Category Archives: Current Events

Current Events, Recent Posts

This Just In – WOW!

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BORDER WALL TO BE LONGER THAN ORIGINALLY PLANNED . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT TRUMP ANNOUNCES SALE OF CALIFORNIA TO MEXICO 
WASHINGTON (AP) – January 2018

President Trump disclosed that he has reached an agreement with Enrique Pena Nieto, President of Mexico, which provides for the sale of substantially all of the State of California to the country of Mexico

President Trump noted that this deal, which he claims “is his largest real estate deal ever” is a win-win for everyone involved. One of the benefits he says he will highlight during a prime time address from the oval office later this evening, will include using the proceeds received by the US from Mexico to

1) pay for the Wall (fulfilling yet another campaign promise), a wall which will now include the length of the eastern border of California

2) fund all the infrastructure spending in the remaining 49 states and

3) pay to relocate the 67 Republicans that currently reside in California .

He also noted that Federal money saved from the reduction of California residents on US social programs will allow those social programs to be cash positive in less than 3 years.

Mexican President Nieto announced that he has already introduced a bill to the Mexican Congress asking to change his country’s name to MexiCal.

Other benefits President Trump intends to discuss during this evening’s prime time address include:

California will now be able to act as a sanctuary state within MexiCal noting that there is much more room for the refugees who will find the climate in the State of California more desirable than the climate in US cities such as NYC, Detroit or Chicago .

The elimination of the existing border between Mexico and California will allow drugs to flow more freely between Mexico and the users in Hollywood . Drug tunnel diggers at the Tijuana border will now be able to use their skills to dig tunnels under Los Angeles to help ease congestion in that city and allow rioters to move about the city’s universities more freely.

The U.S. taxpayer will no longer be on the hook for any future disaster relief required once the next megaquake hits California . The space in the Capitol and other DC buildings vacated by representatives of California will be fumigated and turned into “time-out rooms” for the press as well as Liberty Centers where US citizens can meet with their congressmen to discuss the pursuit of economic freedom

Nancy Pelosi released a statement stating that she looks forward to making the Mexican President’s life miserable and prefers the year round weather in Mexico City to that of DC. Her office has already announced a schedule of fund raising activities for what is believed to be an upcoming campaign to run for President of MexiCal. Papers released along with Trump’s statement reveal that a newly incorporated real estate company, pmurT, Inc., which was intimately involved in the deal discussions, will receive a broker fee of $25 billion on the California sale.

An anonymous pmurT, Inc. representative has revealed that the profits on the deal are HUGE and will be used to purchase, develop and convert all abandoned US Federal facilities in California into special high end retreats and resorts which will assist California residents with managing their euphoria and transition into the nanny state they have so long desired to be. The exact northern border of the new MexiCal is still under negotiation.

Apparently the White House is concerned that certain members of congress may be unwilling to give up California ’s wine country and are suggesting that the northern border align with the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge . California residents will be issued special blue cards to cross the border into the US so that the total number of California liberals entering the US can be tracked and at any point in time not exceed predetermined levels. Residents that remain in California after the effective date of the sale will not be allowed to seek refugee status in the US in the future.

Mexican President Nieto stated he is thrilled with the deal and is looking forward to declaring Spanish the national language for his newly acquired territory and opening SSL (Spanish as a second language) schools throughout California . He also noted that funding for the transaction would come from the Mexican drug cartels, which have agreed to provide low interest loans to Mexico so long as they are allowed to move their cash out of Switzerland and the Cayman Islands back into Mexico tax free.

White House representatives refused to confirm rumors that a similar deal was in the works for the sale of Northeastern states from NY through Maine , to Canada .

President Trump wrapped up his statement stating, “this deal is HUGE and will help Make America, albeit a little smaller, Great Again”

 

Originally posted 2018-02-16 15:08:34.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Letter to VA Governor

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An Open Letter to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe

From Sherwan W. Dillar

Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe speaks during a debate at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Ohio. I have taught Political Science at the collegiate level in Cincinnati, been published in The Wall Street Journal and am in my 12th year of research for a forthcoming book on Columbine.  For the past seven years I have made Rockbridge County, Virginia, my home.  The one and only reason I live in Lexington, Virginia is, because it is the final resting place of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. Their lives, character, faith, integrity, honor and testimony shone so brightly a century and a half after their decease, that there is no other place on the Earth I want to be, but where they lived and served.

