Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Remember the vote counting problems in Florida 2000 Gore vs Bush W? After that the democrats spent 8 years saying Bush stole the election even though it was proven that Bush won Florida. They decided to get even. In 2008 we had acorn, dead people voting, people voting multiple times and then even more cases of election fraud were found after the fact. Nothing happened. Obama should probably not even be POTUS but we have a liberal media that is in love with him so nothing was done. They pretty much campaigned for him so they couldn’t exactly turn around and report the election fraud. Now in 2010, as the majority of U.S. citizens (legal) try to stop the socialists, it’s happening again.

Arizona: there’s no proof of citizenship required to vote even though federal law says only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote. The AZ law requiring proof of citizenship was recently overturned by a liberal Judge and we know that only certain federal laws are actually enforced.

Nevada: machines pre-loaded with nominees checked for your convenience. Person in charge of the machines (Lomax) in Nevada claims it is a “glitch” or “sensitive” machines. Favor to: Democrats, of course. (The techs that work on those voting machines are members of SEIU)

North Carolina: Almost identical problems to those in Nevada. Multiple occurrences of candidates pre-selected for the voters’ convenience. Favor to: Democrats, of course.

New York: Absentee ballots for overseas military personnel delayed, jeaopardizing their ability to be counted. NY election officials threaten that the ballots “may not count”. Favor to: Democrats.

Washington:  Same as Arizona, illegals can vote.

Las Vegas Teachers Union offering Starbucks gift cards to teachers voting for Reid.

Texas: early voting started on Monday, October 18. And almost immediately, allegations of fraud and misconduct at the polls followed. I’m told that the Harris County Attorney’s Office is looking into several specific instances of poll worker misconduct in Texas House District 148, where Republican Fernando Herrera is challenging Democratic incumbent Jessica Farrar.

Philedelphia suburbs: A trio of Bucks County residents backed by the county Republican committee say they have evidence linking Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy’s campaign to a scheme to flood the county voter registration office with fraudulent applications for absentee ballots.

Illinois:  State Representative Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) is calling for a hearing to question county clerks who failed to mail absentee ballots on time to military personnel serving overseas. At least 35 Illinois jurisdictions were found to be in violation of the Sept. 18 national deadline set by the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE). (most Military are not Dems)

Las Vegas: again: Two days ago, the Democratic Secretary of State announced that voters can be provided “free food” at “voter turnout events.” Harry Reid has been offering free food and, according to other reports, some Democratic allies such as teachers’ unions are offering gift cards in return for a vote for Reid.

Florida: Daytona Beach City Commissioner Derrick Henry and Genesis Robinson, his campaign manager, face voter-fraud charges. In an apparent re-election tactic, they allegedly completed 92 absentee-ballot applications with the names of Floridians who never requested them or who had moved away. (They’re Democrats BTW)

Connecticut: The return address on 250 absentee-ballot applications in Bridgeport, Connecticut is 1238 North Avenue — a vacant lot. (guess which way they voted)

Texas: “‘Would you like to vote a straight Democratic Party ticket?,” is something being uttered all over Houston in early Texas voting right now according to former Justice Department prosecutor J. Christian Adams. Texas poll workers are asking.

Colorado: Then there was the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund in Colorado busted for falsifying voter registrations. Since Obama is promising amnesty, I’m giving the nudge to this fraud to the Democrats.

Troy, New York: This time, they collected DNA evidence to bust Democrats fraudulently filling out absentee ballots. – Advantage Democrats

Jersey: Dibrofsky says that he was at the offices of the Jersey City Education Association (JCEA), coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts, when an unidentified man arrived and announced that he had two voting machines to deliver. The two voting machines, Dibrofsky said, “were already locked, loaded, and voted,” by which he meant that the voting machines already had simulated vote tallies on them, ready to be printed out at the end of the day. Guess who most of the votes were for. Dems.

Illinois: This summer, in another piece of election legislation, lawmakers approved allowing anyone to send out applications for vote-by-mail ballots. And more than 900,000 of the applications were sent to voters by the state Democratic Party. The trouble is the return address was the Democratic Party – where political workers would process the voter’s data, then forward the applications to county clerks.

