James Brady, a former White House press secretary who was severely wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan and later became a prominent gun-control advocate, has died.

Brady died at 73 after a series of health issues, his family said in a statement on Monday.
"Over the years, Jim inspired so many people as he turned adversity into accomplishment," the statement said.

Brady was one of four people hurt in Reagan's shooting by John Hinckley outside a Washington hotel.

Suffering a head wound, it was erroneously reported at one point that Brady had died. He was, however, left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Reagan, severely wounded as well, also survived the attack and served two terms as President. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting and has spent the ensuing years in a psychiatric hospital.

After leaving the White House, Brady launched the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which pushes for stricter firearms laws.


He inspired the Brady Bill, which was fiercely fought over for years before Congress approved it and President Bill Clinton signed it into law in 1993. It requires background checks for gun purchases.
President Barack Obama praised Brady's legacy.

"Jim is a legend at the White House for his warmth and professionalism as press secretary for President Reagan; for the strength he brought to bear in recovering from the shooting that nearly killed him 33 years ago; and for turning the events of that terrible afternoon into a remarkable legacy of service," Obama said in a statement.
The Brady Campaign also acknowledged his death in a tweet: "We are heartbroken over James Brady's passing. We offer our deepest condolences to his wife, Sarah, and their family."
Brady was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award. The White House press briefing room also was named in his honor.

Source : www.edition.cnn.com

Orlando Bloom and Justin Bieber got into a heated altercation at Cipriani in Ibiza, Spain, early Wednesday morning, reports The New York Post.

After getting in each other’s faces—Bloom threw a punch at the pop star—the crowd cheered.

According to witnesses, Bloom took a swing at Bieber after the singer, 20, made a rude comment about Bloom’s ex, Miranda Kerr. But a source close to Bieber insisted that the comment was only made after Bloom took a swing, and missed.

“Justin was at one table, and Orlando was at another,” a source told The New York Post. “But when Bieber and his party were later walking past Bloom’s table, Orlando refused to shake Bieber’s hand.” Then “Bieber said something rude to Orlando, like, ‘She was good.'”



Another source close to Bieber countered that the pop star didn’t make any rude comment and that “Justin didn’t even know Orlando was there. But when they saw each other, it was Orlando who was just being an a-hole to Justin.”“They got in each other’s faces and there were words,” a source said. “But they were separated by their entourages.”

A witness captured 30 seconds of the confrontation on video and posted it to Facebook. It shows Bloom walking away from Bieber and being separated by a crowd, but then turning back to walk to Bieber and confront him.“When they were back together again, Orlando threw a punch at Bieber,” said a source. “He just tried to pop him! The whole place cheered.”

The bad blood between the two began in 2012 when Bieber was seen getting flirty with Kerr after a Victoria’s Secret fashion show, which reportedly led to tension between the model and her Hollywood star husband, Bloom. The married couple then separated in October 2013.

Then newly single Bloom was seen spending time with Bieber’s ex-girlfriend, Selena Gomez, in April. 

Source : www.novinite.com

Josh M., Nick V., Chris and Marcus have clearly been the four favorites throughout this whole season of ‘The Bachelorette,’ so we were FINALLY guaranteed some drama with Andi being forced to send one of them home on July 7. But as it turned out, that wasn’t even the most emotional part of the episode.

Cody said it himself in his epic, semi-psychotic rant — making the final four and bringing Andi Dorfman home to meet your family is the goal of any contestant on The Bachelorette. The hometown dates are where the bachelors can really inch closer to getting engaged, but they can just as easily be a dealbreaker. Does Andi hate the vast nothingness of Chris‘ home state, Iowa? Did she finally realize that Josh M. actually peaked in high school?

Andi, Meet Nick’s Freaking Enormous Family

We started in Nick V.‘s hometown of Milwaukee, Wis., otherwise known as the home of the Bachelorette devil. Nick thrived on his home field (by the way, Milwaukee looks like a lesser version of Chicago), taking Andi to his favorite market and a brewery that just happened to have a beer called “Nick & Andi” on tap!

Then Nick brought Andi home to his family of about a bajillion. There was a wall that had pictures of Nick and all of his siblings and it legit looked like a room in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I’m never a big fan of the family interactions that have to happen on hometown dates, because I sort of feel bad every time ABC makes a cute old guy like Nick’s dad pretend to give a s**t about a dating show, but they do yield some gems from time to time. My favorite one at Nick’s house was when his sister (I think? There were a lot of them) asked him if Andi made him laugh. First, he hesitated. Then he said, “She just makes me smile.” Sorry, Andi, YOU ARE NOT FUNNY.
But on the whole Milwaukee was a layup for Andi — nice family, easy softball questions, delicious if corny beer.

Chris Welcomes Andi To The Abyss Of Iowa

I can’t say the same about Chris’ hometown of Arlington, Iowa. There was one big problem Andi had with Chris the Farmer’s digs — IT WAS 100 PERCENT FARMLAND. Remember, before The Bachelorette, Andi was an aspiring actress assistant D.A., so her main question upon arrival was, like, um, what the eff will I do here?
Only pretending to be a farmer is fun (obviously riding in a tractor turns Andi on) — actually being one is not.
Chris’ answer to her question was the opposite of reassuring. “Well, there’s an opportunity to be a homemaker,” he said. What did Chris mean by this? Did he mean that Andi could actually start a home construction/interior design company? Because that’s not something people just up and do. Or did he mean that Andi could transition into being a housewife who cooks pork chops and pops out babies? Either way, it was insulting and horrible.
Andi pretended that she wasn’t bothered by the emptiness of Arlington, but Andi is a liar sometimes. “If you want to have a career, then you can do that,” Chris’ mom told the dejected bachelorette after dinner, as if it was 1946. Those are assurances you don’t really want to need about your future.

