What I am referring to are the D-Day invasion of Western Europe in 1944, it was the first direct attack on Western Europe and "Festung Europa", after the aborted attack on Dieppe in 1942. Some believed that this was a practice run on the Germans to see how they reacted. The British left a lot of material behind and a lot of casualties and prisoners from that raid. The Canadians were not happy about the results. But 2 years later the Allies tried again with much different results than the ill-fated raid.
On June 6th, the allies struck in Normandy on 5 beaches, Gold, Sword,Juno,Utah and Omaha, after a major bombardment with aircraft, battleships, destroyers, cruisers and the French resistance and more aircraft attacking the rear areas including railroad marshaling yards, bridges and other gathering points, they kept the Germans from reinforcing the bridgehead. Also a major factor was Adolph Hitler who refused to release the reserves because he believed that the main attack would come at Calais instead. This belief was reinforced by a major misinformation campaign by the allies to keep the Germans pinned at Calais and not reinforcing the embattled Germans at Normandy.
Some facts about D-day:
The D-Day Invasion at Normandy – June 6, 1944
Invasion Date
June 6, 1944 – The D in D-Day stands for “day” since the final invasion date was unknown and weather dependent Allied Forces
156,000 Allied troops from The United States, The United Kingdom, Canada,Free France and Norway Invasion Location
The Allied code names for the beaches along the 50-mile
stretch of Normandy coast targeted for landing were Utah, Omaha, Gold,
Juno and Sword. Omaha was the costliest beach in terms of Allied
casualties. The Armada
5,000 ships and landing craft
50,000 vehicles
11,000 planes The Commanders
United States – Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley
The United Kingdom – Bernard Law Montgomery, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Arthur Tedder, Miles Dempsey, Bertram Ramsay
Germany – Erwin Rommel, Gerd von Rundstedt, Friedrich Dollmann
Casualties
Numbers represent total killed, wounded, missing or captured
United States – 6,603 (1,465 killed)
United Kingdom – 2,700
Canada – 1,074 (359 fatal)Germany – Estimated between 4,000 – 9,000 Results
By June 11, with the beachheads firmly secured, more
than 326,000 troops had crossed with more than 100,000 tons of military
equipment. Paris was liberated on August 25. Germany surrendered on May
8, 1945.
As a treat, a couple of weeks ago when we were at work, there was our annual AMT appreciation day at the hanger, we had some free food, the tool vendors were out in force and we got some cool stuff. we had some airplanes show up in the hanger:
This P51D is sporting the Stripes on the fuselage and wings that the allies had painted to make Identification easier so there would be less friendly fire incidents.
Here is a better look at the P51D. It is the iconic fighter from WWII for the allies. This plane protected the B-17's and B-24's all the way to Berlin and back. This plane made the Strategic bombing strategy a success, as far as enabling the bombers to make it to their targets. Schweinfurt in 1943 was very costly to allied bombing efforts. This showed the folly of sending bombers unescorted against Luftwaffe fighters. Hermann Goering commented later when he saw a crashed P51 near Berlin, he "Knew the jig was up".
After being invaded on both sides by the allies, with most of Germany occupied, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker as Russian guns blasted Berlin. 11 months later, the Germans surrendered unconditionally to the allies. and the War in Europe was over.
Also on the other side of the world, in 1942 from June 4 through June 6 the Americans fought the Japanese at the battle of Midway. At the end, the Japanese lost 4 carriers, 1 cruiser and 300+ airplanes and worse than that, they lost the creme of their aviation strike force. the Japanese never recovered from that loss. We lost 1 carrier, 1 destroyer and 100+ airplanes. The details that started this in motion was the Doolittle Raid , this overrode Admiral Yamamoto caution in dealing with the United States. After the raid he pushed through operation MI, the invasion of Midway island, which he believed would force the Americans to leave their Pearl Harbor base to save their last remaining outpost in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy had to deal with the Americans at the Battle of the Coral Sea which they lost a light carrier Shoho a light carrier, but the dive bombing and torpedo planes of the Shokaku and the Zuikuku were savaged and the Shokaku was heavily damaged. This forced the Japanese to use their other 4 heavy or fleet carriers. the 6 carriers total, the Shokaku, Zuikaku, Akaki,Soryo,Hiryo and Kaga were the 6 carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. They represented the creme of Japanese Naval Aviation. With Zuikaku depleted in their air arm and the Shokaku heavily damaged, both were sidelined on the next battle. The Americans lost the Lexington, a Destroyer U.S.S. Sims and many aircraft. Also the U.S.S. Yorktown was damaged. The Americans got her to Pearl Harbor and in 3 days got her repaired enough for combat operations to join the Enterprise and Hornet to defend Midway Island. The American Cryptographers under Joe Rochefort were able to break the Japanese JN-25 imperial naval code which gave the Americans the plans of the Japanese to attack Midway Island. The Japanese believed that the Americans only had 2 carriers, the Enterprise and Hornet, they believed that the Yorktown was sunk at Coral Sea. The Americans met the Japanese at what was called the battle of Midway. The end results was that the Japanese lost 4 of their fleet carriers, the creme of their naval aviation, and they never recovered from the blow. It took 3 more years of hard fighting before the Japanese surrendered to the Americans on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.
The Plane that devastated the Japanese at Midway was the SBD Dauntlass, this plane was responsible the the destruction of the Japanese carriers at Midway.
