A very sad song! While he sings of a time long before I was born, the words resonate in my mind to several times during my lifetime. Perhaps it will do the same to you. If not, perhaps you’re living under a rock
Originally posted 2016-03-05 14:58:27.
By: Greg Maresca
The Democrat presidential ticket’s watchword is the thematic term: joy. When the news broke, I thought of an episode of Hogan’s Heroes where Col. Klink was reminiscing about his pre-war outings with the Nazi program: Strength Through Joy. The program was pure propaganda that promoted Nazism and monitored dissident and anti-state behavior.
Who said you couldn’t learn anything from a sitcom?
Einstein said, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
Barack Obama was once the Democrat’s hope candidate, while Kamala Harris is now their joy nominee. Democrats wouldn’t know this, but hope and joy are not campaign slogans but Christmas.
What is there to be joyful about?
Let’s count the ways.
Joy is someone else paying your student loan and your mortgage down payment. Joy is universal income and not having to work with free healthcare. Joy is more debt, inflation with increased oversight and regulation. Joy means high energy prices and power outages. Joy is eliminating the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court. Joy entails public school indoctrination and unrestrained illegal migration, no police or prisons. Joy is knowing Planned Parenthood has a mobile bus offering free abortions and vasectomies. Joy is higher food and gas prices, tens of millions of illegals, terrorists and drugs flooding the border. Joy is taxing unrealized capital gains while supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Wealth Tax. Harris is much like Warren; except she is a real Indian (when not playing the Black card).
What’s not to like?
The most memorable Democrat Convention moment was opening night when Joe Biden angrily yelled for all to embrace joy that you could bottle and even wash your dishes with it.
Harris’s campaign slogan might surprise her innumerable staff members who through the years left her employ overdosing on all that joy. Perhaps the media should interview them. Then again, that is not their job. The media’s job is to get Harris elected. Democrats plan to ride the wave of obfuscation into the White House as their media buddies work the oars and sails.
Three months ago, if someone said Harris would own the top of the Democrat ticket without earning one primary vote, they would have been laughed at Kamala style on steroids. The worst president in modern history has passed the baton to an even worse candidate. Her meteoric rise is totally fabricated, forced, and fake. Yet, this inept, and awkward vice president is somehow the most qualified, the most wonderful, and the most inspiring figure in American politics.
The media made Obama a celebrity whose accomplishments, intelligence, and work ethic were irrelevant. Now, they have Harris, who will save democracy despite not winning one primary for the office she seeks. It’s all counterfeit, resembling a high school popularity contest, but few care. All the while, the mindless masses continue to digest this narrative hook, line, and joy.
Making joy a virtue of frivolity was the highlight at the Democrat’s latest kumbaya of a convention. Subsisting on vibes rather than substance. The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio used another sitcom (Seinfeld) to juxtapose the convention to “a show about nothing,” and he was hardly alone.
The last thing Democrats want is the issues front and center believing the formula: personality – policy = joy is enough to keep the White House. Moreover, as Robert Kennedy, Jr, recently said, “Who needs policies when you have Trump to hate.”
Those who believe Harris is making the calls on policy are the same who believe Biden has full mental acuity. Biden was “sharp as a tack” before “they” (including Harris) couldn’t hide it anymore.
Yet, Kama-chameleon and her cheerleaders joyfully run away from everything they have stood for.
Ignorance is bliss. It is also Harris’ foremost strategy.
Accepting the nomination as a cackling caricature of the Wicked Witch of the West dressed in mournful black does not project joy but is a ghoulish facsimile underscoring a campaign that is out for blood. Harris’s constant crackling does not perceive optimism, but of mental limitations – the notorious giggling fool – the epitome of style over substance.
Can you feel the joy?
Rather, that is your wallet being emptied.
If you haven’t figured it out, the Harris/Walz campaign of J.O.Y. is precisely an acronym:
Joke’s On You.
PS. I love it; the new theme is now “JOY.”
Sometimes I post something I think may be of interest to someone other than me and has nothing to do with currents events of the day – this is one of them. If you are of my vintage or perhaps a few years senior or junior you may find this enlightening – sort of trip down memory lane. If you’re not of our vintage, you may find it boring. LOL For me it resurrected many fond memories of the days I loved and will cherish forever. I have no idea who wrote it; I received it from several friends and thought I’d pass it along. Even the photo rekindles many memories.
Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan , or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me.
For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.
We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one’s seen him since.