Andi & Josh: What A Sports Family Is Like

But what’s worse — worrying that you won’t have a career or worrying that your husband has a failure to launch? That’s what Andi had to consider after meeting Josh’s family in Tampa, Fla.
In a moment I’ve been waiting for since I found out that Josh’s little brother is Aaron Murray, former starting quarterback of the University of Georgia and current backup for the Kansas City Chiefs, Andi got to meet Aaron and the rest of the fam — and they were intense.
Because I’ve seen Varsity Blues, I know that families can get hooked on one child’s NFL dreams and obsessively turn all of their focus into achieving those dreams. With Aaron, that’s how Josh and his family were (they even let him give all the toasts!), and it bugged Andi. She actually seemed to get a little competitive, mentioning Josh’s “new life” at every turn and even using the words “cut the cord” with Josh’s mom.
Josh hasn’t really messed up this entire season, but his biggest mistake might have been having a family that is super obsessed with football.

Oh Yeah, Remember Marcus?

Meanwhile, Marcus was the one who painted such a lovely picture of his home life in Dallas, Texas, and by that I mean he told her all about his history of abuse and abandonment.
Thankfully, things were a tad lighter once Andi actually got there. Marcus, to the delight of nobody, made a call-back to his stripper solo from the second episode. “This is every girl’s dream,” Andi (wrongly) stated. Then they strolled around sunny Dallas before Marcus took Andi to introduce her to his (possibly messed up) family.
They seemed more or less normal though, like a smaller version of Nick’s family with a foreign mother (?). So this season, there were no big road bumps on the hometown dates, which meant Andi didn’t really have any easy excuses — going into the rose ceremony, she more or less had to choose to eliminate the guy she liked the least.

‘The Bachelorette’: Andi Learns About Eric Hill’s Death

Unfortunately the high everyone was on from hometown dates didn’t last very long, as Chris Harrison broke the news to Andi and her bachelors that contestant Eric Hill tragically died in a hang-gliding accident.
It was sad to have Eric’s death hang like a dark cloud over The Bachelorette once again — and to see how it ripped up the four guys. And in a rare, stark moment, the Bachelorette production team actually put down the cameras to console Andi and mourn with the bachelors.
Obviously Andi broke down, mainly because she remembered how she sent him off the show in shame. You could understand how Andi put all that guilt on herself — on top of all that pressure over having to eliminate someone — after hearing Eric died, even though she never really did anything wrong. She even struggled through the rose ceremony a day later, and had to retreat to her lair, where she cried while Chris Harrison creepily stood nearby in the dark.
But the show had to go on, and Andi was crushed even more when she was forced to send Marcus home. I don’t think it was anything specific about the guy, he was just kinda blah compared to the other three. Andi always liked him way more than I did, but even she never loved him.
Now, who do you think is going to give Andi the best “date” in the fantasy suite next week — Josh, Chris or Nick?
– Andrew Gruttadaro

Source :  hollywoodllife.com

One protest in Sao Paulo was held near the stadium which will host the tournament's opening match

source : bbc.com

Given the Russian Ukraine situation and the Obama Putin stare down perhaps this???

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth




President Obama poked a stick in Russian President Vladimir Putin's eye Monday when he announced sanctions would placed on several high-profile Russian and Ukrainian officials. As one might expect it is being reported that Strong Arm Putin will respond by, you got it, placing sanctions on certain United States Senators.

TPM - Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to release a list of U.S. officials who will be sanctioned, which likely means a freeze on their assets in Russia and a prohibition on travel there, the Daily Beast reported Monday.

Skip

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), who has been outspoken in criticizing Putin and Russia, is expected to be on the sanctions list. Other potential names include Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bob Corker (R-TN), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, though the list is still being finalized, according to the Daily Beast.

The sanctions are a retaliation against the Obama administration's announcement Monday that it would place sanctions on several high-profile Russian and Ukrainian officials.

Hm, perhaps we best think our follow up strategy through carefully. We could face another missile crises as the two strong men play chess on the international stage.

Via: Memeorandum

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor if Truth

House Republican leaders are adopting an agreed-upon conservative approach to fixing the nation’s health-care system, in part to draw an election-year contrast with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The plan includes an expansion of high-risk insurance pools, promotion of health savings accounts and inducements for small businesses to purchase coverage together.

Well by gosh it's about time! Finally the Republicans are getting their proverbial s**t together on a healthcare plan. Only problem is the ACA is moving steadily along its path to full implementation like the lumbering bureaucratic behemoth that it is. In other words the Republicans are five years too late and a few million (or is it a billion) dollars short.

In any case this is a welcome development. At the very least it should be hoped by everyone of all political persuasions that it opens honest and constructive dialog between the two parties. If it does maybe, just maybe, the nation will wind up with a first rate affordable health care system.

“We’ve got to get to where you can compare the two perspectives, Republican and Democrat,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an interview. “We’ve got all of these bills out there, so we’re going to take this core of policies and grow from there.”

Absolutely! Presenting a comprehensive plan with open honesty verifiable data will be key. Washington DC from top to bottom has become a city of politicians and lawmakers the public simply no longer trusts.

“It’s going to be all about giving people a choice,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), an anesthesiologist.

Freedom of choice with a multitude of options is where health care insurance choices should be. Democrats and Progressives want a one size fits all universal government ran and operated national health system. Make no mistake, the ACA was designed precisely with that ultimate end in mind. A system to make that happen is already being put in place. By design it can and will grow

Democrats dismissed the Republican approach as a purely political gesture ahead of this year’s midterm elections, saying the focus on long-held conservative ideas was more of an attempt to rally Republicans than to find bipartisan solutions.

“If they had fixes, I’d certainly consider it,” Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D-Va.) said. “But if they are trying to scrap it all, going back to the bad old days, it’s not going to go anywhere.”

We'll just have to wait and see if the Democrats are really willing to listen and work to better a flawed ACA.