The diving brakes are evident in this picture. of a Dauntlass diving on a Japanese carrier.
We got a treat along with the P51D we had visit, we also had a SBD Dauntlass visit us also.
The diving brakes that made her so devastating are shown here retracted. Here is another pic
of her from the other side.
I was very excited to see icons of American aviation in person. I explained the significance of these planes to the other mechanics...especially the younger ones. I wanted to crawl inside of them but I didn't want to insult the CAF by crawling all over their airplanes without permission.
The number of remaining D-Day vets is estimated anywhere
between 8,000 and 60,000. The Veterans Administration has detailed
numbers on total WWII vets remaining available at www.nationalww2museum.org/the-greatest-generation
I took Small and Noisy A.K.A. my son as I refer to him to the range as a treat for the end of the school year. He did extremely well on the CRCT test that is a requirement for promotion to the next grade. In Honor of Old NFO and Murphy's law who went to the range and fired a bunch of old rifles, I finally decided that my old rifles need to be given some exercise also. First off my son started shooting and he did extremely well. Here is a pic of him holding the rifle that "Santa" brought him.
Well he settled down and at the end of the lane where I had the target set up, he started shooting very respectable groups. the only time we had problems is when we had feeding issues. His rifle is finicky when it comes to ammunition.
Well I brought out 4 of my "old rifles and fired them for the first time in 12+ years. I even fired the 303 enfield. I happened to find 4 rounds in my ammo stash so all 4 got a workout. It was different shooting bolt action .30 caliber rifles when I have been shooting .22LR's in my AR-15. After finishing the range I took the time to clean them up. And took a couple of pictures of them. I should have taken pics of them at the range but I didn't. So I took them at home. The pics ain't near as good if I had used natural light.
Here are a 4 of them on the couch.
The first one is a 308 Enfield that the Indian Police used. It was made in Ishapore it is the same rifle as the 303 enfield but made for the 308 or the 7.62 NATO round. It was made in 1968. It uses the same action as the 303 Enfield.
The second one is my O3A3 Springfield, It was made in 1943 and it was the first "old" rifle I bought. I got it back in 1987 while I was in Germany.
It is my favorite rifle as far as my bolt action rifles go. The next one is my Mosin Nagant 91/59. I picked up in the mid 90's when they were importing them into the country. It was made in 1942 and was later converted by the Bulgarians to a carbine version. The last one is my 303 Enfield, it was made in 1945 at the same factory as my 308 Enfield at Ishapore. Funny how that worked out. Like I said, it was a blast shooting my "old" rifles. there is something about holding a piece of history in your hand. The rifles look much better in person than they look in the picture. And an added plus all the serial numbers match. I really don't care about stuff like that but I was pleasantly surprised when I cleaned them for the first time and the S/N matched.
Once I locate more ammo, I will take them to the range again.
What a weekend....I worked overtime on Friday:) good thing. Went to a baseball game on Saturday and watch the Braves pull one off against the Nationals in the 10th inning. Very good game. I was taking short and noisy to camp Grandma. Well we flew there first flight in. Great!! Well I knew that the return was dicey. Well I got bumped off the first return flight, I kinda expected that then got bumped off the second flight..because there was a cancellation in Atlanta from the feeder airline that flies into the city in Tennessee...well it is where it got pear shaped......All the passengers immediately tried to catch other flights out of there..and or arrange other modes of transportation out of there.and since I fly "free" I had no standing with the gate agents. They were really understanding on my desire to get back to the ATL. But when you fly "gratis" you take your chances. Well I went down to check on car rental...guess what..Remember all those passengers that got bumped by the feeder airline they got car rentals to get out of there...their cars were gone except the really BIG things that get really crappy mileage. Well I told my spousal unit what has transpired....and she in her graciousness drove all the way to this city to pick me up and drive me back to ATL to get my car..lotta hours in the car.
I made it home...went to sleep for a couple of hours then came into work. But this isn't the cherry on my day. The same understanding spousal unit bought me a Subway sub to take to work....well the damm D.O.G countersurfed it and got it. I walked downstairs and saw pieces of sandwich all over the kitchen floor.....What a day.
My last Post I had done before this one, I had used a lot of bad language, I normally don't use bad language since my kid likes to read my blog so I try to keep it "G" and "PG". But there are times that bad language can be used to make a point. I normally don't swear on my blog...but in this case I felt it was warranted. My apologies if I offended my regular readers.
On a different note...I am going back to the 70's
Lido Shuffle is a song by Boz Scaggs from the 1976 album Silk Degrees. The single reached #11 on the pop chart and #13 in the UK singles chart. Members of the backup band heard in the song later formed the band Toto.
I have been hearing through various media outlets that the D.O.J you know the organization that started "Fast and Furious", the failure to prosecute the black panthers in their intimidation of white voters in the city of brotherly love..., the same one that spied on journalist, lead the raid on Gibson Guitars, lessee...refused to enforce DOMA...I am sure that I forgot a few.... The same Eric Holder and the D.O.J has sent letters to Muslim groups and dispatched a top lawyer to reassure them that if people post what they consider inflammatory remarks against Islam that it would be a civil rights violation...Here are more details from Judicial Watch:
A top Department of Justice lawyer warns that posting offensive material on Islam will have legal repercussions. Judicial Watch reported – via Ace:
In its latest effort to protect
followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns
against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory
against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of
civil rights.
