Monday, May 27, 2013

Soldiers and Sailors

Those who gave


Today, I pay tribute to the members of my immediate and extended family who have fought in the Armed Forces of the United States going back to the Revolutionary War up to today.

Love, William Henry II, Lt., Aide de Camp to General George Washington, lost leg at Battle of Yorktown. (grandfather)

Spray, William Nelson, Lt., fought in the War of 1812. (uncle)


Spray, Frederick Adam, Pfc., lied about his age to join the service to fight in the Spanish-American War. (grandfather)


Spray, John, USN, landed on Normandy, December 6, 1944. (uncle)


Layman, James, Lt., youngest officer in the Union Army, fought in Civil War. (grandfather)


Layman, John Robert, Pfc., fought in Korean War. (brother)


Layman, Curtis Frederick, SP5, fought three tours in Vietnam. Bronze Star, Silver Star, Medal of Commendation. (brother)


Osterhout, George Thomas, Sgt., Union Army, fought in Civil War. (grandfather)


Hall, L.T., Pfc., World War II. (father-in-law)


Hall, Hugo, Pfc. World War II. (uncle)


Lambert, Homer, Pfc.,U.S. Army, French Medal Legion Winner, WW I. (uncle)


Smith, Charles R., Pfc. U.S. Army, WWII. (uncle)


Avery, Pete, NCO.,U.S. Army, WWII. (uncle)


Smart, Randolph, Col., U.S. Air Force, career, served in Viet Nam. (cousin)


Smith, Earl, U.S. Army, WWII, died in battle. (uncle)

Smith, Dale, Col., U.S. Army, served in Korea. (uncle)


Roberts, Ward., U.S. Army Air Corps. Flew reconnaissance and bombing missions over Germany in 1944 and 1945. (uncle)


Ward, Neal, Officer, U.S. Air Force, reconnaissance missions during cold war. (cousin)


Ward, Darrell, Lt. Col. U.S. Army, active. (cousin)


Leigh, U.S. Army, Lost his life on Anzio, buried there (my son-in-law's grandfather)


Cook, Charles, Officer, Tail Gunner, U.S. Army Air Corps, WWII. (brother-in-law)


Cook, Warren B., U.S. Navy, Seabee, WWII. (brother-in-law)


Beam, Ross, U.S. Navy, of Front Royal, Virginia. (nephew)


Kirby, Matt, U.S. Army, career, currently at Ft. Riley, Kansas. (nephew)
Thanks for the read.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Rich IRS employees don't know nuthin'

This IRS thing bugs the youknowwhat out of me. I just can't let it go. So does the AP scandal and Benghazi mess, as well as the takeover of different agencies in the government by Homeland Security and their personal private army with their 2200 tanks and 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition. There are so many areas of too much government and enough glaring problems to keep me busy reporting on them till the next election.

In that vein, after I wrote about the IRS Director of Exempt Groups (what a stupid title), Lois Lerner, I snooped around the internet a bit more and discovered that this bureaucrat extraordinaire cashed in something north of $750,000 over the past 4 years in salary and bonuses--mostly bonuses. Her salary is about $175,000 a year.

That infuriates me. How can any civil servant become rich?

Think of it.

Richard Nixon was right when he said, "Always follow the money."

Thanks for the read.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Lois Lerner's arrogance

I'm trying to remember when I've seen a radical display of haughtiness and hubris as I witnessed this morning when Lois Lerner of the IRS sat before Darrell Issa's committee and basically told them to stuff it because she's taking the Fifth.

She was seething underneath as she conferred with her three or four lawyers, giving the congresspeople the evil eye every chance she got. I've done nothing wrong, she proclaimed, tensing up through her anger. I've been with the IRS more than umpty-umpt years. How dare you question me, an entrenched and loyal Bureaucrat. I know where the bodies are buried because I put them there. I take all the orders from the best of 'em without question, and I'll be hung before I share a thing with you miserable politicians. I'll be here many years after you go back home to your pitiful little lives and boring backwater states.

Of course, the Fifth Amendment is to protect the innocent; why is it only the seemingly guilty use it? Ms. Lerner's inclination to declare the Fifth could indicate she's in deep and followed orders from above like a good  IRS bureaucrat. You don't stay in the Federal Government hierarchy by being a firebrand. You follow directives and orders and get good performance reviews, year after year, "project" after project. And after watching Lerner, it's clear she has earned her big directors salary and bonuses which criteria likely includes being a full on bitch who hates people.