My guess, they'll give the Republicans the middle finger. After all, that is what they believe the Republican did to them during the work up to the ACA (with some justification) and as it as been said, payback is a bitch.

Read the rest of the article BELOW THE FOLD

Via: Memeorandum

Speak Softly And Carry A ... Wet Noodle? 
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*******************************

I must tell you -- I am embarrassed by our President. I mean red-faced embarrassment. 

Obama is proving to be the empty suit we warned he was back in 2008.  That doesn't make me feel any better ... being right, I mean.  In fact, it scares the heck out of me.

Look.  Mitt Romney was right about Russia being our number one enemy.  (OK.  So it's a toss-up between Russia and China, but Russia always seems to be more overt with their meanness.)

Putin is going to get away with his invasion and occupation of the Ukraine.  If you think he will stop with the Crimea, well, don't hold your breath. Even western Ukraine, which leans heavily toward the western orbit, was all, for hundreds of years, a part of Russia -- and Putin believes it still is. He feels he is entitled to take it back into the Russian fold anytime he pleases and right now -- he pleases.  

Putin is not bothered by Obama's and Kerry's threats.  He knows they are empty threats from two guys who can talk a pretty fair game but when the chips are down and it's time to put up or shut up, he has nothing to fear because they will not put up. Unless, of course, he fears another torrent of words emanating from the golden throat of one B. H. Obama.

"Roll out the teleprompters, Obama is gonna attack!"  How utterly ridiculous.

One of Obama's sycophants has stated that Obama is the smartest President the United States has ever had.  (Huh?  No kidding?)  How the heck would we know?  His scholastic records have been sealed.  Could it be his grades were so bad he's embarrassed by them? 

He is as naive as the day is long.  His mouth continues to write checks his derrière is unable to cash.  That IS NOT the attribute of an overly intelligent person.  And yet he continues to get high praise from the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, the Mainstream Media.  As they continue to run interference for Obama, they simply overlook the fact that the game is already lost and everybody knows it -- save for the MsM.

Now here's the thing.  Scary as it may be, we have to prepare for three more years of brinksmanship in which the US will be embarrassed internationally by the world's tin pot dictators and rag-tag bully boys around the globe. Don't expect Obama to put up a fight.  He can't.  It isn't in him.  The wiring just isn't there.

THIS is the most serious of problems with having a civilian President, with no military experience, as Commander-in-Chief of the US military.  I'd really like to see the constitution amended to demand that all Presidential candidates in the future have experience in the military -- even if it is only as a Private in the Infantry.   At least that experience is more than Obama has.

So, then.  Russia takes the Ukraine. Then what? The Baltic states?  Why not?  Whose going to stop Putin?

All the while the other bad guys are watching and learning.  China wants those Islands in the South China Sea.  You know ... the Islands that Japan owns.  What or who is to stop them?  Japan?  Well, there's a problem.  You see, we have a mutual protection treaty with Japan that we will go to war to protect them and they, in turn, will do the same for us. Do you really think Obama will stand by that treaty?  Really?  How do you think the Japanese feel about now?

And lest we forget... China wants Taiwan back.  The island, formerly know as Formosa, has been protected by another treaty with the US that binds America to fight for, and alongside, Taiwan in the event she is attacked by China, or anyone else for that matter.   

Then there is North Korea.  The DPRK badly wants to, uh, merge with South Korea.  How long before the North decides Obama will do nothing but make another speech if he dispatches his crack troops south, takes Soul and reunites the Koreas under the communist flag of his regime.  Well, he has three years to do it and that can be a very long time with Washington dragging its feet.                      

Then there is Iran.  Currently Iran has dispatched naval forces to patrol waters in the Atlantic just outside US territorial waters.  Many believe it is a dress rehearsal for Iran lobbing a missile with an EMP warhead over Washington, or worse -- deeper over the continental US.  Those Iranian "boats" should be shadowed, day and night, by some of the biggest and baddest combat ships at our disposal.  Not to mention the underwater escort of US submarines snorkeling  every few hours just to get the Iranian's attention.  Iran should know that if they pull the trigger, it WILL be a suicide mission. 

The plain truth is -- Iran does not respect nor fear Obama.  So they continue to pluck the tiger's whiskers.

Neither does any other country on the globe.

There is a price to pay when the US is neither respected or feared.  Unfortunately for the remainder of the world that price will be extracted from them as well as from the Americans.

With all this to consider, with war clouds gathering in a 360 degree circle around America, what is Obama obsessing about today?  Non-existent Global Warming! 

It is disturbing to this old country boy that with all the danger surrounding America at this hour, our President is probably off on another of those endless vacations playing golf and whooping it up with celebrities much as Nero fiddled while Rome burned.  Like Nero, he will most assuredly blame his failures on someone else.

He can't fail, you see.  Why, he's the smartest President the US has ever had.  RIGHT!!

J. D. Longstreet

The Continuing Hoax of Global Warming!
Dems Intend to Ram "Global Warming" Down Our Throats, too!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
**************

I would have enjoyed a full-throated belly laugh at the spectacle of idiots on display recently as the Democrats held an all night talkathon on Global Warming, er, Climate Change. 

As I said -- I WOULD HAVE -- had I not remembered how such antics -- so easily seen through by those of us with a modicum of formal education and a smattering of street smarts -- is soaked up by the so called Low Info Voters who are the Democrat's "useful idiots" and shock troops on election day. Like sponges, they soak up the lies, the distortions, the utter nonsensical propaganda spewed forth by the democratic "Bovine Scatology machine" then repeat it with simulated authority to their fellow low lights ad nauseum.

Look.  The Democrats KNOW how ridiculous, how stupid, they appear involved in such antics. And yet they continue acting the fool. 

Why?