Ohio: Cincinnati schools under fire for busing students to vote and handing them Democrat-only sample ballots.

Philadelphia: Paying people to go to the polls (and vote Democrat). That is from the chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic party.

Texas: Another blow has been dealt to voters in Harris County, Texas just days after the Harris County Voter Registrar Leo Vasquez released a 72 page PowerPoint on voting irregularities from a local group similar to the infamous ACORN. Today, voters are waking up with the news that the Harris County Election Technology Center was the site of a massive three-alarm fire early this morning burning all the voting machines. (fraud cover up?)

These are just the ones that got caught so far. I’d say by 2012 we’ll be fully 3rd world with rioting in the streets around election time. We’ve already been forced to vote for one of the lesser of two evils just to keep the worse one from getting elected. Now we can’t even trust in that. Will there even be voting in 2012? Goodbye America.

If you see any election/voter fraud report it to voterfraud at foxnews dot com It’s the only news that hasn’t been taken over by Obama loving socialists.

The “American” Hiker or Jihadist sympathizer?

From freethehikers.org which was started by an idea from Sarah’s Mom and now has over 20,000 facebook likes.

Sarah Shourd, 32, has been living with Shane in Damascus, where she teaches English and is learning Arabic. She previously taught as part of the Iraqi Student Project, a program which gives Iraqi students living in Damascus the skills to continue their education in US schools. She was on a break from her teaching responsibilities for a week, and she and Shane decided to take a hiking trip with their friends Josh and Shon. Sarah has written articles on travel and social issues reflecting her time in Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen and Mexico. Sarah, who has an older brother and sister, was born in Oak Park, Illinois and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She attended UC Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lived after graduating until moving to Damascus with Shane.

Sarah has a blog but I wonder how many of the 20,000+ facebook fans have read it. I got tipped off about the truth and did some digging. Some downright scary opinions is what I found but she did attend Berkeley.

From a blog entry entitled All Our Love for Gaza.

I agree with them to an extent. If Americans were watching the footage from inside Gaza it would be impossible for them to feel “tired” of this issue, it would be impossible for them to deny just how drunk with power, and what a threat to the planet, Israel has become.

Yet somehow Aljazeera, the only media outlet inside Gaza, continues to be demonized in the U.S. The 2-year-old Aljazeera English news station is the most engaging and comprehensive news program I’ve ever seen. Probably one of the simplest and most important things that people can do in the U.S. is demand that local T.V. stations air Aljazeera English(http://english.aljazeera.net/) and watch it, tell your friends to watch it, let U.S. citizens see for themselves

Walls and Borders

“Israel wouldn’t do this if they didn’t know that they could get away with it.” (a friend)

Gazans have been effectively isolated from the rest of the world, but the tanks, guns and towering walls serve not only to keep Palestinians in but also to keep the rest of the world out. Many Arabs are desperate to fight; but what forces are at play to prevent them? Here are some reactions I got when I posed this question to a few of my friends, teachers and students here in Damascus, whose named I’ve decided to omit:

“If they opened the borders (to Palestine) I can guarantee you 2 million Arabs would go in to fight. I would be the first person to go to Israel and blow myself up. I want to go make Jihad, everyone does, but we can’t just go there, the borders are militarized.”

So this product of Berkeley has been teaching students so they can continue their education in the USA and she wants to be the first one into Israel so she can be a suicide bomber and make Jihad.  And here I thought they were just stupid rich kids traveling abroad. And the media calls her an American?

Click map to enlarge.

Tropical Storm Alex on the bottom left, Gulf Shrimp Closure in yellow lines, Texas [tropical storm] Closure in solid yellow, Oil Spill affected area shades of blue, Federal Fishing Closure red outline, well head yellow nuke symbol

Click here to go to the interactive map, requires google earth or google earth plug-in for firefox. There will be a link to it on the noaa site.

Every year Judicial Watch publishes it’s 10 most wanted list. For 2009 it was almost all Democrats and/or Obama appointees and in fact includes Obama himself. Liars, thieves, tax cheats and adulterers. I’m truly embarrassed by our Government.

