waters.

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Fire the Bastards…

Posted: 25 May 2010 in Axis of Idiots, Democrats, Economics, Failure, Government, Politics, Socialism, Stupid People, Tax
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Keep raising taxes morons. Show the state just how out of touch you are with reality. This will bode well for Republicans of this state, if the idiot masses get their heads out of their asses.

That’s a huge if.

FIRE THE BASTARDS!

California Democrats unveil tax-increase package

SAN FRANCISCO, May 24 (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers in California unveiled a plan on Monday for nearly $5 billion of tax and fee increases to help fill the state government’s $19.1 billion budget gap.

The plan by state Senate Democrats would raise $4.9 billion by raising California’s vehicle registration fee, suspending corporate tax breaks scheduled to begin next year and boosting the state’s tax on alcoholic beverages.

Democrats control both chambers of the state’s legislature and have said they would seek new revenue to help plug the shortfall.

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has ruled out tax increases and is relying largely on deep spending cuts in his plan for balancing the state’s books. He has called for $12.4 billion of cuts and would scrap the state’s welfare system, a plan Democrats have rejected.

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Stocks…

Posted: 25 May 2010 in Buyers' Remorse, Comarade Obama, Economics, Failure, Government, Politics
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I took my 401K stocks and converted them to an interest bearing account last week. Don’t want to lose half of my assets again.

If the Euro tanks and Korea heats up, we’re in deep shit.

U.S. Stock Futures Drop on Borrowing Costs, Tensions in Korea
By Jonathan Burgos and Adam Haigh

May 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stock futures fell, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index may slip to 2010’s lowest level, as bank borrowing costs rose and a report said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered his military to prepare for combat.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lost 1.8 percent as the rate banks say they pay for three-month loans in dollars increased to 0.536 percent, the highest since July 7 and the 11th straight gain, according to the British Bankers’ Association. Ford Motor Co. and Apple Inc. fell more than 2.5 percent on concern that Spain’s ailing banks signal a widening Europe debt crisis that may curb global economic growth.

S&P 500 futures expiring in June dropped 2.5 percent to 1,044.40 at 7:50 a.m. in New York. The index’s lowest close of the year was 1,056.74 on Feb. 8. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures retreated 210 points, or 2.1 percent, to 9,833.

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World stocks sink on renewed Europe fears
By ALEX KENNEDY

SINGAPORE (AP) – World stock markets tumbled Tuesday, extending Wall Street’s sell-off as the sliding euro fueled a new wave of pessimism about the global economy’s health.

Renewed worries about Europe’s debt problems rattled already anxious investors, who grew more uncertain about the outlook for the U.S. and global economies.

In early trading in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 2.3 percent, Germany’s DAX dropped 2.6 percent, and France’s CAC-40 sank 3.1 percent. Futures pointed to losses of 2 percent or more for major U.S. stock indexes on Tuesday.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average shed 3.1 percent to 9,459.89 as the yen’s strength against the common European currency hammered exporters.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 3.5 percent to 18,985.50 while benchmarks in Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and Malaysia lost 3 percent or more. Stock markets in India and Singapore were down more than 2 percent while China dropped 1.9 percent.

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Unions and Democrats, Again…

Posted: 25 May 2010 in Congress, Failure, Government, Politics, Socialism, Stupid People, Tax, Unions
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These assholes in Congress just don’t fucking get it. The ONLY way that they will get the message is to fire them.

If you aren’t engaged in the process, you’re the problem too.

Unions don’t help anyone  but themselves. Look what the unions and communists in Greece did for that country. You’ve been warned.

The Next Bailout: $165B for Unions
By Erik Berte

Taxpayers could be on the hook for another $165 billion if a bill to bail out private union pension funds makes it through Congress.

A Democratic senator is introducing legislation for a bailout of troubled union pension funds.  If passed, the bill could put another $165 billion in liabilities on the shoulders of American taxpayers.

The bill, which would put the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation behind struggling pensions for union workers, is being introduced by Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), who says it will save jobs and help people.

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Another Redneck Racist Hater Hatin’ Obama…

Posted: 24 May 2010 in Axis of Idiots, Comarade Obama, Congress, Government, Politics, Racism, Truth
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Or, maybe not.

Korea

Posted: 24 May 2010 in Comarade Obama, Military, Politics
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I’ve been a little remiss in posting. I am doing an audit, two last week and continuing one this week, so I was a bit busy.

I’ve decided to revisit the issue with Korea. It is a rather volatile one, and may turn into a hot war again fairly quick.

Remember, the two Korea’s are still at war with each other. There has never been a peace treaty signed between them, or us, for that matter. The U.S. is also technically still at war with North Korea.

We have 28,000 troops still stationed in Korea, which is merely a token of our commitment to South Korea. If NorKo decides to attack the South, we’re in it knee deep.

I pray that nothing of the sort happens, but NorKo will be made to answer for sinking the South Korean Corvette.

Let’s look at past and present events.

NKorea warns of war if punished for ship sinking
By JEAN H. LEE and HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Tensions deepened Thursday on the Korean peninsula as South Korea accused North Korea of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship, killing 46 sailors in the country’s worst military disaster since the Korean War.

President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the provocation following the release of long-awaited results from a multinational investigation into the March 26 sinking near the Koreas’ tense maritime border. North Korea, reacting swiftly, called the results a fabrication, and warned that any retaliation would trigger war. It continued to deny involvement in the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

“If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us …. we will answer to this with all-out war,” Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea’s navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea waters, but 46 perished.

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Now look at this:

Obama to military commanders: Get ready in case North Korea makes a move
Allahpundit

Nothing’s happened yet but something big could happen soon, so let’s get a post up to make sure we’re all on the same page. Remember in March when that South Korean ship exploded, killing 46 sailors on board? It was no mystery who did it, but not until this past week did U.S. intelligence conclude that the orders to sink it came straight from the top.

The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son.

“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”…

Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor…

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.

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