Because that's what you do when your supporters enjoy lives entirely supported, from cradle to grave, by the redistribution of the working people's wealth by way of the government dole, dispensed through the public trough. You play down to them.  You try to depict yourself as one who exists on the same intellectual level as the low info voters.  It's called gaining the confidence of the masses.  However, it is quickly recognized by those of us who feel ourselves moderately intelligent as what we call a CON GAME! 

It is a time honored method of playing voters for fools. And it works. And the Democrats know it. They have become past masters at its deployment.

Those of us who know and understand the entire Climate Change movement is a hoax understand that it is not about the climate, at all.  It IS about power.  The Democrats have it and they intend to keep it -- no matter how depraved they must appear to their constituents to do so.

But first, they feel a pressing need to scare the living daylights out of their supporters.  That's why we are being inundated, everyday, by volumes of data telling us how hopeless life will soon be on this planet, as a result of Global Warming/Climate Change. 

Well, now, wait a consarned minute! What if things WON'T be so bad IF we do, indeed, have a warm-up of the planet?

Suppose, for just a moment, there actually happens to be something to this Global Warming theory.  Suppose that the earth’s temperature does actually rise.  Will it be ALL doom and gloom? Judging from history the answer is a resounding NO!

For one thing that water shortage, we have been warned about, would be ended by global warming

How about agriculture?  I mean, CO2 is a natural fertilizer to plants.  At  nationalcenter.org they report the following:

“Global warming could also mean greater agricultural productivity and greater water conservation. CO2 acts as a fertilizer on plant life while reducing plant transpiration (the passage of water from the roots through the plant's vascular system to the atmosphere). Thus, with global warming, agricultural output could be expected to increase while making less demand on the water supply.” -- SOURCE:  http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoQuestionsAnswers.html

Well, now… the "Warmers" never mention that -- do they? 

Lets look a little closer.

At heartland.org we learn this:  “According to climatologist, the villain causing a warmer world is the unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we humans keep pumping into the atmosphere. But as high school biology students nationwide know, plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Researchers have shown that virtually all plants will do better in a CO2-rich environment than in the current atmosphere, which contains only trace amounts of their basic food.

Plants also prefer warmer winters and nights, and a warmer world would mean longer growing seasons. Combined with higher levels of CO2, plant life would become more vigorous, thus providing more food for animals and humans. Given a rising world population, longer growing seasons, greater rainfall, and an enriched atmosphere could be just the ticket to stave off famine and want.” -- SOURCE:  http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13860

These folks at heartland.org go on to say:  “The doomsayers have predicted that a warmer world would inflict tropical diseases on Americans. They neglect to mention that those diseases--such as malaria, cholera, and yellow fever--were widespread in the United States in the colder 19th century. Their absence today is attributable not to a climate unsuitable to their propagation, but to modern sanitation and the American lifestyle, which prevent the microbes from getting a foothold. It is actually warmer along the Gulf Coast, which is free of dengue fever, than on the Caribbean islands, where the disease is endemic. 

 ... …… … research shows that a warmer world would be a healthier one for Americans and would cut the number of deaths in the U.S. by about 40,000 per year, roughly the number killed on the highways.”  -- SOURCE:  http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13860  

You know, I’m beginning to like Global Warming!  It would seem the advantages of a warmer climate seriously outweigh the disadvantages -- by far. 

As one who dwells near the coast, I have been looking forward to having “beach-front” property.  Turns out that all the scare tactics concerning the rise in the oceans and the inundation of the coastline is something of a pipe-dream.

“A slowly rising sea level constitutes the only significant drawback to global warming. The best guess of the international scientists is that oceans will rise about 2 inches per decade.
 
The cost to Americans of building dikes and constructing levees to mitigate the damage from rising seas would be less than $1 billion per year, an insignificant amount compared to the likely gain of over $100 billion for the American people as a whole.”  (also from: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13860  )

Now.  Let's take a closer look at the health benefits of Global Warming.  Consider this:

“Although satellite data over the past 25 years show no trend toward increasing global temperatures, Americans would benefit from improved health and quality of life if the earth's climate were to warm moderately over the next few decades. Based on an analysis of data on mortality, illness and wage rates:
 
If temperatures rose 2.5 degrees Celsius, deaths in the United States from respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and influenza, diseases of the circulatory system and even infectious diseases would drop by about 40,000 per year.

Warming might reduce medical costs by about $20 billion annually.

Since Americans prefer warm climates and will accept lower pay to work in those areas, they would value a warmer climate at between $40 billion and $61 billion.
 
A 1995 report by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed concern that increases in heat waves would cause a rise in deaths from cardio respiratory complications, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue and yellow fevers. But the IPCC report also acknowledged that global warming would result in fewer cold-related deaths.

In addition, a 1992 IPCC report found that over this century, in much of the world, winter and night temperatures have risen while summer temperatures have fallen.”  SOURCE:  http://www.ncpa.org/ea/eamj96/eamj96e.html

I must tell you that all this information, countering the fear mongers over the theory of Global Warming, is out there and it’s yours for the few minutes it will take you to look it up on the Internet.

You may ask, why then are the proponents of Global Warming so strident, so insistent and so unceasing in the drive to convince Americans that Global Warming is real and is threatening the life of billions of people on this planet, but especially those who inhabit the USA.

Simple, really.

Because Global Warming is not about Global Warming!!!  The Global Warming movement is not about saving the earth.  It is about destroying America!  That is the goal.  That is the target the Global Warming movement is aiming for.

Cloaked by their love for the Earth and the people of the earth, the world’s socialist movement, and Marxist movement, long ago saw the environmental movement as a new front in their war against the one nation on this earth which has withstood their onslaught the longest -- America.  They have successfully infiltrated our institutions of higher learning and molded the minds of our young to believe their lies and their propaganda.  And it worked!  

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has said the catastrophic threat of Global Warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."  The good Senator is correct.