The move comes a few years after the administration became the first
in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that
the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the
unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San
Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not
to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the “us versus
them” environment created by the U.S. government, law enforcement agents
and fellow citizens is unacceptable and inconsistent with what America
is all about.
“Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build and strengthen our
nation,” Holder said after expressing that he is “grateful” to have
Muslims as a partner in promoting tolerance, ensuring public safety and
protecting civil rights. He also vowed to strengthen “crucial dialogue”
between Muslim and Arab-American communities and law enforcement.
Evidently that was a precursor of sorts for an upcoming Tennessee
event (“Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society”) that will feature the
region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern
District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to
increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the
terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other
circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.
The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will
address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even
those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws
can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed
at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with
civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising
freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”
Now Let me get this straight...If I say that Islam is a 7th century religion and all I learned about Islam I learned when I saw the planes crash into the WTC on 9/11. the D.O.J will come after me because I might offend a group of muslims....? Really?....you got to be shitting me.....The same D.O.J that selectively prosecutes cases depending on the agenda out of the white house? They will go after my 1st amendment rights....Lessee if I can find my 1st amendment rights real quick in my copy of the U.S. Constitution.:
FIRST AMENDMENT: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Yep found it. What part of the 1st amendment does the D.O.J not get...? Where is the fucking ACLU? those bastards protest at the drop of the hat when they feel that their first amendment is being trampled on...unless it is Obama and his minions doing it, then they are silent. Where is the outrage of the left...they like to scream about their first amendment rights on a regular basis. They are silent also. They are so P.C. dominated that they are afraid to say anything for fear of being labeled haters that they will bow down before this. As y'all can see from my language I have a real problem with this. Let me give a refresher on the 1st amendment...it protects all speech...even the "Unpopular" ones....The government cannot curtail what I say, it is my right as an American citizen to say what I want and have no fear of getting shipped off to a gulag. I see them trying to start a state religion...All other religions are at the same standard except Islam, it is held to a special category...why? All the prople in D.C. are intent on protecting Islam....is it our new state religion and I didn't get the memo...oh wait...I will have the D.O.J drop in for a visit and tell me that I have to kiss Islams ass or I will find myself in jail for violating the civil rights of muslims...what my civil right not to have a state religion forced down my and other Americans throat. What kind of crap is that....you have to be nice to Muslims....or else. Yep be nice to muslims or they get offended and either blow themselves up along with a bunch of innocents people or they cut your head off.
Why are we being nice to these savages? We are expected to be tolerant of their religious belief, but they are not tolerant of others.....You doubt me...Ask the Copts in Obama's Egypt. They have churches burned on a regular basis and the same with other religions in places where Islam is dominant. But nothing is said from the Obama white house now let people here in America make unkind comments about Islam in social media and they will put me in jail....? well fuck them this crap really pisses me off. Also mentioned in the ist amendment...you know the one that the ACLU assholes like to preach about....there is a part where it states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, Well it looks like we have a state religion now.....They can insult Christianity on a regular basis and it is OK, but insult the imams of Islam and there is hell to pay. or they chop your head off...
“WHEN THE ILL WINDS BLOW, I WILL ALWAYS STAND WITH THE MUSLIMS!”
Somebody at woek had copies of this spoof plastered all over the breakroom and we being a cynical jaded lot thought it was great! Here is the picture courtesy of MAD magazine.
I still an seeing on the blogosphere that there is a lot of people that want to see Obama and his minions impeached. From what I am seeing on the news...Eric Holder may be the first one to get picked off. Mr Holder D.O.J have a lot of things going on from "Operation fast and Furious" to failure to prosecute the black panthers voter intimidation case from 2008 to visiting the AP and getting a bunch of phone records from the reporters and The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.
The new details are revealed in a court filing detailing a back and forth between the Justice Department and the federal judges who oversaw the request to search a Gmail account belonging to Rosen, a reporter for Fox News.
The new details show U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Fox News reporter James Rosen. Justice wanted to secretly monitor Rosen’s Gmail account.
Machen, through a separate court order, also successfully stopped Google from telling Rosen that the government was spying on his e-mail account. Machen demanded to see all of Rosen’s e-mail records, including his deleted messages, e-mails in his trash folder and all attachments sent to and from the reporter.
The government successfully argued to keep the search warrant under seal for 18 months before making it public in November, 2011.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department said on Friday that senior officials including Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search an email account belonging to a Fox News reporter whose story on North Korea prompted a leak investigation. The D.O.J lied mislead to a judge to get the wiretap warrent and search warrent to Rosen. This is a continuing scandal that will continue to stir problems for the Obama Administration. Also We still have Bengazi in the news, this will hurt Hillery in 2016, from what I have seen and read, the Clintons have no love for Obama and crew who ripped her off on the democrat nominations for president in 2008 relating to her delegates. She may wind up taking the fall on account of Bengazi. Only time will tell.
We also have the IRS scandal continuing to cause more headaches for the Obama administration, there are democrat and republicans talking about a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS targeting conservative groups. If a special prosecutor is appointed, he will have the authority to dig much farther and this will cause a major embarrassment for the Obama whitehouse. I believe that this goes all the way to the top. This is Chicago politics writ large. Obama is doing the same thing he did when first started his political career. Dig up all the dirt on your opponents and use your friends to make things difficult for your enemies.