We danced to ‘Little Darlin,’ and sang to ‘Stagger Lee’
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.
Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice..
We didn’t have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
And Oprah couldn’t talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We had our share of heroes, we never thought they’d go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We’d never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led.
And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We’d never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and ‘gay’ meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-Ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We hadn’t seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.
And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.
T-Birds came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.
We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.
There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill
And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.
But all things have a season, or so we’ve heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations to join AARP,
We’ve come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.
So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they’re using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children’s children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.
If you didn’t grow up in the fifties,
You missed the greatest time in history,
Hope you enjoyed this read as much as I did.
Originally posted 2023-07-24 10:57:54.
Certainly many sailors and Marines will be dancing in the streets when the most incompetent Secretary of the Navy I have witnessed in 75 years leaves office.. The man is a joke, the man is a liberal — oops, sorry, a progressive — who has convinced himself he is all-knowing, the man refuted the Marines’ study long before it was even announced, the man’s legacy will be the damage he has done to our Department of Navy. Bless you Mississippians, why 
did you send the nation such a fool.
Two years in the Navy aboard the USS Little Rock, (during which she spent most of his tour in the yards being refitted) seems to have given him an insight no one else has . Doesn’t this photo of him as a Lt Jg from the ship’s files conjure the desire run with him to the sound of gunfire. Not! His unilateral push to require the Marines to place women in combat roles was well published. But when the CMC ask about draft registry, he bulked, saying that would require a national debate, but making mothers send their daughters into combat roles did not require national debate? Please, Mabus do not let the door hit you on your way out!
by Hope Hodge Seck Mar 01, 2016
The secretary of the Navy will retire within the next year after nearly eight years in office, he confirmed Tuesday to a congressional panel.
Addressing the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense for an annual hearing on the sea service budget, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the hearing would be his eighth and last before the committee.
Mabus, 67, has held the office since May 19, 2009 — serving 2,478 days in office under four different defense secretaries. He did not say during the hearing when exactly he planned to step down.
The last Navy secretary to serve as long as Mabus was Josephus Daniels, who served 2,922 days under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921.
“For me, leading the Department of the Navy is the greatest honor of my life,” Mabus said.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our sailors, our Marines and our civilians. I’m also proud of the many steps we’ve taken and the changes we’ve made to try to ensure … the Navy and the Marine Corps in the future remains the greatest expeditionary fighting force the world has ever known.”
The former Democratic governor of Mississippi, Mabus forged a reputation in the Navy as a maverick who prioritized social changes and environmental issues and did not shy away from unilateral actions, controversial decisions and conflict with service counterparts.
Soon after assuming his current post, Mabus announced the creation of a “Great Green Fleet” as part of a series of ambitious energy-saving initiatives for the Marine Corps and the Navy that included the goal to get the department to source half of its energy from alternative sources by 2020.
A 2012 debut of the concept at the Rim of the Pacific exercise stoked furor in Congress when it was discovered that the Navy had spent $12 million for biofuels that cost around $26 per gallon. The exercise resulted in new legislation requiring that bulk purchases of alternative fuels be competitively priced. This year, the Great Green Fleet finally launched on a beef-fat fuel blend that cost $2.05 per gallon.
Mabus also made waves with a series of moves aimed at tearing down gender barriers within the Navy and Marine Corps.
He spearheaded a number of controversial uniform changes aimed at making male and female sailors look at similar as possible. Last October, the Navy rolled out a sweeping list of phased uniform updates that included unisex dress covers, female “crackerjack” dress blues, and a new women’s version of the dress whites uniform. This year, the Naval Academy will do away with women’s skirts for graduation in favor of pants uniforms.
The Marine Corps is also adopting a gender-neutral version of its dress blues uniform.
“In the Navy and in the Marine Corps, we are moving towards uniforms that don’t divide us as male or female, but rather unite us as sailors or Marines,” Mabus said, according to Navy Times reports from the time.
In recent months, the issue of women serving in combat has highlighted a widening rift between Mabus and Marine Corps leadership. The Marines were the only service to request an exception to a Pentagon-wide mandate opening previously closed combat jobs to women, citing a Marine Corps study that showed teams and squads with women were more injury-prone and performed slower and less accurately than all-male teams.
Mabus publicly disparaged the study, accusing the Marine Corps of presupposing a negative outcome for women and of failing to recruit physically capable women to participate in the research.