It is strange, indeed, that we find ourselves deluded by a simple hoax.  When the combined knowledge of the world is at our fingertips today.  The Internet “runneth over” with knowledge countering the alarmists of the Global Warming Movement. Yet, the purveyors of information, those who guard the portals of information, namely the Mainstream Media, refuse to disseminate that information.  Instead they heap column upon column of propaganda from the “doom and gloomers”.

It is past time for Americans to recognize the Global Warming movement as the hoax that it is.

Maybe P. T. Barnum was right when he said:  “There’s a sucker born every minute”!  The Global Warming crowd is COUNTING on it!

J. D. Longstreet

Sacrificing America's Troops
America's Next War Will Be A Blood Bath
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************

Look.  I'm no "super patriot" or anything approaching that.  I do, however, have a deep and abiding love for America and at one point in my youth signed my name to the necessary papers stating that I would willingly give up my life for my country as a soldier in the United States Army.

I was a lousy soldier.  In fact, I was so bad, I was chosen for Officer's Candidate School, which I promptly turned down,  ticking off my commanding officer something awful and, as a result, I spent much of my time for the next several weeks working KP duty and any dirty job the CO could come up with to degrade and humiliate me.

Not a problem.  I stuck to my guns and he to his.  I never felt the least bit of remorse for my decision -- and -- given the same set of circumstances as then, I'd make the same decision again.  However, had I known then what I know now, I'd have taken that slot at OCS school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma  and got my behind off Tank Hill at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

C'est la vie -- such is life.

This stroll down Longstreet's Memory Lane is brought to you courtesy of Obama's gutting of the US military.

For those of you who have been around as long as I have, you understand what is happening and what will, inevitably, happen when next we go to war.  (Never think, for an instant, there will not be a "next" war.  There is always, repeat -- ALWAYS --  another war. So long as human beings inhabit this planet, we're going to fight each other.  Why, it's the greatest adventure a man can have and we're not about to give it up.)

Students of American history know that our Founding Fathers had an aversion to a standing army.   The Founders knew that standing armies often used the power with which they had been entrusted to enslave the very peoples they had sworn to protect even though they had been organized and sworn-in precisely to protect the country from its enemies. 

Eventually, reaching the decision that a country MUST, indeed, have a trained military to protect its interests, the Founders settled upon a military under strict civilian control.  It has worked tolerably well, but there is a prickliness between our military leaders and the civilian politician controllers that is, at times, palpable.

It is an open secret that (until recently), by far, the US military -- from the enlisted ranks to the officer corp are of a conservative political bent.  It is the nature of the beast.  The political left has been attempting to destroy that bastion of conservatism, which has been a burr under their saddle for two and a half centuries.

Today they are making serious inroads into the military and the destruction of same is well within sight.  By infusing the greatest fighting force the world has even known with homosexuals and female combat soldiers, the capability of the American combat arms to be effective on the battle field has been deeply compromised.  We will see just how compromised when we count the body bags returning from wherever the next war is fought, if, of course, it is not fought here on our own shores (which is a growing possibility every day).

With a joke of a Commander-in-Chief (who could not successfully command a Cub Scout troop) in charge, and rules of engagement that do not allow American forces to inflict serious, lasting, damage on the enemy and subjects our fighting forces to unacceptable levels of unnecessary danger, more and more of our troops are breaking down mentally from the mounting stress of the battlefield with no way to release the pressure in a good old knock -down-drag-out, no-holds-barred, winner-take-all firefight.

That happens when you take a group of men and train them to kill in great numbers as quickly and efficiently as possible -- and then force them to take the enemies abuse in battle without exercising their superior ability to wipe the floor up with said enemy. It is depressing and degrading to our fighting forces. 

Esprit de corp is all but gone.   Active duty soldiers dread being outed as US soldiers for fear of being thought of as homosexuals.  As a result fewer recruits are enlisting.  If the job market was better, there would be even less fresh recruits signing up.

The US military which has traditionally enjoyed the love and devotion of the American civilian is finding that admiration has slipped and is continuing to decline at an alarming rate.

With the political purge of the officer corp by the Obama regime, we have lost far too many fighting generals and are left with parade ground peacocks and politician soldiers whose worst fight to date has been a traffic jam on some freeway. 

Think I'm nuts, huh?  Just remember:  The US hasn't won a war since the Second World War!  Still think I'm blowing smoke??

And now the Obama Regime intends to cut the standing Army to levels it has not experienced since BEFORE WWII. 

For those of you too young to remember, after World War One we cut the US military tremendously.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US barely had a military.  We had what we are about to have again, a bare bones force of old equipment and badly trained kids for soldiers. 

So.  What happened?  Well, for six or eight months after the US decided to officially put up a fight, our military was slammed all over the globe.  We lost one battle after another.  Our dead and wounded piled up because we had nothing -- and no one -- with which to fight.  The will and the spirit was there, but not the wherewithal. 

That was what the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo was all about.  The American public and the American military had become so dispirited the Roosevelt government felt it had to do something to boost morale.  Thus, the Thirty Seconds over Tokyo spectacle.

If the US is called to a conventional war with "Obama's military" we can expect to take unacceptable losses for months, maybe longer.   But this is a different time, a time of Buck Rogers' weapons. 

What I'm attempting to say is this:  if an enemy gets in a first strike and that first strike happens to be a nuclear attack or and EMP attack, the US won't have the time or the opportunity to rebuild it's military.  We will be stuck with whatever we have on hand, both men and materiel.    As a former Secretary of Defense famously said:  "We go to war with the army we have."

Doesn't it make sense to have a standing Army that is the biggest, best equipped, best trained, best led fighting force on earth -- I mean, seeing that there won't be a second chance to get it right?

So far, the Obama Regime has managed to alienate practically every country on earth, to one degree or another, against America.  Even centuries long friends are stand-offish as a result of Obama's unpredictability. 