There is something deeply and morally wrong with anyone, who objects to these two great Virginians—great Americans being honored by the native State, for which they gave their lives, limbs and blood in selfless patriotic service.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower kept Lee’s portrait in his executive office, while president. Churchill extolled him as the greatest American. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to resign from the U.S. Army, if Lee were tried for treason. The statue that marks the grave of “Stonewall” Jackson was paid for not only by the veterans, who served under him, but by financial contributions from former slaves, whom he had taught to read in violation of Virginia law.

When a Lexington local assailed Jackson for breaking the law to “teach those people”, Jackson uncharacteristically lost his temper and shouted, “If you were a Christian you would not say so!”After the war, it was Lee who broke social convention at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, by kneeling beside a former slave, who had mortified the White congregation by kneeling at the altar. Asked afterward by a bigot why a man like himself would kneel beside a former slave, Lee simply chastised him, “The ground is always level at the foot of the cross.”

The anniversary of the deaths of Lee and of Jackson were long commemorated in this Commonwealth by veterans of the North, who were often the honored keynote speakers invited to praise the virtues of their once-foes.  Every monument to a Confederate Virginian is a war memorial to an American veteran.  It has been the mark of manhood and civility and longstanding American tradition to leave politics out of the way we honor our veterans. They fought the battles; we did not. They shed the blood; we did not. They reconciled with their enemies; we did not. End of subject. It is not for children born a hundred and fifty years later to re-adjudicate the past and expose to double jeopardy men their own contemporaries exonerated.

It is the height of arrogance to suppose that you know more about these men and their times than their even contemporaries. The command of God remains, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” It is to God you will assuredly answer for its violation. If you find it impossible to respect your elders, attempt at least to revere your betters.  The destruction of Virginia’s monuments to her war dead is sacrilege and those, who urge and execute it, are nothing more than cemetery vandals. There is no honor in this course of wanton destruction and, morally, you equate yourself with ISIS, which shares your contempt for actual culture, something you both so manifestly lack. It is more than history, more than art. 

No matter. No one will remember you in any 150 years. Nothing you do can make anything like the mark these great Virginians made on history’s ledger. Just being you another day is your own punishment and yet you still face God for what you propose to do as well. Something is deeply, horribly wrong with your soul, Sir. And you know it. So does all Virginia. I have strived to be civil, but you do not make it easy. Smearing reputations, slandering saints and tearing down what better men raised has zero to do with love, unity, tolerance, acceptance, diversity and coexistence. It’s just the usual political spoils game, playing one race/class/group against another to score a win at any cost. The mean, petty loathing of Virginia’s first string heroes outs you as a raging hypocrite just as you were trying to pass for intelligent. What a piece of work.  Just leave the statues, graves, monuments and memorials right where the grown-ups put them, Terry. Just fool around doing nothing, you know, like back at Georgetown. Easy.

That’s all I ask. And about the most anybody expects of you. Aren’t you tired yet of just being the same old failure and lurching from bungled debacle to bungled debacle? Why not shock the world: open a book, educate yourself and do something less horrible than usual. Resign, even, and leave Virginians to govern Virginia. What a concept.

With all due respect,
Sherwin W. Dillar

Originally posted 2017-09-07 17:01:59.

Current Events

“Thank You for Your Service”

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Really? Do you truly mean those words, or are they something that makes you feel good about your lack of it? I have often wondered about that because it seems so common today like Good Morning or Good Afternoon. Here is an article that my favorite contributor Marine Greg Maresca, had published in the American Spectator. I think it is a fitting article for today as it’s Veterans Day, or for those who remember when it was Armistice Day. Enjoy, and if you are a Vet, think about Greg’s recommendation. I love it!

When I first stepped onto the college quad, I was just another young man, making his way, surveying the lay of the land. For me, however, there were a few personal firsts playing out in real time to which none of those aspiring collegians were privy.

For one, I was no longer getting a weekly haircut, nor was any razor getting acquainted with my face on a daily basis. I no longer used shower shoes, waited in line to eat out of a can, or pitched a tent to sleep in a bag. “The slide into civilian slime,” as Marine Corps GySgt. Cooley, a decorated Vietnam veteran, would lament, was well underway. Perhaps that is why Gunny assigned me to the Civilian Readjustment class — twice.

In one of my first collegiate classes, everyone took a turn at the professor’s lectern, and we were all instructed to introduce ourselves with a brief biography, explaining what brought us to university. As the class was dismissed, the professor asked to speak with me. In no uncertain terms he wanted me to know that, during the Vietnam years, protests on campus occurred, and veterans were not well received by some.