Washington, DC

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…” The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.” Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a “federal regulator,” and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: “I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.” Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: “Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG’s impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.” Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed “household help” ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington” list.

5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won’t be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro’s Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder’s former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder’s controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder’s politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.

6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named “Senate Candidate A” in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. According to Reuters: “Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich — later charged with trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat — at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor’s aides about his desire to be appointed.” Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.

7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration “lowlights” from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell the President’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade “artists” to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of “czars” in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: “The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.” Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors — this is Obama’s “ethics” record — and we haven’t even gotten through the first year of his presidency.

8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2009 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA’s use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)

9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman’s largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks — tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA’s offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, “Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills.” When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, “cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file.” The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha’s nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: “Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military.”

10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly “forget” to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow “forgot” about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making “campaign contributions” to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: “The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently ‘wrangling’ other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles…Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.” Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That’s why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

Gotta love this whole “new era of transparency”, “no more business as usual” and the “hope and change”. Notice the location of all these people. The Northeast, Illinois, one from Kalifornication and an adulterer from Las Vegas.

LEBANON, Ore. — A former Oregon National Guard soldier and Purple Heart recipient is being billed for military-issued equipment he believes was lost in Iraq after he was shot and evacuated from the country.

Gary Pfleider II feels disrespected by the charges.  He said he lost sight of the gear when he left Iraq and believes he should not be responsible for it now.

He doesn’t remember much about getting shot in September 2007.  He knows he was riding in a truck on patrol near Balad, Iraq.

“I remember grabbing ahold of my leg and realizing I had blood on my hands,” said Pfleider.  “And from that point on, until I got loaded onto the Stryker, was just a big blur.”

Pfleider was taken to Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany and treated for a week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, before arriving at what is now called Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington State.

He lost one-third of the muscle in his left leg and will have to wear a brace for the rest of his life.

After one year, he left the base and the Oregon National Guard.  By then, his unit had returned to Oregon.

Pfleider inventoried his belongings and discovered several personal items and military-issued gear, including clothing, canteens and grenades, were missing.

He believed the supervisors at his former unit in Albany had filed paperwork clearing him of the charges.

But in June 2009, Pfleider received a bill for $3,175.88.  Shortly afterward, the federal government began taking $120 out of his Social Security disability checks each month.  Pfleider said his state and federal tax returns were also frozen.

It’s tough for Pfleider, who says he cannot work and cannot afford to visit his young daughters in Vancouver, Washington, to swallow.

“Honestly, I do, I think it’s just sitting somewhere on somebody’s desk at Fort Lewis and they just don’t want to mess with it because they don’t think it’s a big enough issue,” said Pfleider.  “It’s my livelihood.”

Capt. Stephen Bomar, a public affairs officer with the Oregon Military Department, said Joint Base Lewis McChord is billing Pfleider.

He said it is standard for soldiers in similar situations to receive bills for missing equipment.

When a soldier is medically evacuated from a country, his or her chain of command takes responsiblity for the equipment.  Responsiblity returns to the soldier upon his or her return to the unit, he explained.

“It’s one of the processes. That way we keep good accountability for the equipment,” said Capt. Bomar.

In those cases, soldiers can submit sworn statements explaining their situation, said Bomar. For example, said Bomar, a soldier would write they were separated from their gear when they were flown out of the country.  Other soldiers might be asked to make sworn statements corroborating the account.

The charges would then go away, said Bomar.

Pfleider provided KVAL News with a sworn statement he filed at the Albany Armory in February 2010.

KVAL News asked Bomar if it was possible that Pfleider’s paperwork was filed incorrectly.

“I think it could be on our part on this one or could be on the soldier’s part,” said Bomar.  “That’s one thing they’re going to take a look at.”

He added, if the charges are erroneous, Pfleider will be reimbursed and stop being billed.  If not, he will still be responsible for the charges.

KVAL News contacted the public affairs office at Joint Base Lewis McChord.  They tell KVAL News they are investigating the issue.

Pfleider says he is frustrated and just wants to focus on his upcoming ninth leg surgery and adjusting to life after war.