Later, he ordered the Marine Corps to make job titles gender-neutral and train genders together in boot camp, sounding a warning note to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller not to “unreasonably delay or prevent the execution of a policy imperative.”
The memo reportedly stoked a heated conflict between the two men. Ultimately, Neller presented Mabus with a brief on how the Marines were currently training recruits, rather than a plan to further gender-integrate training, according to congressional testimony and sources with knowledge of the briefing.
The drawbacks of Mabus’ tendency to effect unilateral change without coordinating with other military leaders can best be seen, perhaps, in the series of evolutions that have taken place regarding maternity leave for Marines and sailors.
Last July, Mabus announced he was tripling maternity leave for the department of the Navy from six weeks to 18, citing a desire to retain more female service members and acknowledge the needs of military families.
But at the end of January, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced he was implementing a 12-week maternity leave policy for all the services — a six-week increase for the Army and the Air Force, but a six-week cut for the Navy and Marine Corps, except for currently pregnant sailors and Marines, who will be honored under the old policy.
In testimony Tuesday, Mabus declined to criticize the Pentagon and its rebuff to his policy change, but maintained his support for an 18-week maternity leave offering.
“We lose twice as many women as men between about the six-year mark to the 12-year mark in both services. In a dual-military couple, almost always, it’s the women that leave,” he said. “If we keep that nine-year sailor, we don’t have to replace that sailor with a brand-new recruit.”
Amid controversy and conflict, Mabus has many supporters in Congress who approve of his progressive policies and ability to affect change.
At the hearing, Defense Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican from New Jersey, saluted Mabus for his years at the helm of the Navy.
“There’s a cake in your future…celebrating your eight years of service and dedication to our nation,” he said.
NOTE: Really Rodney, really? Who, pray tell will bake it, you? And we wonder what’s wrong with the GOP today. Another RINO.
— Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
Originally posted 2016-03-04 16:11:16.
Still in the news, and the CEO is no where to be found. Fire the Scumbag, and send his butt to jail! Yeah, I know I’m not being PC, but some things call for one’s true feelings. If you are still donating to this charity, shame on you!Published March 04, 2016
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A major donor to the Wounded Warrior Project veterans’ charity called Thursday for the nonprofit’s CEO to resign in light of allegations of lavish spending on staff meetings, according to a CBS News report.
Fred and Dianne Kane, the parents of two Iraq War veterans, have donated $325,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project since 2009 through their personal charity, Tee-off for a Cause.
Slightly more than half of the Kanes’ donations directly benefitted veterans, according to CBS News.
But after recent tax forms reflected questionable spending by the veterans’ charity on staff expenditures, including $26 million on conferences and meetings at luxury hotels in 2014 alone, Fred Kane called for CEO Steven Nardizzi to be fired.The expenditure on conferences and travel was up from just $1.7 million in 2010, according to reports.
“Hearing that there was this waste of money, donor dollars that should have been going to servicemen and women that were injured, and that it was spent on [Wounded Warrior Project staff] having a good time—it’s a real disappointment,” Dianne Kane told CBS News.
The Kanes also initiated an online petition calling for a public audit of the Wounded Warrior Project in addition to canceling the next golf tournament Tee-off for a Cause was to hold to benefit the Project.
In January, Charity Navigator, a group that oversees nonprofit organizations, placed Wounded Warrior Project on its watch list, Fox News reported, citing a separate CBS report.
Army Staff Sergeant Erick Millette, who returned from Iraq in 2006 with a bronze star and a purple heart, told CBS News at the time that he admired the charity’s work and took a job with the group in 2014 but quit after two years.
“Their mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, but what the public doesn’t see is how they spend their money,” he said.
Millette said he witnessed lavish spending on staff, with big “catered” parties.
Also in the previous interview, two former employees, who were so fearful of retaliation they asked that CBS News not show their faces on camera, said spending has skyrocketed since Nardizzi took over as CEO in 2009, pointing to the 2014 annual meeting at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs.
“He rappelled down the side of a building at one of the all hands events. He’s come in on a Segway, he’s come in on a horse,” one employee told CBS News.
Fred Kaine, in the recent interview, questioned Nardizzi’s apparent public absence while his organization has been under scrutiny.
“Where is this guy? You lead from the front—good or bad—you don’t hide,” he said, “If no one is going to talk about this right now and it has to be me, then it has to be me.”
Kane said he has cut charitable ties with the Wounded Warrior Project, embarking on a new charge to effect change at the organization
Originally posted 2016-03-04 10:36:07.