Growing up, I witnessed the domestic upheaval that was endured by these veterans, many of whom were the senior NCOs and field grade officers I served with. There was even a smattering of Korean War veterans among them. Sensing the opportunity to support and defend these men who mentored me, I did it without trepidation and with satisfaction.

This was before the days when the ubiquitous expression “Thank you for your service” became the new catchphrase echoing throughout our lexicon, especially around Veterans Day. For some, specifically those Korean and Vietnam veterans, the “thanks” and “welcome home” were much too long in coming. Whether or not these words bestowed upon them are sincere, the fact is that plenty never got a chance to hear such benign salutations.

Or is it just something we say, like “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Merry Christmas,” to fill an uncomfortable void that often comes across as disingenuous?

This seemingly quasi-support perhaps stems from the fact that most have never served, even though America had, until recently, been at war for nearly two decades. More than 2 million served in Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11. That seems like a lot, but, categorically, they represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Americans’ experience of war today happens as they are surrounded by the comforts of home. That battle against evil and freedom-hating rogues is fought compliments of a computer video screen and mouse, where the terror, blood, and stench of death is nonexistent.

“Thank you for your service.”

Really?

If you truly mean what you say, how about making your gratitude count the next time you vote? For once, stop casting your ballot for Marxists who take their liberties for granted, while despising this country that I served, and you chose not to, a nation that seemingly does not exist today.

How about that — or are you offended?

Freedom’s steep and never-ending price tag is disproportionally paid, time and again, by veterans, and it always has been that way, even after 1973 when Congress put the draft to rest. If attempting to assuage your draft-deferment guilt with your yearly perfunctory “thank you for your service” makes you feel better — then have at it.

After all, it’s a free country, right?

There is one hero of the Iraq War, who had the humility and grace to respond in kind, who was nothing short of perfection. You won’t find this gentleman on Facebook or any other narcissistic social media outlet extolling his every move as some validation of purpose. He does not wear a hat, shirt, or jacket to distinguish who he is because his mere presence and the way he carries himself more than suffices.

While on patrol in Iraq, his face and hands were mutilated by an improvised explosive device. Maimed for life, he looked the person dead in the eye, saying, “The best way you can thank any of us for our service is to make America a nation worth dying for, again.”

Amen.

Greg Maresca is a longtime Sample News Group columnist and a Marine Corps veteran living in Flyover, Pennsylvania. 

Wow, was that powerful or what?That is a great response to those common words of “Thank you for your service” (because I didn’t). Thank you so much for this Greg!! And Semper Fi, Brother.
Current Events, Recent Posts

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, and Kelly

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Interesting article from the Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan. I know John Kelley, watched him work as a Bn S-3 during a MCRES of an infantry Bn preparing to deploy and I was the Bn’s umpire back in 87. After the grueling 72 hours of hell, I asked the Bn Commander, “Where in the hell did you find your S-3?” He laughed and said, “That boy’s going to be a general someday.”

I realized as I wrote this that I’ve never met a Kelly I didn’t like, who wasn’t admirable. There was the great journalist Michael Kelly, lost in Iraq in 2003 and mourned still by anyone with a brain: What would he be making of everything now? There’s Gentleman Jim Kelly, formerly of Time and an award-winning journalist. Ray Kelly was one of New York’s finest police commissioners. Megyn Kelly is a brave, nice woman. I wrote once of a small miracle in which a group of friends arrived, late and in tears, to see John Paul II celebrate Mass in New York. The doors of the cathedral were shut tight. A man in a suit saw our tears, walked over, picked up a sawhorse and waved us through. As we ran up the steps to St. Patrick’s, I turned. “What is your name?” I cried. “Detective Kelly!” he called and disappeared into the crowd.

Grace Kelly was occasionally brilliant and always beautiful. Gene Kelly was a genius. There is the unfortunate matter of the 1930s gangster “Machine Gun Kelly,” but he is more than made up for by Thomas Gunning Kelley (an extra e, but same tribe), who in 1969 led a US Navy mission to save a company of Army infantrymen trapped on the banks of a canal in South Vietnam’s Kien Hoa province. He deliberately drew fire to protect others, was badly wounded, waved off treatment, saved the day. He received the Medal of Honor. There are other Kellys on its long, illustrious rolls.