“Car going down a road backfiring, it still sends me into flashbacks of being over there,” he said.  “But I deal with it because I know it’s part of my life that’s never going to leave.”

http://www.kval.com/news/95157304.html

They must not quite be done with the new “World Flag” yet. This administration is a piece of work. And another first. (as far as I know) Obama won’t be at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. He’ll be in Chicago and Biden will be at Arlington.

Did anybody notice at President Obama’s Press Conference on the Deep Water Horizon disaster than something was missing in the background? I noticed something didn’t look right and then it hit me. The American Flags was missing behind. Why? Behind him was just yellow curtains, and a couple of gold columns with chandeliers.

I went and researched and looked at all photos of many press conferences (not press briefings) of past presidents as far as I could go and low and behold the American Flags stood proudly behind the President or off to the side. What was the reason for this? This was Obama’s first formal press conference since July of 09 which at that conference were U.S. Flags present. I am pretty sure this time that they had plenty of time to plan this and get it right?

So, maybe there was another motive for the flags absence. We know Obama (or his handlers) carefully choreograph his image, his appearances… It’s why he’s so teleprompter-dependent. Surely he and his advisers know that flag issues have been a lightning rod — even before he was elected. I think this was deliberate. Could it be that Obama really is ashamed of America? Could it be that he thinks he is the citizen of the world which has no flag? Ladies and gentlemen this is very disturbing coming from the office of the Presidency. This is not normal to not have the symbol of the United States and its government in the east room of the White House and it is not very Presidential either. Many patriotic brave men and women have died under the stars and stripes called old glory. This fiasco coupled with the President skipping the laying of the Wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetary this Memorial Day speaks volumes of the man (or Usurper) that sits in the Oval Office. What say you? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2522855/post

This morning I got an invite via facebook in my email. It was from Patricia Sullivan who started the local Tea Party here and is now a candidate running for Florida’s District 8 against Alan Grayson. I read the email and recognized the name of one of the speakers at the “Stand with Arizona Rally” I was being invited to. I recognized the name because this man was in the news throughout his career and especially in the last several of them. Now keep in mind this Rally is being organized and sponsored by Tea Party groups from the region.

North Lake TEA Party, South Lake 912 Tea Party, Tri-County Tea Party, Ocala Tea Party, Volusia 912, Hernando 912, Nature Coast 912, Seminole 912, Central Florida 912, Deltona 912 Patriots, Tea Party Patriots Live

The region includes Orange County FL most if not all of which is in District 8. This man who has been invited to speak is Former Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary. The reason he was in the news so much towards the end of his elected position of Sherrif is due to a controversy that ultimately ended with him admitting guilt to ethics charges. It also resulted in then Sheriff Beary and other republicans being forced to endorse a Democrat that took his place as Sheriff. What was it that the Tea Parties are fighting against? Oh yeah, now I remember. Corrupt Politicians wasting taxpayer money. Here’s some details regarding Kevin Beary’s “ethics codes violation” which would have simply been called fraud or grand theft if it were you or me.

June 13, 2009|By Henry Pierson Curtis, Sentinel Staff Writer

Former Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary admitted he violated the state’s Standards of Conduct for Public Officers by joining a nonprofit venture with several aides to market a Homeland Security survey created with public funds, according to records released Friday by the Florida Commission on Ethics.

In a pending settlement signed Monday by his lawyer, Beary admitted his work for National Domestic Preparedness Coalition Inc. created “a conflict between his private interests and the performance of his public duties or that would impede the full and faithful discharge of his public duties.”

The venture damaged Beary’s credibility with members of his command staff as well as deputies, who learned in 2005 he accepted $43,000 for “off-duty work” despite promising he wouldn’t pay himself from the business.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-06-13/news/kevin_1_beary-ethics-commission-public-duties

And

In 2004 and 2005, Beary was the subject of accusations of corruption by a former subordinate turned political rival in the 2004 sheriff’s race and a local television news station, which resulted in an audit of homeland security spending by his department. Beary was later cleared of any wrongdoing by a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation. On April 20, 2007 the Florida Ethics Commission found probable cause to believe that Beary violated Florida Ethics laws as a result of his involvement in his homeland security business and filed four counts against him. Beary is being prosecuted by the Florida Attorney General’s Office and was to face trial on October 24, 2007 before a State of Florida Division of Administrative Hearings Judge on Case # 07-001820EC where Beary could have faced penalties up to removal from office.