There may be a unanticipated factor in all this. You know that if Obama steps down because of all the scandals...guess who will take over. Vice President Biden. I am positive that Biden is out of the loop, he is a loose cannon and cannot keep his mouth shut. I belive that he was excluded on account of his "open mouth first and insert foot then think about what he said". Imagine President Biden.....Now that is scary.
On a different note, we will have our Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower. I thought about this when my job went away at Ford motor company.
"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100,[1] spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.
The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure.[1] Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[citation needed]
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.
Truly, though as he was struggling for a title for the song(who knows). I met Billy in a bar in Washington D.C. called the "Crazy Horse". I was sitting at the bar and this guy next to me asked me for a cigarette. I said "sure", he said "thanks, I'll dedicate my next album to you". I said, "what, are you a star or something?" He said, "kinda". I asked him, what's your name, he said "Billy" (and I began thinking of who was named Billy that was a star).
The night went on, he was enticed with the waitress at the bar (this is before C.B.) and wrote her a note on a napkin (and signed it)(keep in mind we are still sitting next to each other). She threw the note the trash (discreetly).
So, were sitting there, having a good time, and it dawns on me, who he may be. I turn to him and asked "are you Billy Joel?" he says "don't let anyone know I'm in here". I say "OK" and we just kept sitting there and having a good time joking around and stuff. Anyway, later, he asks me if If I want to meet some of his friends who were with him and I said "OK". We strolled around the club and he introduced me to his brother and some football players that were accompanying him. That was all cool (wish I could have remembered all their names).
So were hanging out, walking around and talking and he asks me if I want to go to a party with all of them later on, I said that would be cool (or something like that). We shook hands and departed each others company. Well, that's kinda where the story ends as, we went our separate ways (around the club). Never hooked up with them (the entourage) again.
Although he didn't dedicate the album to me, I think the thought stuck in his head "I'll dedicate my next album to you". He did, my name is Allen Hinton and whether you believe it or not, it's my story................ ask Billy if it's true or not. I am Still alive and well Billy, Still alive and well, in North Carolina now my home.
Peace Billy, you've done well! Hope all is well with you, my friend. Hope all is well with you!
A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying the following:
Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here).
When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths:
This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar.
The song was met with mixed responses in Allentown. Some criticized the song as degrading and full of working-class archetypes.[4] But when Joel returned to the area following the album's release and the song became a hit record, he was awarded the key to the city by Allentown's mayor, who praised it as "a gritty song about a gritty city."
Before a sold-out crowd at Stabler Arena in neighboring Bethlehem, People magazine reported that Joel was greeted enthusiastically with a five minute standing ovation as he closed his third encore with "Allentown." At the end of the song and extended ovation, Joel was greeted with even more sustained applause when, in an apparent defense of the song's meaning, he pointedly told the Allentown crowd, as is his wont at the end of every one of his concerts: "Don't take any shit from anybody."[5]
Music video
The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original airing of the video featured partial male nudity in the opening of the song as steelworkers showered in their locker-room, but this scene was edited from subsequent airings on MTV.
I pulled this off Rush's website. It pertains to the other posts that I have posted(pardon the pun) in the past week. I have heard the people from the I.R.S. say " it was low level operatives" that did it. Well that was crap. It was sanctioned by the upper staff and management of the agency. Between the union offering their support and the upper management backing the play, it was open season on the TEA PARTY and other groups. Really...Do you know a bureaucrat that would stick their neck out? Not a chance..being a bureaucrat. they learn to blend in, not make waves...Don't do more than anybody else...Unless it was sanctioned and encouraged. Let this continue, lets keep digging. The article is from Rush, The cartoons are from me.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If you're just really hankering to write some e-mails to people about your true thoughts of the IRS, this is the day to do it. They're furloughed. This is May 24th, the IRS is furloughed today because of the sequester, and then of course Monday is Memorial Day, they're not working. You might have an entire weekend where you can unload. Plus Lois Lerner, in the, whatever it was, three or four years, it's now scrolled out of my vision, Lois Lerner was paid something like $780,000 over four years, or three years, where she was engaged in all of this activity that was aimed at denying tax-exempt status to Tea Party groups. Salary and bonus. She was earning more than members of Congress. She was earning more than some senators, some committee chairmen.
And now she's been placed on administrative leave. Do you know what that means? Paid vacation. Not paid leave. Paid vacation. Lois Lerner. So the IRS, it's the first day of the Memorial Day weekend, and everything's pretty much changed its vibe. There isn't a whole lot of going on. Everybody psychologically, mentally, already is engaged in the long weekend. Look, Lois Lerner from 2009 to 2012 earned about $780,000. That was for a job well done. Paid more than $740,000 between 2009 and 2012, which is the period that the IRS was targeting the Tea Party. Her salary, therefore, averaged more than $185,000 a year, which is higher than congressmen and senators. On top of that, she received more than $42,000 in bonuses.
But if she helped Obama get reelected -- two days ago, three days ago, folks, I spent a lot of time -- by the way, I've now seen this reported in a number of places, and again, it's cutting edge stuff. We've been talking for the longest time about the phenomena of the 2012 election. Obama got millions fewer votes in 2012 than he did in '08, but so did Romney get many million fewer votes than did McCain. And up until this IRS scandal hit, the analysis of Romney's low vote turnout centered on white voters. There were supposedly four million white voters who just didn't show up. And then people began to offer their theories, me included, as to why, based on that statistic.