So Gen. John Kelly (retired), US Marine Corps, veteran of Anbar province, Iraq, and new chief of staff to President Trump: onward in your Kellyness.

Everyone wonders what he’ll do, what difference he’ll make. He is expected to impose order and discipline, tamp down the chaos. I suspect his deepest impact may be on policy and how it’s pursued, especially in the area of bipartisan outreach.

American military leaders are almost always patriotic, protective, professional, practical. They’re often highly educated, with advanced degrees. Mary Boies, who for two decades has worked with the military as a leader of Business Executives for National Security, said this week: “In general, military top brass are among the most impressive people in our country.”

It’s true. And in a nation that loves to categorize people by profession, they can be surprising.

Generals and admirals are rarely conservative in standard or predictable ways, ways in which the term is normally understood. They’ve been painted as right-wing in books and movies for so long that some of that reputation still clings to them, but it’s wrong.

They are not, or not necessarily, economic conservatives. Top brass are men and women who were largely educated in, and came up in, a system that is wholly taxpayer-funded. Their primary focus is that the military have what it needs to do the job. Whatever tax rates do that, do that. They are not economists, they don’t focus on Keynesian theory and supply-side thought. They’re like Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who saw the historically high tax rates of the Roosevelt-Truman era and thought fine, that’s how we won World War II. He didn’t seem concerned about tax rates until he’d been president for a while and started hearing about the problems of business while playing golf with CEOs.

Generals are not romantic about war, because it’s not abstract to them. As Boies says: “Army officers know better than anybody the limits of military hard power. Military people hate war because they’ve seen it and know both its limitations and its devastating effects.”

In my observation generals are both the last to want to go in (“Do you understand the implications of invasion? Do you even know the facts on the ground?”) and the last to want to leave (“After all this blood and sacrifice, this hard-won progress, you’re pulling out because you made a promise in a speech?”). They hate hotheaded, full-of-themselves civilians who run around insisting on action. Those civilians are not the ones who’ll do the fighting, and as public allies they’re not reliable.

On social issues they generally tend to be moderate to liberal. I have never to my knowledge met a high officer who was pro-life. They largely thought Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a reasonable policy, but they’re realists: Time moves on, salute and execute. They don’t want to damage or retard their careers being on the wrong side of issues whose outcomes seem culturally inevitable. You don’t die on a hill that is not central to the immediate mission.

They are as a rule not deeply partisan. Those who work in the Pentagon have to know how to work with both parties and negotiate their way around partisan differences. (Enlisted men in my experience are more instinctively conservative, though often in interesting ways.)

When things are working right, chiefs of staff have an impact on presidential thinking. They guide discussions toward certain, sometimes directed conclusions. They’re expected to give advice, and it’s expected to be grounded in knowledge and experience.

It may be easier for Kelly to impose order than people think. Sacking Anthony Scaramucci sent a message. The warring staffers around Kelly know it won’t be good for them if they don’t support him, at least for now. If they fight him with leaks, they’re revealed as part of the problem of the past six months.

If they are compliant and congenial, it will look like they weren’t the problem; someone else was. Also they’re tired of being part of a White House that has been famously dysfunctional. It will help their standing in the world to be part of something that works. Similarly with Trump: If it works with Kelly, the first six months were Reince Priebus’ fault, if it doesn’t work, it was the president’s.

Beyond that, a good guess is that Kelly will not be especially interested in partisan differences; he will not be ideological. He will guide Trump in the direction of: Solve the problem.

On tax reform, for instance, his instinct will be to figure the lay of the land and try to get to the number it takes to pass a bill with both parties. A friend who once worked with Kelly said: “He won’t go ‘This has to be comprehensive, historic.’ He’ll figure the few things both sides agree on and build out from there. You’ll get a compromise. It won’t solve everything, but it will be good for the country and it will get Trump on a path to somewhere, because right now he’s on a path to nowhere.”

Generals are not known for a lack of self-confidence. If he goes up against Mitch McConnell, it won’t be big dawg versus eager puppy, it will be big dawg versus big dawg. And McConnell has already disappointed the president. Kelly hasn’t.

Trump, whatever his public statements, doesn’t need to be told things haven’t gone well; he knows. He has nowhere else to go, and the clock’s ticking.

Kelly has the power of the last available grown-up.

Another advantage: He doesn’t need the job. He’s trying to help, as a patriot would. But this is not the pinnacle for him. His whole career has been pinnacles.

 

Originally posted 2017-08-11 09:40:48.