In 2008, Beary decided not to run for a fifth term as Orange County Sheriff and left office on January 5, 2009. During the general election for his successor, Beary endorsed Jerry Demings, a Democrat, who was a former Chief of the Orlando Police Department, a former Orange County Director of Public Safety, and the first African-American to hold those posts in each agency’s respective history. Demings also received endorsements from several other high-profile local Republicans to include former City of Orlando Mayor and Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood. Demings won the election and relieved Beary in a ceremony on January 5, 2009.

In July 2009 Kevin Beary plead guilty to violating Florida ethics laws in the above mentioned case. He was fined a total of $20,000.00, ordered to have no business relationship with the company he started using tax dollars and public employees for three years and given a public reprimand and censure by the Governor of Florida.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Beary#Controversy

And so here it is less than one year after pleading guilty to violating Florida’s ethics laws (aka financially defrauding taxpayers, which evidently is not all that bad of a thing) and he’s going to be speaking at a Tea Part organized Rally. How’s that for ironic idiocy. The man basically committed fraud against not only Orange County taxpayers but against United States taxpayers, since he was using funds from both, he made $43,000 off the fraud and was only required to pay back $20,000 in the form of a fine, he was not removed from office, did not go to jail or even get probation. He was however publicly reprimanded ooh aah. Do the organizers of this rally, one of whom is running for office, really think Mr Beary is a good example of an elected official. Thee highest ranking LEO at that. I’ve been walking around fuming about this all day. I was calming down but then something else crossed my mind. Please don’t tell me he’s being paid to speak. That would just make me lose it. What kind of example are we setting for our children when the man elected Sheriff robs the people, lies to and disgraces his fellow LEOs, doesn’t really get punished (in fact profited) and less than a year later gets a public speaking engagement that he may actually be getting paid for.

That’s what’s wrong with US.

Even though the U.S. financial system nearly experienced a total meltdown in late 2008, the truth is that most Americans simply have no idea what is happening to the U.S. economy.  Most people seem to think that the nasty little recession that we have just been through is almost over and that we will be experiencing another time of economic growth and prosperity very shortly.  But this time around that is not the case.  The reality is that we are being sucked into an economic black hole from which the U.S. economy will never fully recover.

The problem is debt.  Collectively, the U.S. government, the state governments, corporate America and American consumers have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Our massive debt binge has financed our tremendous growth and prosperity over the last couple of decades, but now the day of reckoning is here.

And it is going to be painful.

The following are 20 reasons why the U.S. economy is dying and is simply not going to recover….

#1) Do you remember that massive wave of subprime mortgages that defaulted in 2007 and 2008 and caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?  Well, the “second wave” of mortgage defaults in on the way and there is simply no way that we are going to be able to avoid it.  A huge mountain of mortgages is going to reset starting in 2010, and once those mortgage payments go up there are once again going to be millons of people who simply cannot pay their mortgages.  The chart below reveals just how bad the second wave of adjustable rate mortgages is likely to be over the next several years….

#2) The Federal Housing Administration has announced plans to increase the amount of up-front cash paid by new borrowers and to require higher down payments from those with the poorest credit.  The Federal Housing Administration currently backs about 30 percent of all new home loans and about 20 percent of all new home refinancing loans.  Tighter standards are going to mean that less people will qualify for loans.  Less qualifiers means that there will be less buyers for homes.  Less buyers means that home prices are going to drop even more.

#3) It is getting really hard to find a job in the United States.  A total of 6,130,000 U.S. workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more in December 2009.  That was the most ever since the U.S. government started keeping track of this statistic in 1948.  In fact, it is more than double the 2,612,000 U.S. workers who were unemployed for a similar length of time in December 2008.  The reality is that once Americans lose their jobs they are increasingly finding it difficult to find new ones.  Just check out the chart below….

