Friend sent me this video and said he decided to take his family to Wrigley Field to watch his Cubbies play. Just another day on the “L” train. Enjoy the ride-a-long.
Originally posted 2022-05-04 10:40:41.
Spaced Out!
Okay, over the years I have usually accepted some of the BS our guys in blue say and do, but this is over the top. They want me to pay for this fellow to live in a $1,800,000.00 house because he is responsible for what — rallying the ranks and growing the morale of 8,000 airmen? The audacity of those Space folks to even put something like this in their budget tells they are already spaced out. Send this guy to the space station in orbit so he can get the feel of what space is like and come back and tell war stories.
And what’s with this “Guardians” BS? They aren’t regular air force people? OMG
Space Force’s Top Enlisted Leader Would Get $1.8 Million Home in 2023 Budget Request
The Department of the Air Force‘s 2023 budget proposal includes a request to build a $1.8 million home at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to house the Space Force‘s top enlisted leader.
The request for a brand-new, 3,500-square-foot home for the chief master sergeant of the Space Force is tucked away in the more than $230 million requested to fix and improve privatized base housing for families.
“A home meeting or exceeding the housing standards for the referenced grade/position is not available, and it’s not a viable option to renovate an existing home in the base inventory to house the chief,” budget documents justifying the project that were filed last week, said.
Read Next: Air Force Wants Big Increase for 2023 Budget to Improve On-Base Housing for Military Families
Roger Towberman currently holds the position for which the house would be built; he assumed the office in April 2020. As the top enlisted leader for the new military branch, he is tasked with rallying the ranks, growing morale, and helping implement and shape policies among the more than 8,000 Space Force Guardians.
Towberman would be the first resident of the new home at Andrews, but there is no projected completion date for the project. For now, he lives in existing military housing at Andrews, according to Capt. Annabel G. Monroe, an Air Force spokeswoman.
“This home will be the designated home of Chief Master Sergeant of Space Force, current and future,” Monroe said in an email.
It’s common for the services’ top military leaders to have homes on military bases.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond’s home is at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., and is named “Space House,” according to Pentagon photos of the residence.
The proposed $1.8 million residence at Andrews is just one of numerous projects mentioned in the Department of the Air Force’s $230 million construction improvement budget that is also meant to improve some of the Air Force’s more than 50,000 homes at 63 military installations run by privatized housing companies.
Military housing has come under intense scrutiny since 2018, when Reuters revealed examples of lead-based paint, widespread mold and shoddy workmanship in base homes managed by private companies.
Under the 2023 proposal, privatized military housing would be improved at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma; Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; and Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
While the department made no request for construction funds for brand-new housing at Air Force bases, it did ask for $68 million to build a new three-story dormitory to house 84 Guardians at Clear Space Force Station in Denali, Alaska — which the department considers “one of the most strategically important installations in the United States,” according to budget documents.
For airmen and Guardians who choose to live off base, the 2023 budget offers a 4.3% increase in the Basic Allowance for Housing, a 3.4% jump in the Basic Allowance for Subsistence designed to offset the cost of groceries, and a 4.6% pay raise in response to a wounded economy and rising inflation caused by the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
— Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.
Postscript: Holy Cow! Did you happen to notice (how could you not) the number of ribbons this guy is wearing? As best as I can count he has well over 40 ribbons. This fellow’s a hero, ya think?
Originally posted 2022-04-29 11:44:18.
Why Do I Love Florida?
I’ll let one of our Sheriffs tell you why.
Copy and paste the URL in browser. I love it!!!!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/22/florida-sheriff-says-homeowners-save-taxpayers-money-shooting-intruders/
We love our Gov and our State!!
Originally posted 2022-04-24 15:28:53.
Hey Mickey Mouse –
– Suck it up rodent!
I swear, if you have not learned by now, we Floridians simply love our Gov. He takes sh*t from nobody, including the venerable rodent from the Magic Kingdom. It’s amazing when a CEO listens to his employees, who in this case, I’m sure are the young spoiled brats of today’s generation, and makes a decision that affect the financial status of the corporation he is charged to run for the owners (shareholders). This would have certainly gone over very well in Disneyland, but not here in Disney World. Perhaps this CEO thought he was in the Land not the World, Ha.
This is hilarious, and let it be a warning to all CEOs to be careful what you say. Run your damn company and stay out of politics, especially if you are located in Florida or the Gov will get you. I love it.