And you remember the theories; they ran the gamut. Well, a lot of these people were conservative and didn't like Romney, he wasn't conservative enough, and so they sat it out. Another explanation was these people, they're the backbones of the country. They're the ones getting up and going to work every day. They're the ones losing their jobs. They're the ones that are trying hard to improve, play by the rules, and nobody's paying attention to them. Everybody's focused on the illegals. Everybody's focused on gay marriage. Everybody's focused all these other things, "to hell with it," and they just stayed home.
Now we know it may have been all that, but there was also vote suppression. That's what this IRS scandal is, folks, voter suppression. This election, the 2012 election honestly deserves an asterisk next to it. Lois Lerner and the IRS made sure -- oh, and here's another thing. It is still going on. Don't think that it's ended. Let's say you're a Tea Party group and you're applying for tax-exempt status. You don't have to be denied in order to be discriminated against. What if your application has been in for years and it's still open and you just haven't heard? It's the equivalent of being denied. You still can't get into action, you can't get you can't get into gear.
So this partisan attack on Tea Party and other conservative groups concerning tax-exempt status is still going on. There are groups who have applications in, and they're just languishing, no action has been taken. So the IRS doesn't have to flat-out deny you your status. They can just delay the approval. So you're sitting out there in limbo. And that is continuing to happen. And the upshot of it is that a lot of Tea Party money was never raised, and therefore was never spent on this campaign. A lot of Tea Party enthusiasm was tamped down. A lot of religious Tea Party groups never got into gear. They were never authorized to. They were never authorized to start. They needed to be able to fund-raise in a tax-exempt way in order to get starts and they weren't.
There is no question about it now. That's what this is all about. There was a flat-out effort to suppress the conservative vote in this election while everybody was listening to the allegation that conservatives wanted to suppress the black vote or the gay vote, all the attention focused on photo ID, to be able to vote. The Democrats, "That's racism. That's an effort to suppress the black vote." You remember all during that campaign the Democrats worried about Republican vote fraud and suppressing the vote. Well, where it really happened was the government, the IRS, another political arm of the Obama regime literally suppressing conservative voting, fundraising, and turnout.
You know, even I end up taking too much at face value. The reason that I thought all of the pre-election polling in 2012 was wrong was 'cause they were using '08 turnout for their models. And I was sitting here telling you, all frustrated, "What about 2010? Does nobody remember the 2010 midterms?" The 2010 midterms, the Democrat Party got smoked, and it was the Tea Party that did it. The Democrat Party got smoked all the way down to local elections, where they got beat. I think the Democrats lost close to 700 seats nationwide, including the Republicans taking back the House. It was of a huge turnaround in 2010. It was massive. And I just naturally concluded that that turnout would show up again in 2012 because what was it that inspired that turnout?
Obamacare. And the stimulus. And every other assault that Obama had made on this economy in this country. Nothing had changed. It had only gotten worse. And I kept looking at these pre-election polls which show Obama winning by five or six, said this doesn't make sense to me. The election happens, I look at the exit polling data: "55% still blame Bush for the economy." When I saw that, I knew it was over. Five o'clock exit poll, I knew it. And then the other question that sealed it for me was: "Cares about people like me." That one broke out 81 to 19 for Obama. And that was the five o'clock exit poll. It's over. The whole night then, everybody kept waiting for Ohio as the last chance.
So the election's over, we're analyzing it, talking about this, "What happened to the 2010 turnout?" Now we know, folks, now we know. The Democrats did take note of what happened to 'em in 2010. They did take note of what the Tea Party did, and by God, they made sure they weren't gonna be able to do it in 2012, and they did. And those pre-election polls that were using a 2008 turnout for their modeling. And you remember we would marvel here at the samples that would have Democrats plus 11 and plus eight, and they were basing that on what happened in 2008, and nothing changing in 2012. So what about 2010? I said, "Now, 2010, especially, there wasn't even a Republican on the ballot." There wasn't a Republican issue on the ballot. There wasn't a single thing on the ballot that would unite and inspire Republicans. What that 2010 turnout was about was stopping Obama. I thought, "Well, those people are gonna show up again." And then we were told "Nope, Romney made 'em stay home." That never made sense to me. I'm sorry, it just never made sense to me. I never understood intellectually how people who were so opposed to Obama in 2010 because of what was happening to the country could, in two years, end up having more dislike for Romney.
That just didn't fit. But we didn't know then what we know now. We had to accept that explanation, and I'm feeling like an idiot here for doing so. 'Cause now we know there was utter -- there's no other way to describe this. It was pure, utter voter suppression. That's what the IRS was doing. It was no different than what the New Black Panther Party did at places in Philadelphia. There was voter intimidation there at those polling places. So this is really serious stuff. And it's not getting traction really beyond the political class. Not yet, be honest about it, low-information voters, the polling data anyway says they don't care, who knows. But I'll tell you, I never forget that Thomas Edsall piece. I quoted this over and over, New York Times column. It was in November of 2011, which they admitted that Obama was gonna abandon the white working class vote and try to suppress it.
That's what the purpose that column was. They came out and said what they were going to do. They were going to try to depress and dispirit the conservative vote while giving up on the white middle class vote. They were gonna give up on getting the vote, but they were gonna do what they could to make sure they didn't show up, and they did. It was just another form of election fraud. Now, in hindsight, nothing you can do about it, other than learn from it in the future, but it really is maddening.