#4) In December, there were also 929,000 “discouraged” workers who are not counted as part of the labor force because they have “given up” looking for work.  That is the most since the U.S. government first started keeping track of discouraged workers in 1949.  Many Americans have simply given up and are now chronically unemployed.

#5) Some areas of the U.S. are already virtually in a state of depression.  The mayor of Detroit estimates that the real unemployment rate in his city is now somewhere around 50 percent.

#6) For decades, our leaders in Washington pushed us towards ”a global economy” and told us it would be so good for us.  But there is a flip side.  Now workers in the U.S. must compete with workers all over the world, and our greedy corporations are free to pursue the cheapest labor available anywhere on the globe.  Millions of jobs have already been shipped out of the United States, and Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder estimates that 22% to 29% of all current U.S. jobs will be offshorable within two decades. The days when blue collar workers could live the American Dream are gone and they are not going to come back.

#7) During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2% of its jobs and it took four years to get them back. This time around the U.S. economy has lost more than 5% of its jobs and there is no sign that the bleeding of jobs is going to stop any time soon.

#8) All of this unemployment is putting severe stress on state unemployment funds.  At this point, 25 state unemployment insurance funds have gone broke and the Department of Labor estimates that 15 more state unemployment funds will likely go broke within two years and will need massive loans from the federal government just to keep going.

#9) 37 million Americans now receive food stamps, and the program is expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.  The United States of America is very quickly becoming a socialist welfare state.

#10) The number of Americans who are going broke is staggering.  1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.

#11) For decades, the fact that the U.S. dollar was the reserve currency of the world gave the U.S. financial system an unusual degree of stability.  But all of that is changing.  Foreign countries are increasingly turning away from the dollar to other currencies.  For example, Russia’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it had started buying Canadian dollars in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.

#12) The recent economic downturn has left some localities totally bankrupt.  For instance, Jefferson County, Alabama is on the brink of what would be the largest government bankruptcy in the history of the United States – surpassing the 1994 filing by Southern California’s Orange County.

#13) The U.S. is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude.  Virtually all pension funds in the United States, both private and public, are massively underfunded.  With millions of Baby Boomers getting ready to retire, there is simply no way on earth that all of these obligations can be met.  Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management recently calculated the collective unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states for Forbes magazine.  So what was the total?  3.2 trillion dollars.

#14) Social Security and Medicare expenses are wildly out of control.  Once again, with millions of Baby Boomers now at retirement age there is simply going to be no way to pay all of these retirees what they are owed.

#15) So will the U.S. government come to the rescue?  The U.S. has allowed the total federal debt to balloon by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion.  The chart below is a bit outdated, but it does show the reckless expansion of U.S. government debt over the past several decades.  To get an idea of where we are now, just add at least 3 trillion dollars on to the top of the chart….

#16) So has the U.S. government learned anything from these mistakes?  No.  In fact, Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $2 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would allow the U.S. national debt to reach approximately $14.3 trillion.

#17) It is going to become even harder for the U.S. government to pay the bills now that tax receipts are falling through the floor.  U.S. corporate income tax receipts were down 55% in the year that ended on September 30th, 2009.

#18) So where will the U.S. government get the money?  From the Federal Reserve of course.  The Federal Reserve bought approximately 80 percent of all U.S. Treasury securities issued in 2009.  In other words, the U.S. government is now being financed by a massive Ponzi scheme.

#19) The reckless expansion of the money supply by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve is going to end up destroying the U.S. dollar and the value of the remaining collective net worth of all Americans.  The more dollars there are, the less each individual dollar is worth.  In essence, inflation is like a hidden tax on each dollar that you own.  When they flood the economy with money, the value of the money you have in your bank accounts goes down.  The chart below shows the growth of the U.S. money supply.  Pay particular attention to the very end of the chart which shows what has been happening lately.  What do you think this is going to do to the value of the U.S. dollar?….