Sadly, Mr. Walt Disney has to be screaming in his grave.
From the Wall Street Journal
Friday 22 April 2022
Revolt in Disney’s Florida’s Magic Kingdom
The Walt Disney Co. needs Florida more than Florida needs Walt Disney. That’s the latest chapter in this tale of a CEO who followed his woke staff like a lemming off the cliff of cultural politics. Disney employees demanded that Mickey Mouse oppose Florida’s misdescribed “don’t say gay” bill. Now state lawmakers are reacting by putting down a few glue traps.
The Florida Legislature voted this week to abolish the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which in effect lets Disney World run its own private government. Created by the Legislature in 1967, the district covers about 40 square miles and features two water parks and four theme parks, including the Magic Kingdom. Disney essentially controls land use, environmental protection, fire service, utilities, more than 100 miles of roads, and more.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill. The Journal cites a source who knows Disney’s finances and says the district saves the company tens of millions of dollars a year. Without it, services like fixing potholes could revert to county government.
Disney largely funds the Reedy Creek district, which had about $150 million in revenue last year. It also carries close to $1 billion in debt. The mayor of Orange County warned Thursday that if the district goes, then upkeep will “fall to the county’s budgets,” putting “an undue burden on the rest of the taxpayers.” The headaches look large enough that it’s difficult not to wonder about the bill’s effective date. It dissolves the Reedy Creek district on June 1, 2023—time for Disney and Mr. DeSantis to make up.
Are Florida Republicans engaged in unfair political retaliation? “As a matter of first principle,” Mr. DeSantis said last month, “I don’t support special privileges in law, just because a company is powerful.” Live by the corporate carve-out, die by the corporate carve-out. As a matter of political realism, the Reedy Creek district is a perk the state gave Disney. The mystery is why Disney thought it could push around state lawmakers without any pushback.
One answer is that previous corporate political signaling came with little cost and media hosannas. Recall when Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game out of Atlanta, as a punishment for Georgia’s new voting law. “Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said. The voting law “does not match Delta’s values,” fretted CEO Ed Bastian.
Did they read the bill? Or did they trust President Biden, who called it “Jim Crow 2.0”? Voting absentee in Georgia is still easier than in New York or Delaware. The political frenzy in Florida began with a similar dynamic. Early versions of the state’s controversial bill were broader, but here’s the key line in the law that passed: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate.” That language belies the claim that kids with gay siblings or two moms couldn’t talk openly about their families.
At first CEO Bob Chapek told employees that Disney would take no position. “As we have seen time and again, corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds,” he wrote. But inspired by an earlier tweet from former CEO Bob Iger, Disney employees went into open rebellion. Soon Mr. Chapek was groveling to his underlings and calling Florida’s bill a “challenge to basic human rights.”
Perhaps he thought this would be a freeway to mollify his staff, but Mr. Chapek misjudged the political moment. Republican voters who have watched companies side with the progressive agenda and silence employees who disagree are fed up. Mr. Chapek was right the first time: Disney’s political foray didn’t stop the Florida law. But it made a lot of people mad, including Disney customers and state lawmakers.
There’s a warning here to other companies, especially Big Tech and Wall Street, which are mainly based in liberal states but conduct business everywhere. If they try to impose their cultural values, they risk losing Republican allies on the policy issues that matter most to their bottom lines, such as regulation, trade, taxation, antitrust and labor law. Polls show rising GOP hostility to big business, and that is likely to be reflected when Republicans take power.
If good tax policy can’t pass Congress because Republican voters are furious about cultural imperialism from the C-suite, that’s bad for the country. It’s also bad for business. The Disney lesson for CEOs is to stay out of these divisive cultural fights. The lesson for political partisans in the workplace is that their bosses run the office, but they don’t run the country.
Originally posted 2022-04-22 11:35:40.
A Crime Scene Where the Victims Wore Masks
We, as normal Americans, are too stupid to have any opinions or to think for ourselves — so believe our elected officials, especially those from the entire administration, even some of our GOP RINOS. But I sincerely believe their day is coming with each passing month until doomsday in November. God, help us to be able to sustain sanity until then. A very well written piece from the WSJ
From the Wall Street Journal
FREE EXPRESSION
By Gerard Baker
A Crime Scene Where the Victims Wore Masks
As terrified passengers stumbled from the train at the 36th Street station in Brooklyn last week, it was noticeable how many of them were complying with the mandate that to enjoy the privilege of venturing into the underground abyss known as the New York City Subway system, you must be wearing a face covering.