I honor Memorial Day because it honors veterans that have died in the service of their country. I know people and have lost friends in service to this country. Memorial day is more than the start of the summer break. Honor those that served and died.
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday which occurs every year on the final Monday of May. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate
soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day
had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the
military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor
those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an
American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.
Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday
in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American
South, notably in the mountains. In cases involving a family graveyard
where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently
are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion
to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the
designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with kinfolk
and others. There often is a religious service and a "dinner on the
ground," the traditional term for a potluck
meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or
tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before
the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the
"memorial day" idea.
Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day;
Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while
serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military
veterans, living or dead.
I have been reading some of the blogs in the blogosphere and there is a push to impeach President Obama for failure to heed his oath of office and corruption, basically the High Crimes and Misdemeanors" and haul him in front of the senate to face charges. For the many scandals and irregularities that are evident. In a perfect world, I would say " sure". But we don't live in a perfect world. The republicans got burned big time trying to get Clinton for perjury or "lying under oath" Remember the Monica Lewenski scandal? Well the democrats and the media turned it into " It is all about sex" and is oral sex or not? The media trumpeted the line that it is all about sex, sex,sex...nothing about perjury . They controlled the initiative and Ken Starr who is a honest prosecutor was vilified in the media. A lot of the republicans got burned by this. Also in a perfect world, the rule of law would be sacrosanct but we live in a country that the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of man or the rule of the mob. The republicans won't have the stones to try an impeachment of President Obama no matter how many laws he breaks.
President Obama has the control of the mob. If the republicans tried to do an impeachment , the narrative would be " well it is because he is a black man" The inner cities and area that are overrun with urban yoots and other hard core democrats will explode in riots since they believe that President Obama is persecuted because he is a " Strong black man" and "whitey don't like that". Don't like those words...They ain't mine..I have heard this from Al Sharpton and other race pimps since President Obama burst into the scene back in 2007. We will just have to keep pounding on his administration and pick off the people around him. Forget going after President Obama, he has the trump card, he can play the race card and get a pass from the guilt driven liberals and the conservatives will be called "racist" or Goodwins Law will be enacted. We have to just marginalize him as much as possible.
The Obama Administration is more like something
we’d see in a corrupt African country, run by someone like Idi Amin than
an Administration run by Americans in a free Republic. This is what happens when "hope and change" is elected. The founding fathers feared such base emotions, we were formed as a constitutional republic not a democracy. The founding Fathers considered "Democracy" or the Athenian way to be mob rule. Constitutional Republic safe guards everything under the rule of law. Not the rule of the mob that can be swayed by emotions that are counter to the long term interest of the country.
Here are some more pictures that I have used on the past to compare President Obama to the 3rd world countries that use the same tactics that he uses against his political enemies.
Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, it used to be the breadbasket of Africa, but due to misrule and corruption, they now have to import foodstuff to feed its population. He uses mob rule and uses the organs of the state to target his political enemies.
President Obama, the President of the United States, We used to be the beacon of freedom and a country that believed in its own exceptionalism. Now we have 1 out of 7 people drawing some kind of government assistance and he promises Obama Phones to his loyal subjects. He also uses mob rule, he uses the organs of the state to go after his political enemies.
I did a post on May 14th about the government union might be involved in the IRS scandal with the Union leadership pushing to help the Chicago Messiah get reelected. Y'all can read it here. Now I see this on American Spectator and it confirms my initial assessment that the government union went all out to help the the democrats and their obamamessiah get reelected.
This shows a serious disconnect, the government is supposed to stay out of the election process, this is what the people who formed the merit system for hiring of government employees to preclude political patronage and having peoples jobs tied to politicians. Now we are seeing the effect of the chicago system or the Tammany Hall type system. This doesn't bode well for the Republic with the advent of a new political machine in the works. This will cause a major disconnect with the average American citizen who will see a government less responsive to their concerns and more beholden to political interest and actually a threat politically or financially or worse to the American way of life.
AMERICAN SPECTATOR:
------------------------------------------------------------- March 31, 2010.
According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st. The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:
Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30 In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”
The very next day after her White House meeting with the President,
according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS
employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:
April
1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need
for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations
Unit Program Manager Agreed.
In
short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea
Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President
Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to
open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the
IG report.
The
NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along
with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year
IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008
and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and
2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates."
In addition, Kelley ALSO met with the First Wookie! Kelley, Colleen Potus/Flotus 12/03/2009 18:30.
Kelley ALSO met with Obama aides.
“Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 11/04/2009 10:00” “Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 12/01/2009 12:00” “Kelley, Colleen Nelson, Greg 01/14/2010 13:40”
I saw this on back to back on Yahoo News. You know that it is really big when the mainstream media is starting to pile on the Obama administration. I am hopeful that the blinders and blind devotion that the lamestream media has the their chicago messiah is starting to fall.....bit late since they shamelessly toted his water through 2 election cycles
President Barack Obama crosses the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, May 19, 2013. (Jonathan Ernst/ …The
Justice Department spied extensively on Fox News reporter James Rosen
in 2010, collecting his telephone records, tracking his movements in and
out of the State Department and seizing two days of Rosen’s personal
emails, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI
agent also accused Rosen of breaking anti-espionage law with behavior
that—as described in the agent's own affidavit—falls well inside the
bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts
Rosen among his friends.)