#20) When a nation practices evil, there is no way that it is going to be blessed in the long run.  The truth is that we have become a nation that is dripping with corruption and wickedness from the top to the bottom.  Unless this fundamentally changes, not even the most perfect economic policies in the world are going to do us any good.  In the end, you always reap what you sow.  The day of reckoning for the U.S. economy is here and it is not going to be pleasant.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

SO, what do you do now? Prepare

Hi there. It’s been a while since I posted but I’m back. Had to take care of some loose ends in case things take a real bad turn.

UPDATED 08.15.09

Air Force used Twitter to track NY flyover fallout

WASHINGTON (AP) – As the Pentagon warns of the security risks posed by social networking sites, newly released government documents show the military also uses these Internet tools to monitor and react to coverage of high-profile events.

The Air Force tracked the instant messaging service Twitter, video carrier YouTube and various blogs to assess the huge public backlash to the Air Force One flyover of the Statue of Liberty this spring, according to the documents.

And while the attempts at damage control failed – “No positive spin is possible,” one PowerPoint chart reads – the episode opens a window into the tactics for operating in a boundless digital news cycle.

This new terrain has slippery slopes, though, for the military. Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites are very popular among service members, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to keep in touch with friends and family. The sites are also valued by military organizations for recruiting or communicating with other federal agencies.

But posting information on these interactive links makes it vulnerable to being lost or stolen by the enemy, according to Pentagon officials. On Thursday hackers shut down Twitter for several hours, while Facebook had intermittent access problems – an indication of the shortcomings of relying on these services.

The Marine Corps’ computer network blocks users from accessing social media sites, which service officials say expose “information to adversaries” and provide “an easy conduit for information leakage.”

The Marines recently made its ban official. And that prohibition might extend to other parts of the military pending a top-level review ordered in late July by Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn.

In a widely distributed memo, Lynn said the so-called “Web 2.0″ sites are important tools but more study is needed to understand their threats and benefits.

Air Force officials are already aware of the potential benefits.

According to the Air Force One documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, a unit called the Combat Information Cell at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida monitored the public fallout from the April 27 flight and offered recommendations for dealing with the fast-breaking story.

Formed two years ago, the cell is made up of as many as nine people who analyze piles of data culled from the Internet and other sources to determine whether the Air Force’s message is being heard.

The presidential plane took off for New York from Andrews Air Force in Maryland accompanied by two F-16 jet fighters. The purpose of the flight, which wasn’t publicly announced, was to get new photos of the specially modified Boeing 747 with the statue in the background.

The mission quickly became a public relations disaster as panicked New Yorkers, fearing another 9/11-style attack, emptied office buildings. In the aftermath, Louis Caldera, director of the White House military office that authorized the flight, was fired.

The Combat Information Cell’s first assessment of the event said “Web site blog comments ‘furious’ at best.” Local reporting of the flyover was “very critical, highlighting scare factor,” it added.

A Twitter search revealed a rate of one “tweet” per minute about a pair of F-16s chasing a commercial airliner. A tweet is a text message of up to 140 characters delivered to the author’s subscribers, who are known as followers.

Media coverage over the next 24 hours “will focus on local hysteria and lack of public notification,” the cell predicted. “Blogs will continue to be overwhelmingly negative.”

“Damage control requires timely counter-information,” but the opportunity for that had passed, the assessment said. The cell recommended acknowledging the mistake and ensuring it didn’t happen again.

Another update on April 28 said the story was still “reverberating, surprisingly resilient.” The tweet rate had grown to three per minute and the words “New York” had been pushed into Twitter’s high-frequency topic category. Videos of the event posted on YouTube had been viewed more than 260,000 times, it said.

By April 30, the story had faded, the cell reported. The blogs were still very critical, but it was the White House, not the Air Force, that was taking the heat, the assessment for that day said.

The other dominant news story at the time was public concern over the spread of swine flu. According to the documents, the same Air Force cell suggested there may be an opportunity to turn the tide. “Government involvement in this incident could be used to frame expected handling of H1N1 outbreak,” one of the PowerPoint charts reads.

A Utah Air National Guard unit, the 101st Information Warfare Flight in Salt Lake City, was also monitoring the social sites. “To say that this event is being beaten like a dead horse is an understatement,” reads an April 28 e-mail from the unit to other Air Force offices. “Has really taken off in Web. 2.0.”