Usually a country has AN arch enemy.  America has a whole list of them -- anyone of which could deliver a debilitating attack upon our shores at any moment.

The world we live in today is a reflection of the world as it was in the 1930's -- just before it blew up.

There is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea,  the Islamofascists, all of them preparing to hit America with nuclear and/or EMP attacks.  All the while, Obama is cutting our military to the bone and decimating our nuclear arsenal.

I am very concerned that we have missed our chance to save America.  By reelecting Obama in 2012, America chose defeat, ruin, and eventual enslavement.  And there appears no chance for redemption in the coming Presidential Election in 2016. 

More and more, I am coming to understand that the dye is cast, the Rubicon has been crossed.  Our course has been chosen and set.   I get the feeling that the train has left the station, the journey has begun and, unfortunately, we are all along for the ride.

Defeatism?  No.  Defeatism was in November 2012.  No.  This is acceptance of reality.

J. D. Longstreet

platomd@gmail.com   President of Davis Book Reviews and Healthnets Review Services. www.healthnetsreviewservices.com

Commentary by James Shott

These days talk of government excesses is routine. A list of recent infractions contains things like the Internal Revenue Service using its resources to persecute applicants for non-profit status and the National Security Agency collecting data on every American’s phone calls and email.

Government excesses have been growing for a long time, and since 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners and successfully crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has been taking strong measures to detect potential terrorist threats, and these are by far the most threatening excesses.

The first of these was the USA Patriot Act, created and passed less than two months after the 9-11 attacks, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. Things have not improved since that fateful law passed.

The problem with such measures is that while they may or may not help prevent a terrorist attack, they present a frightening opportunity for government abuse. Americans are rightly distrustful of such mechanisms, and our Constitution prohibits our government from adopting liberty-crushing measures like these.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) was passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama, and greatly expanded the power and scope of the federal government to fight the War on Terror, including codifying into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial. Including US citizens. Under the new law the US military has the power to carry out domestic anti-terrorism operations on US soil under the broad new anti-terrorism provisions provided in the bill.

This is not the first time such extraordinary misuse of the military has been considered. In 2002 a similar discussion arose, but was ultimately quashed by Mr. Bush.

Those features in the NDAA are unacceptable, even in the name of fighting terrorism. Prior to the NDAA the Posse Comitatus Act prohibited Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Americans also enjoyed the protections of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The intention was to prevent precisely what the 2012 NDAA enacted into law.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama signed the NDAA into law, saying, “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

However, according to Michigan Democrat Senator Carl Levin, Mr. Obama demanded that American citizens be included under the detention law and that the President of the United States have exclusive authority to invoke the statute. “The language which precluded the application of Section [1021] to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” Sen. Levin said after the NDAA was signed into law.

Critics all across the political spectrum rightly opposed the NDAA because of elements in section 1021.

While many government excesses and cases of misbehavior go along uninterrupted, a federal judge appropriately put a stop to the offending elements of the 2012 NDAA only months after it took affect.

Federal Judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction striking down those sections of the NDAA that sought to provide the president the power to indefinitely detain citizens without benefit of their rights.

Judge Forrest concluded that Section 1021 “…failed to ‘pass Constitutional muster’ because its broad language could be used to quash political dissent.” In a statement clearly directed to lawmakers, she added, ”Section 1021 tries to do too much with too little – it lacks the minimal requirements of definition and scienter that could easily have been added, or could be added, to allow it to pass constitutional muster.”

The Obama administration, however, then fought successfully to appeal Judge Forrest’s injunction, and a 2013 version of the bill contains the same intolerable provisions as the 2012 version, and was also signed by President Obama.

Despite Mr. Obama’s comforting words, despite the bi-partisan opposition to section 1021, Mr. Obama demanded that language exempting America citizens and lawful residents from the provisions of Section 1021 be removed, he fought for and won keeping the Section alive in the 2012 version, and signed the 2013 version with those provisions contained in it.

No matter how much you may trust Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama, or any future president, no president can be allowed to have the absolute authority provided in the NDAA to detain citizens without due process, or to set the US military against the people. No individual can be allowed that authority. Ever!

There goes “innocent until proven guilty,” a major protection for citizens against tyranny. Erik Kain, writing on Forbes.com, says: “We’re talking about the stripping away of our most basic freedoms. We’re talking about a potential state that can call me a terrorist for writing this blog post and then lock me up and throw away the key.”

A majority of the US House and Senate approved these measures. Is this what you expect of your elected representatives?


Cross-posted from Observations

Brushfires of Freedom
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************
During this country's first "... times that try men's souls...," a member of a small minority of the American colonists, thought of as a radical, a rabble rouser, even a traitor, kept the fires of freedom burning in the hearts and minds of his fellow colonists.  His name was Samuel Adams.  He was known by his friends as just plain "Sam."

Just plain Sam became a Founding Father of the United States of America.

Sam was born on September 27, 1722 in Boston, Mass..  At the height of his formal education he held a Master of Arts degree from Harvard. 

Sam became a Politician.  He was a tax collector.  So when he wrote those rants concerning the king's taxes, ole Sam knew what he was talking/writing about.

He was elected to Massachusetts Assembly in 1765, became a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774,  signed Declaration of Independence in 1776, became a member of Massachusetts State constitutional convention in 1781, was  appointed Lieutenant Governor of Mass. in 1789. and was elected Governor of Massachusetts, 1794 until 1797.

No grass grew beneath the feet of just plain "Sam."

"Samuel was the son of a merchant and brewer. He was an excellent politician, an unsuccessful brewer, and a poor businessman. His early public office as a tax collector might have made him suspect as an agent of British authority, however he made good use of his understanding of the tax codes and wide acquaintance with the merchants of Boston. Samuel was a very visible popular leader who, along with his second cousin John (John became President), spent a great deal of time in the public eye agitating for resistance."  -- SOURCE:  http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/adams_s.htm

It was as a Massachusetts Assemblyman that Samuel first purposed a Continental Congress.