UPDATE: Fox News responds with a blistering statement that asserts Rosen was "simply doing his job" in his role as "a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”
The revelations surfaced with President Barack Obama’s administration already under fire
for seizing two months of telephone records of reporters and editors at
the Associated Press. Obama last week said he makes “no apologies” for
investigations into national security-related leaks. The AP's CEO, Gray
Pruitt, said Sunday that the seizure was "unconstitutional."
The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined. Read more here
As the chair of the Tea Party Caucus, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R –
Minn.) is railing against the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups,
saying: “clearly, this had political implications…that would benefit
President Obama.”
“Over and over and over, the common thread is the Obama
administration was too willing to use the government to advance their
agenda, their political agenda,” Bachmann tells The Fine Print.
Bachmann says individuals in the Tea Party have been voicing concerns
to her about getting “ridiculous questions” from the IRS for quite some
time and asserts that other groups, in addition to the Tea Party, were
also targeted.
“The IRS couldn't do enough to part the waters to make sure that
every progressive, left-wing leaning organization got their new
tax-exempt status,” she says. “So they were able to get a favorable tax
treatment, while Christians, pro Israel, conservative, Tea Partiers,
pro-growth, pro-job, pro-business, they were hurt.”
The congresswoman says the recent controversy highlights her broader
concerns that the IRS may gain access to people’s medical information
under the Affordable Care Act.
“When people realize that their most personal, sensitive, intimate,
private healthcare information is in the hands of the IRS that's been
willing to use people's tax information against political opponents of
this administration, then people have pause and they pull back in
horror,” Bachmann says.
The Obama administration has refuted the claim that the IRS will
handle people’s medical records, but Bachmann is not convinced. The
long-time critic of the president’s health care plan led a vote in the
House last week calling for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“Well the ball is in Harry Reid's court now, because the House of
Representatives has done its part,” Bachmann says of the measure that
passed the House, but is not expected to gain traction in the Senate.
While the former presidential candidate says she isn’t thinking about
running for president again, she isn’t exactly ruling it out either,
saying: “you never know.”
“My calculus never has been about politics,” Bachmann says. “It’s
really about the issues. And I will tell you, the reason why I ran for
president is because I knew I had the backbone and the spine to repeal
Obamacare.”
I just came back from camping with the cub scouts, and I am tired, we have been wide open since before Christmas and I am just pooped. We had an abundance of rain Liquid Sunshine so it was a bit messy but the kids had a good time. I mentioned to my wife on the road trip back, "I am camped out". Well I have cub day camp in june and the wife is taking our son to Webelo Day camp in July so she took some time off for that one. I am hoping my days settle down, I have a lot of stuff that needs to be handled at home and I am hoping to find the time soon.
On a different note, I see the spin meisters trying to cover the Obungler administration on Bengazi, the IRS targeting Tea Party groups and his justice department pulling phone records from the AP. Goebbels would be proud to see the big lie repeated again and again, if they keep saying it, they are hoping that the American citizens will swallow the deception. I heard on some poll that 53% of the American public approve of his handling of the situation and I keep thinking " What survey and who are they asking these questions to"? They must have gone to their super duper secret roster of hardcore democrat supporters to get those numbers.
Well anyway here is another installment of "Monday Music. I decided to go with "Pressure" from Billy Joel, it is off his Nylon Curtain album and I considered it a very good album. I still have my record that is LP at home.
"Pressure" is a synthesizer-driven song from 1982 by Billy Joel about difficulty dealing with the stress of daily living. The song was a single from the album The Nylon Curtain.
Themes
In Night School, a show airing on MTV in 1982 that ran roughly a half-hour long, in which he answers questions posed by audience members, Billy Joel reveals that the pressure he was talking about in the song was something along the lines of writing pressure and pressure to provide.
When I was starting out and trying to get things going, the pressure was if you don't get things going, they're going to throw you out of this apartment. There was that kind of pressure. "I'm hungry," my stomach was going, "pressure, food." I think that's pretty intense pressure. The pressure I was writing about in this song wasn't necessarily music business pressure, it was writing pressure. ... At the time, I was saying, "Well, I gotta write some more stuff for the album"; I was about halfway through, and I said, "Well, what am I gonna do? I don't have any ideas, it's gone, it's dead, I have nothing, nothing, nothing. There's nothing." And then the woman who is my secretary came into the house at that point and said, "Wow, you look like you're under a lot of pressure. I bet you that'd be a good idea for a song." And I went, "Thank you!"
Single and album edits
The single version removes the third verse (starting with "Don't ask for help, you're all alone") and the second bridge. This version of the song was included in the original release of the Greatest Hits I & II compilation album, but the full album version was restored for the remastered edition, as well as the Complete Hits Collection in 1997. Radio stations vary in whether they play the shortened or the full version of the song. The song is written in a minor key. In playing the song on a TV special, Joel played the song in a major key, and commented that it sounds like a polka when played that way.
Music video
The music video of the song features the full version, instead of the shortened one. A common motif in the video is the use of water, whether splashed on Joel's shoes, rushing out from school desks, or flooding his apartment. The video was directed by Russell Mulcahy and made its premiere on MTV on September 9, 1982. Several scenes in the video make references to movies such as A Clockwork Orange and Poltergeist. During a game show parody two-thirds of the way through the video, a bio for Joel briefly flashes on the screen. It reads: "William Joel, Age: 29, Occupation: Computer Software, Interests: fast bikes, cooking, water sports, satellite." Joel was actually 33 when the video was shot.