Both the 101st and the Combat Information Cell are attached to the 1st Air Force, which is based at Tyndall and is in charge of guarding U.S. airspace.

1st Air Force spokesman Al Eakle explained that the command had no role in planning or coordinating the Air Force One flight. But the units tracked social networks and blog traffic “to obtain what lessons we might learn so as not to repeat them in the future.” The assessments were sent to the command’s leadership so they’d know how the public was reacting, he added.

John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington said gray zones can emerge while monitoring social networking sites because viewing and participating is based on trust.

“Lots of times individuals upload private or sensitive information that they expect to share with their friends or family and not the whole Internet world,” Verdi said. “It would certainly be a major problem if the government were accessing that information under false pretenses.”

Paul Bove, an Air Force digital media strategist, said service personnel are instructed not to do that. Nor are they to use aliases or represent a position that’s beyond the scope of what they do.

“We always tell people, ‘Stay in your lane and don’t talk about something that you’re not qualified to talk about,’” Bove said.

The issue of aliases is at the heart of a complaint stemming for the Army Corps of Engineers’ performance in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., asked the Pentagon inspector general to examine allegations that Corps employees posed as ordinary citizens and posted comments on a New Orleans web site defending the organization from criticism following the disaster.

Jon Donley, former editor of NOLA.com, said in a June 9 affidavit that there were as many as 20 registered users who developed a pattern of not only defending the Corps, but at times being “overtly abusive” to any critics. He said he was able to trace their posts to a Corps Internet address.

Ken Holder, a spokesman for Corps’ New Orleans District, said it will cooperate with any investigation.

This has been a test of the emergency martial law declaration system. Had this been an actual martial law declaration you would have been told to stay at home until…………..

Remember that flyover of NY by Air Force One for a photo op? The one that scared the crap out of people there due to memories of 9/11?

Well there’s a festival in Idaho once a year and they’ve had a Military flyover for 42 years in a row but not this year.

An Idaho community had secured an Air Force flyover for its local festival every year for more than 40 years, organizers say, but this year, the Air Force turned the request down over the festival’s religious focus.

The God and Country Family Festival in Nampa, Idaho, applied to the Pentagon for the flyover but was denied in an e-mail, board member Patti Syme told KTBV. Syme said the e-mail from a defense official informed her the Pentagon prohibited support of special interest groups.

“I called him immediately and just said, you know hey we’ve been doing this for 42 years, we’ve had flyovers, what is the problem?” Syme told KTBV. “And he said, well we have looked up your Web site and everything on your Web site seemed to focus on Christianity, ministry booths. And he said, in fact, ma’am it sounds like it focuses on Christianity. And he said, in fact, it would be great to go to, in fact, if I personally, could come I would, but we can’t endorse such an endeavor, so they couldn’t do the flyover.”

A defense department official told FOX News the Air Force denied the request because it violates a Pentagon policy against supporting any event “that provides a selective benefit to any individual, group, or organization, including any religious or sectarian organization, ideological movement, political campaign or organization, or commercial enterprise, to include a shopping mall or motion picture promotion.”

The Air Force was in charge of the decision-making process, meaning neither the secretary of defense nor President Obama weighed in directly, the official said.

And although the Air Force wouldn’t dispute the festival board’s claim of longtime military participation, the military doesn’t keep records on this type of event, the official told FOX News.

Capt. Tom Wenz from Air Force public affairs told FOX News that past participation was due to the fact that the event was described only as a “patriotic tribute,” and the Air Force wasn’t aware until now of the apparent focus on Christianity, despite the festival’s name.

The military doesn’t keep records? I just can’t imagine the military sending out aircraft without keeping records. Does the Pentagon have new policies under the current administration?

Source

The Festival
I finally found where it was in the news. Fox of course. Actually had it emailed to me.

While the Liberal Media was busy with the freakshow here’s what happened in the real world. The following is a video from a Police Officer’s dash cam. It is the funeral procession for Staff Sgt. John Beale.

Here’s his details. http://freedomremembered.com/index.php/staff-sgt-john-c-beale/