There they were, desperately fleeing a gunman or bravely helping rescue injured passengers, but still dutifully playing their part in the absurdist theatre of pandemic regulations scripted and directed for us by our little overlords.
Those flimsy pieces of fabric might have offered some minimal protection from the noxious fumes of the smoke bombs that Frank James allegedly set off in that subway car. But they were never going to be a match for the bullets fired from the 9mm semiautomatic handgun recovered at the scene. Many innocents were wounded, and it is something of an Easter miracle that no one was killed. For the millions of people who have dared to ride the city’s subway this year, the greatest danger to life isn’t some escaped molecule of a virus of rapidly diminishing potency. That exiguous risk is dwarfed by the combined threat of being pushed in front of an oncoming train, stabbed, hit in the head by a psycho with a hammer, robbed at gunpoint or being sexually assaulted. The number of robberies on the subway so far in 2022 is up 72% from the same period in 2021. There is no easily discover-able record of how many maskless riders have been struck down this year by Covid.
It’s hard to think of a tableau that better captures the disordered priorities of our governing classes than that scene in Brooklyn.
The politicians and bureaucrats who run almost all major cities, many states and the federal executive branch seem to care more about preserving the symbol of their authority that mask mandates represent than about the actual physical safety of citizens. In their warped ideology, crime is the result of material deprivation, prejudice and wicked police officers. The real need for enforcement is shown by those tempted to show their faces in public.
Masks are only an example. It’s hard to recall a time in recent American history when there has been such a monumental mismatch between the priorities of the people who govern us and the needs of the people. On issue after issue—crime, inflation, immigration— we have leaders so entrenched in their ideological priors that they seem incapable of, even uninterested in, addressing the actual challenges faced by hard-pressed Americans. Joe Biden was at it again last week with inflation. It has been clear for a long time that the return of this old horror is the largest threat to living standards and economic stability. But acknowledging that would have required the Democrats to abandon their ideological goals of ever-higher spending and forced them to reorder their governing priorities. So they didn’t.
Now, unable to dismiss it anymore, they have offered not a serious set of policies to relieve inflationary stresses, but a series of public-relations gimmicks that will have virtually no alleviating impact. Lifting the summertime ban on blended ethanol fuel will be about as effective in addressing higher energy costs as publicly shaming greedy corporations or blaming Vladimir Putin.
On immigration, the administration instinctively reflects a progressive mindset that regards border control as racist. It spent the better part of a year undoing the immigration restrictions imposed by its predecessor. As the inevitable border surge swelled, it feigned some concern. Now, as apprehensions of aliens in border areas reach their highest level in 22 years, what is its response? The repeal of Title 42, a measure that had been effective in curbing illegal crossings.
Interestingly, as the pandemic rationale for that measure is no longer deemed operative, the administration insists elsewhere that the emergency continues when it suits it. So, even as the nation yearns to return to normality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week announced another extension, for 15 days, of the federal mask mandate on airplanes and public transportation. It had been scheduled to end this Monday at long last. (And on Monday a judge in Tampa, Fla., held that the mandate exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority.)
On it goes. from needless bailouts for student loans to a fixation on sacrificing energy capacity in pursuit of long-term climate goals, Democrats display an unerring focus on aims Americans don’t see as pressing—or even necessary.
Obdurate insistence in the face of evidence of both rising unpopularity and accumulating failure is a common political flaw. No leader willingly acknowledges the irrelevancy of his policies. but it seems to be especially embedded in the modern progressive philosophy that the rulers know best; that they, by dint of their scientific expertise and moral superiority better understand our true needs.
Like all such authoritarian conceits, it doesn’t survive long in a democratic environment. That helps explain why leftists are so panicked at the thought of losing control over information, why they feel so threatened at the thought that a communications channel such as Twitter might fall out of their hands. Anything that challenges their right to go on pursuing their priorities is “disinformation.”
But it won’t take the intervention of a rogue billionaire to restore democratic equilibrium. A popular reckoning is coming.
November 8th 2022 is the Democrat’s D-day. Get ready Americans!
Originally posted 2022-04-19 14:52:13.