I pulled this off Yahoo News and cut and pasted it. It has information that I never knew about. I thought it was ironic that I saw this on Yahoo News.
After IRS scandal: Right-wing fear of government isn't paranoid
Whatever
the motivations for the IRS targeting conservative groups, it has drawn
condemnation from across the political spectrum. Liberals also worry
the scandal will feed right-wing paranoia of government. But for
conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not
hysteria.
By Nicole Hemmer | Christian Science Monitor – 5 hrs ago
Last week’s revelation that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups was met with near universal disapproval. The IRS singled out organizations
with words like "tea party" and "patriot" in their name for scrutiny.
In the words of Treasury officials, this focus was clearly
“inappropriate.”
What’s less clear is whether the
IRS’s motivations were partisan or practical. Were they deliberately
trying to stifle conservative voices? Or were they simply using a
shortcut to weed out new political groups who don’t meet tax-exempt
status? Whatever the motivations, the results have drawn condemnation
from across the political spectrum. But criticisms from the left have
also been tinged with concern about how the episode would bolster the
conservative argument against big government.
Many liberals worried the IRS
scandal would feed what one Democratic aide called “the right-wing
paranoia that the government is out to get them.” MSNBC host Chris Matthews grumbled recently, "They always expect the worst." But for conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not hysteria.
Fifty years ago this month,
journalists Donald Janson and Bernard Eismann published “The Far Right,”
a catalogue of conservative organizations across America. Raising the
alarm about the coming conservative threat was something of a cottage
industry in the early 1960s. “The Far Right” would share shelf-space
with books like “The Radical Right” and “Danger on the Right.” But what
separated “The Far Right” from the rest was its revelation of the Reuther Memorandum.
Commissioned by Attorney General Robert Kennedy and penned by labor leader Victor Reuther, the 24-page memo detailed “possible Administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.”
Reuther defined the “radical right” as “bounded on the left by Senator Goldwater and on the right by [John Birch Society founder] Robert Welch.”
And he suggested plenty of ways for the government to curtail the
right’s influence, from putting conservatives on the attorney general’s
subversive list to using the Federal Communications Commission to limit their airtime.
But the administration’s real power, Reuther argued, lay with the
IRS. Conservative media and organizations needed money to function.
Therefore, “action to dam up these funds may be the quickest way to turn
the tide” against right-wing groups.
He called for revocation of organizations’ tax-exempt status, a
tactic similar to the approach which the IRS is currently under fire for
possibly employing. Reuther also suggested the IRS investigate
corporations that advertised in right-wing media, contending they were
peddling propaganda rather than selling products.
Finally, Reuther hinted conservative donors and media personalities
should be audited, noting “there is the big question whether [they] are
themselves complying with the tax laws.”
While it is unclear whether the memo served as the basis for policy,
during the Kennedy administration the IRS cracked down on “ideological
organizations” and the FCC targeted conservative broadcasters.
When conservatives learned of the memo’s existence in 1963, they
began to see their audits and increased regulation as part of a larger
effort to silence right-wing voices. Writing about the memo soon after
it was made public, the National Review’s
editors remarked, “[I]t is chilling to reflect on the fact that the
machinery for intimidation, for discretionary harassment, is right there
and in perfect running order.”
That machinery – the federal
bureaucracy – was conceived by the Progressives (and the goo-goos, their
“good government” predecessors) as a haven from political influence
rather than a repository of it. They believed that through civil-service
reform they could create government without politics.
But as conservatives (as well as many on the left) have been constantly reminded – in battles over the Fairness Doctrine and tax-exempt status and subversive lists – power is never neutral.
In 1971, well before Americans were aware of the Nixon
administration’s weaponized bureaucracy, conservative newspaper
publisher Eugene Pulliam ran a lengthy ad in the Washington Post to make just this point.
Pulliam argued America had a three-party system: the Republicans, the Democrats,
and the Bureaucrats. And the Bureaucrats, he said, were the “strongest
and most powerful” because they are accountable to neither politicians
nor public opinion.
Pulliam had a point. There were limits to what Nixon could make the IRS or the FBI
do (and it’s hard to imagine a president trying harder than Nixon to
make the bureaucracy bend to his will). Nor could the Reuther Memorandum
transform the federal government into an efficient
conservative-crushing machine. But it made clear that the right couldn’t
count on the neutrality of the bureaucracy.
Yet the current IRS scandal demonstrates how far conservatives have
come in 50 years. In 1963, the Reuther Memorandum gained traction in
conservative media but nowhere else. It barely merited a mention beyond
right-wing publications and broadcasts.
Today, the IRS story – whether it turns out the IRS had partisan
intentions in discriminating against right-wing groups or not – is at
the center of national debate. As it should be. However Americans may
disagree about the role of government, the dangers of politicized
bureaucracy are not necessarily the fever-dreams of a paranoid mind but
appear to be one of the troubling realities of modern governance. Nicole Hemmer is a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. She also teaches history at the University of Miami.
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There wasn't a Republican issue on the ballot. There wasn't a single thing on the ballot that would unite and inspire Republicans. What that 2010 turnout was about was stopping Obama. I thought, "Well, those people are gonna show up again." And then we were told "Nope, Romney made 'em stay home." That never made sense to me. I'm sorry, it just never made sense to me. I never understood intellectually how people who were so opposed to Obama in 2010 because of what was happening to the country could, in two years, end up having more dislike for Romney.