Of all Sam Adams' accomplishments, the single most important, for me, is his ability to fire up the masses with his writing. Ole Sam could write -- and he had a flare for embedding his passion for freedom and republicanism in every treatise he produced as a pamphlet.

Sam also managed to fire-up the British (and American) King and the British government, too.  When Sam published his circular letter in 1768 calling for colonial non-cooperation with the Brits it prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers.  Many historians claim that led to the Boston Massacre in 1770.

"To help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, in 1772 Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution." -- SOURCE:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams  

241 years later, Sam Adams' actions and writings are STILL motivating Americans to political action in defense of freedom.

Ole Sam wrote such sagacious nuggets as:  "It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.' 

He also wrote: "The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

Sam also wrote this one and I am very afraid we modern Americans have completely forgotten the wisdom it encapsulates:  "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks."

It is difficult to believe, but Sam Adams is considered a controversial figure in early America. So far as I am concerned, that is pure bunk.  Sam Adams was a passionate patriot who fought for freedom from Great Britain with the skill and talent with which God had blessed him.  This country was extraordinarily lucky to have had a Samuel Adams in the right place at the right time.

Some claim that Sam had been steering his fellow colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.  There is written evidence of that.

Then there are others who say Sam was a propagandist who incited his fellow colonists to mob violence to accomplish HIS goals. 

"In January 1748, Adams and some friends, inflamed by British impressment, launched the Independent Advertiser, a weekly newspaper that printed many political essays written by Adams. Drawing heavily upon English political theorist John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Adams's essays emphasized many of the themes that would characterize his subsequent career. He argued that the people must resist any encroachment on their constitutional rights. He cited the decline of the Roman Empire as an example of what could happen to New England if it were to abandon its Puritan values." -- SOURCE:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams

The more one reads of Sam Adams' writings the more he begins to sound very mush like a modern day conservative blogger.  Indeed, I suspect that were he alive today that is exactly what he would be doing.

I did not set out to deliver a history lesson in this piece.  My intention was  to draw a comparison between the literal host of conservative bloggers who write daily much the same message as did Samuel Adams.  Unfortunately the conditions in America have deteriorated until they once again resemble the same conditions between the government and the governed as they did in Sam Adams' day.  The only difference -- we are now suffering oppression at the hands of our own government and not that of a British king.  To this scribe that makes it doubly difficult to abide.

I submit that Americans are going to find they must become bold again.  Sam Adams showed the way.  His love of freedom, his passion for liberty was the fuel that drove him to become a Founding Father of this nation.

Each time we sit or stand passively by and allow our President and our Congress to ignore the constitution with impunity, we are spitting on the constitution. We are effectively "selling-out" our Founding Fathers who risked everything to give us a free nation.   We are also demonstrating disrespect for our fellow Americans who have given their lives, their limbs, and their future on some foreign battle field to preserve the freedom and rights enumerated within our constitution.

What's happening in America today is unconscionable.  Americans standing by and allowing the US to be bludgeoned and bled dry by the domestic communist movement -- with renewed vigor  -- as a result of the election of a Marxist (Communist) President is a deeply troubling mystery.  I cannot fathom it.

We desperately need men of the caliber of Samuel Adams to lead a freedom movement in America today.  Without those men, we will lose out beloved country.

J. D. Longstreet

Game of Stones
Czar Putin Resurrecting Old Soviet Empire
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
******************

Once upon a time in the land of Russka, Czar Vladimir of Putin, perceived himself of a notion, and was, thereby, convinced (easily and quickly) that somewhere it was written that he, and ONLY he, would be the savior of the glorious  Empire of the Council of Soviets.  

An invasion of the ancestral home of the feared and ferocious Cossacks was necessary to begin the sacred campaign to restore the empire of the comrades.

The army of Vladimir of Putin, stripped all insignia of the tribe of Russka from their battle dress, disguised themselves as local bands of freedom fighters dedicated to saving the Cossack's homeland from the influence of the western devils led by the Black King of a much diminished mongrel people from many tribes and many lands who were forever fighting among themselves for favors of the Black King or for the Black King's throne.  His domestic weakness stemmed chiefly from the belief by many subjects that he was/is an interloper in the royal line as his genealogy is said  to lead to a paternal origin -- and his own birth -- in the Land of the "Mountain of Whiteness" or Kirinyaga in a land far to the south of the Cossack's homeland and far, far, to the east of the land he now rules.
  The gravitas and power of the Black King has been measured on the scales of Czar Putin and has been found wanting.  As the question of his legitimacy damaged his value as a leader,  so the fealty and allegiance of the near vassal kings, whose thrones lie near upon the continent of the Cossack homeland, wavered.  Worry rests with varying degrees of security upon the heads of the kings bearing the crowns of the great and ancient kingdoms bounded by the vast cold reaches of the great northern ocean.  Though they treat together in a mutual protection pact their hearts are troubled by the Black King's penchant for seeking refuge behind a cascade of words that pour from his golden tonsils onto mere plowshares and pruning hooks once employed in their original shapes as swords and spears by the Black King's predecessors to win the freedom of these very same northern sea kingdoms from such as Czar Putin. 

Now that the black velvet shadow of the great sun dial is cast upon "their turn" they lurch about leaderless as their fellow descendents of the Alans gaze wistfully westward and see only a setting sun whose rays are slipping quickly away and the lights of a once great city on a hill dimming in the far distance and leaving only darkness, decline, destitution, depression, and the death of a nation allowed only an all too little taste of freedom before it was quickly snatched from them by the power hungry Czar Putin, leader of the great army from the North.
It has become clear to all that this war is a game played between the primary combatants, the Czar and the Black King.  It is already clear that the Black King has lost and is but marking time, marching in place, while the tides of history wash past him.