Her IRS colleagues also testifying before the committee, seem to have a propensity for coming off as strange and freaky. They are literal, eely oddballs dispensing inane and silly, sometimes distracted answers to specific questions about the people who were responsible for their IRS mess. If we've heard "I don't know" once we've heard it twenty or thirty times.

Who is in charge? Who does know? Their respective titles are commissioners, directors, deputy this and deputy that; so who the hell gives the orders?  I now understand the term "stonewalling" as they all sit there like stones!

There's more
I heard about a citizen protest that took place in front of the IRS building in St. Louis yesterday. Before you look at the controversial source and dismiss it out of hand--Infowars and Alex Jones--please consider who the protesters are. They are women and men like the rest of us and most of whom probably have never marched in a rally in their lives. For them to come out is major. There's an old marketing axiom: if one person complains, there are thirty who feel that way who do not complain. By that measure, this was a significant turnout.

After realizing the tone of the march and type of protesters, it's important to look at just who was on the sideline in cars marked Homeland Security, Federal Police. What are they doing there? What possible mischief could these folks get into? Throw a hot cup of coffee at an officer? Beat them with a placard? Couldn't the local police handle this? Sounds kinda brown shirty or SS-ey to me.

The scandals plaguing President Obama are getting away from him pretty fast. However, his cover up machine is unpredictable. How far will these scandals go? Will his Dem friends hang on? After all, how would you like to be the first democrat to contemplate impeaching the first black president?

I read that even the First Mrs. wants to get away from the president on an "extended vacation" on Martha's Vineyard this summer. Maybe she can ask Ms. Lerner to go along too. No protesters on the Vineyard!

Thanks for the read.







Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Tornadoes hate conservatives too!

Lizz Winstead--not exactly a household name--who is a "co-creator" of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, twitter-joked yesterday afternoon that " the Oklahoma tornado clearly targets conservatives."

Chirp.

Chirp.

I guess she tried damage control by apologizing and then giving an assignment to those who were angered and shocked by what she said: just give to the different charities involved in the Oklahoma cleanup and recovery efforts.

Yeah, Lizz; that'll fix it. Typical. A Leftie spending other people's money..

What arrogance

Winstead, who looks a lot like Herman Munster in drag, isn't off the hook. She's having to take the flak she so deserves, yet it looks to me that she still doesn't get it. Nor do her peers who are in constant delight in deriding people who are not in their mix, not of the 1%, beyond their focus, on the margins, the outliers--those people. Those hicks. Those...in other words, people like you and me.

I like to see snide people like Lizz publicly embarrassed. She deserves it.

Caca storms are such fantastic equalizers.

Thanks for the read.




Sunday, May 19, 2013

Where is Hillary?

I've been wondering where Mrs. Clinton has been since she left the State Department a few months ago. She's popped in and out of the public eye long enough to accept a couple of awards; you know the kinds I'm talking about--prestige ones that only really famous people receive for being...well, way above the strait of famous. Usually, "famous" attested by doing lots of different things, e.g., being first lady, being a senator, and finally, being a secretary of state.

Considering those accomplishments started off as a result of her first having married a popular and powerful Democrat politician, it is the ideological default that if she wanted to became famous for being a feminist, she could. After all, we all remember that Tammy Wynette cookie baking moment in her husband's presidential campaign to show people that she's no Stepford Wife.

I have to laugh when people talk about Mrs. Clinton's assent to power and her relationship to feminist and women's issues vis a vis the Democrat Party. The funniest example of the big myth was when the whole Obama campaign machine treated Mrs. Clinton like she was in a steno pool. Obama's people put out the most sexist, racist and ageist presidential primary run in modern history, and Mrs. Clinton took it in the solar plexus. It was the Progressive Dems who turned on her to get the first black man elected president at any cost. When she finally dropped out of the race and supported Obama, I realized just how corrupt these folks are.

But, six years on, Hillary's still going strong and the Obamas are making the predicted mess of things in Washington, which brings us to Mrs. Clinton's whereabouts as we slop through the Benghazi mess. I realize she had the one appearance before congress--the one where she asked, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

But, now that the whistle blowers have given more testimony regarding Ambassador Stevens' lack of safety and her knowledge of this and other material facts, I'm concerned there is much, much more to be asked of Mrs. Clinton.

Oh, I know, she has errands to run:  face lifts to have, a preemptive (and redemptive?) strike in the form of a book to write; a new life script to reconstruct and memorize; and the most formidable, an old and possibly mentally distressed, oxygen-deprived husband to keep from re-ruining her life.

Let's face it; wherever she is, just being Hillary Clinton is not an easy task. Maybe there's an award for that.

Thanks for the read.