Czar Vladimir of Putin looks westward.  He would lock gazes with the Black King, but the Black King will not.  A newly formed bi-polar world knows instinctively that the rhetorical war over the Cossack's land has become a "Game of Stones."

With apologies to "Game of Thrones" American author George R. R. Martin and all the producers, directors, actors and everyone affiliated with the excellent production of HBO we have attempted to show just how ancient the the origin of the war, (and that is exactly what it is) in Ukraine really is and the causation, which is even more ancient than the war itself. 

It is extremely rare that the US finds itself negotiating from a position of weakness rather than strength and this lethal bargaining position can only result in many decades of slavery and oppression for those caught behind the digital(?) curtain soon to descend between the two spheres of free and unfree peoples of the earth.

Many of those of us who fancy ourselves students of history are convinced that Czar Putin is intent on resurrecting the old Soviet Empire.  (Note:  I refer to myself as "a student of history" as I am still studying it and learning from it."  Only a fool deliberately ceases to study and learn.)  If we are correct, he is not finished, not by a long shot.  he wants and will take the remainder of the Ukraine. 

It is said that without the Ukraine, Russia is a country.  However, WITH the Ukraine, Russia is an empire!

The Ukraine was, for many centuries, the breadbasket of not only Russia, but of much, if not all, of Europe, as well.  Though Russia is afloat upon a sea of oil, one quickly learns one cannot consume oil as a part of the human diet.  Therefore a source of bread must be secured.   Czar Putin is well on the way to doing just that.

Invading and securing the Crimea for Russia was a given.  As sure as sunrise, Putin would, and did, seize that fertile peninsula mostly populated by old Russian families long inhabitants of that enclave.  It is quickly becoming a staging base of uniformed Russian troops readying for a massive push into the Ukraine proper to the north and west of the Crimea. Oh, those "freedom fighters" in nondescript unmarked uniforms sans unit insignia and country of allegiance insignia appear to this scribe as Spetznaz GRU troops, elite Russian special forces troops under the immediate command of the Russian military much like the US Green Berets and US SEALs.  Their demeanor is far more akin to that of active duty military soldiers than of loosely run, locally controlled, militia units.  No.  Without doubt, they are active duty Russian military.

Driven by a deep seated, DNA ingrained form of national paranoia, Russia has a bloody history of attacking and invading its neighboring countries and holding them at the point of a bayonet to create an empire. Reluctant though the citizens of those enslaved countries have been, they were held together by spit, hay bailing wire, gut wrenching fear,  and 7.72 caliber ammunition belched from the barrels of those infamous AK-47 assault rifles. 

And now, Putin is dead set upon recreating that pseudo empire. It's not real, it's not genuine -- but -- it does have the appearance of the real thing though it is a fake, a mockery, and a falsity.  It serves its purpose -- and that is to fool the "useful idiots" of the west.

Days before those Spetznaz troops showed up in the Crimea, this scribe off-offhandedly mentioned the fact that they would soon arrive.  And they did.

So.  What can the US do?  The short and accurate answer is -- nothing.   The current leadership of the US has neutered our armed forces and left us with hardly enough military strength to protect the homeland and certainly not enough to project what used to be formidable power in diverse places overseas.

No longer.  Obama has transformed the US into that "paper tiger" we have so often been accused of being. 

J. D. Longstreet

\

h/t Progressive Eruptions

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

How is the public served by muzzling one of the most thoughtful, accomplished and respected political voices of her time just because she happens to be a Republican?

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was extended an invitation to speak at Rutgers University graduation ceremonies, as well as receiving an honorary degree from the University. Rutgers University obviously feels this highly intelligent, accomplished, patriotic African American woman was deserving of both the honorary degree and the speaking invitation. Most Americans would agree. Unless you happen to be a liberal professor with a political agenda.

Following is what the New Brunswick Faculty Council of Rutgers University had to say with respect to the university extending the invitation when they voted last week to ask the universities leadership to cancel their invitation.

Condoleezza Rice lacks “moral authority.” She fails to meet the standards of “exemplary citizenship” and she does not have what it takes to “inspire” graduating college seniors.

When something smells of fish, or pure political ideology run amuck, it simply smells, and badly.

Juan Williams, a rational and reasonable liberal with whom it is possible to find agreement with, finds the facts cited by the faculty council to be correct but their conclusion way off the mark.

Yes, apparently the first African-American woman to serve as National Security Adviser and the nation’s Secretary of State doesn’t have what it takes to be honored by Rutgers.

Rice holds a Ph.D. in political science. She has taught college for decades. She was Provost of Stanford University. She worked her way up from a working-class family in the segregated South to the highest echelon of world power and politics.

But according to the Rutgers faculty council, all of that is negated by her service in President George W. Bush’s administration.

They cited her roles in pushing the false claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They also point to her support for using enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from terror suspects.

The facts are right. The conclusion is wrong.

I, too, disagreed with many of the policies Rice faithfully supported as a member of the Bush administration. But only partisan hatred can blind the faculty to her extrao

Indeed. Only the blind pursuit of political correctness and the desire to hush the voices of those you disagree with will lead supposedly intelligent, qualified professors to partake in such blatantly partisan actions.

Read the full article and view the video BELOW THE FOLD.

As an aside, thinking about the Debo Adegbile nomination that went down in flames I see some similarities at work after here. After doing a bit more research on Adegbile it's looking more and more like groupthink and political fear may have had a part. But perhaps that's just me.

I would be most interested in hearing what my more liberal leaning readership has to say about the New Brunswick Faculty Council of Rutgers University request to nix the invitation extended to Ms. Rice, PHD and former Secretary of State.

Via: Memeorandum