Thanks Vets

                So there are a few guys I want to say thanks to this weekend. Really, there are a whole lot of men and women who deserve thanks. Anyone who has ever worn a U.S. military uniform to be specific.

                Well, except for that Bergdahl guy, or whatever her name is now. Obama can thank him/her.

                Some of these guys are deceased.  Most are not. Only one of them reads my ramblings as far as I know.  They all deserve my thanks.

                Starting with my father-in-law who served in the Pacific Theater in World War II. He talked his parents into giving their permission for him to enlist at 17.  Seventeen. Take a look at the 20-something you know living in his or her parent’s house trying to decide if he should work for a living, go back to school, or you know, hang out.

                My father-in-law mainly only spoke of his KP duty on the USS Kingsbury. He liked working in the kitchen. But he had a battle station and he manned it a few times. That’ll make you grow up fast. Seventeen.

                His main job was riding in the smaller troop transports to deliver infantry to various beaches in the Pacific. You know, the boats whose front fell open as a door through which dashed our brave young men into frequently hostile conditions. He never said if they ever picked them up later. Seventeen.

                Then he came home, finished high school, went to work for Burlington-Northern every day for 35 years, and raised the family that gave me my wonderful wife who has given me my wonderful family. Thanks one hell of a lot Jim.

                I worked for a guy who was a tank commander under Patton. He was a great guy with a lot of great stories, not a single one of which that I ever heard mentioned live fire and you know there were many.

                I worked with a guy who said his time in the service was dedicated to making sure Guam was not overstocked with tequila. He had a weird little tattoo of a skunk on an anchor on his forearm that he swears he had no recollection of receiving.

                I worked with a fellow who spent his Vietnam era years in the service stationed in South Korea. At night they would listen to the radio traffic in Vietnam and thank God they were in Korea. And then feel guilty for having the thought.

                I had a business associate who said he spent his 19^th birthday in a firefight in Vietnam and I worked closely with another Vietnam vet who had/has a paralyzing case of PTSD, God bless him. I hear that he is in a program now caring for horses, or vice versa, that is really, really helping. Lord, I hope so.  Thank you, pal.

                Forgive me if sometimes I think Jane Fonda should lose her Hollywood horse teeth to an angry vet with a roofing hammer.

                When Barb and I lived in Detroit I worked with a couple of Vietnam vets. One had been a sniper for the Rangers. He told lots of stories about bugs and snakes and one about a tiger but never any about what he did, other than to say he averaged one spotter per two trips out. Don’t be a spotter.

                The other fellow had been a medivac pilot shot down behind enemy lines.  He crawled back to safety under cover of night, covering himself with leaves and detritus during the day so as not to be discovered by patrols of Viet Cong. He said he kind of lost track of time during all that from the fear and the fever but when he made safety the calendar said it was three weeks later. I believe him because he had the skin condition to prove it.

                He and his family invited Barb and me to spend our first Thanksgiving away from home and family with them. Swell guy.

                One of my best friends served himself as did/are all three of his sons. One of his sons recently returned from his second tour in Afghanistan or Iraq—I should know but I don’t—where he led his own platoon of men on missions searching for and neutralizing bombs. He returned with all his limbs and digits and we are all very grateful for that.

                A friend of my son’s was not so lucky, returning from his Middle Eastern tour minus both his legs. Lost to a roadside bomb, followed by a medically induced coma that lasted literally months. He woke up at Walter Reed. Now, I’m told, he lives quite independently with his girlfriend and has a positive attitude that is very inspirational. One of the things he does now is ski instruction for other paraplegics.

                Is “thanks” even close to being a big enough word?

                And another friend of my son’s was incredibly lucky having returned from two tours in Afghanistan as a machine door gunner—one of the jobs a guy is least likely to return home from. Thanks to that brave young man.

                And there are others. So many others. My uncle served—kept Greenland from being invaded by the Russians and the Irish. I have a cousin-by-marriage and a nephew-by-marriage who served. And there are probably a score of others that just aren’t coming to mind right now.

                I mean no offense if I have left you or your loved one out and you feel like I should not have. Every man and woman who put that uniform on and risked their lives or simply did their jobs in order to keep us safe and preserve this great republic of states deserves our thanks this Memorial Day and every day.

                Tuesday we can get back to shrieking at each other again over stupid political differences. Until then why don’t we all bow our heads for a second.

Isn't That Special?

                For a nation that alleges as one of its founding principles that its citizens are innocent until proven guilty the left sure wants to throw a rope over a tree limb with Trump’s name on it awfully bad, don’t they?

                I, for one, am glad a special investigator has been appointed “to get to the bottom” of Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russians. Let’s just get it over with and either shoot the guy at dawn or make the left shut the hell up. Like any finding other than something unspeakably horrible about the President will ever shut them up. And what would that be, anyway?

                I’m still waiting for one single, solitary wing nut on the left, either in the media or the hallowed halls of the 12%-approval-rated congress, or in my own damn neighborhood, to tell me what the result or outcome of that alleged collusion is supposed to look like.  I suppose the knee jerk answer is that they helped Trump steal the election (how is still a bit elusive) but I still get their narratives confused about whether it was Comey’s fault or the Russian’s fault. I used to just shake my head at them but my neck is getting tired.

                News flash: Most of the folks in the miles and miles and acres and acres of the mostly red counties on the mostly red election map already thought Hillary was at worst a murderous and corrupt thief and at best an unscrupulous, dishonest, two-faced loser before either Comey or the Russians would have had a chance to say “Boo” in those weeks (years for some of us) leading up to the election.

                I even know some democrats who voted for Trump, but I will pull a lamestream media trick and refer to them as “unnamed sources,” so that no one takes a baseball bat to them or their property…in the name of the First Amendment, of course.

                I think it is ironic that Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General who wrote the memo which was forwarded to Trump that said Comey “could not continue” as FBI Director, is the fellow who assigned a special investigator to the whole mess. And let’s not get sidetracked with Trump’s statement that he had already decided to fire Comey.

What if he had? What if he was just waiting for a third party confirmation to pull the trigger? What if his ego is merely too large to let it be someone else’s idea? What if he is enough of a leader to prefer the heat be on him rather than a member of his administration? What if it mattered?

The rage and hatred of the loving left that brought us to this point is going to provide a fascinating analytical study at some point in history. The naked bias that the left continues to deny would be breathtaking if I could stop laughing.

We need a special prosecutor to investigate whether Trump colluded with the Russians to some unspecified end?  The “investigations” into Trump’s relationship with the Russians as well as Finding Bigfoot would have gone on without all the hysterics on the left after Comey was fired anyway. It was already established. And now I’m glad it’s in the hands of someone other than Comey.

It seems that these days the definition of a scandal is simply to establish an accusation even if it’s completely unfounded. And the definition of an “impeachable scandal” is to make that accusation loudly and angrily and to use the word “impeach” in a sentence. Put it in the hands of a blindly furious liberal media and there ya’ go.

If the media were capable of doing its job; if the left were capable of anything but rage and hatred against all things conservative; if congressmen and senators on the right were capable of anything but trying to maintain the status quo and hold on to their jobs and ever-growing bank accounts (man, that’s a lot of ifs), maybe we could have some special investigations into a few other things.

For example, the intent behind Obama’s open-mic comment about nuclear disarmament of the U.S. after he didn’t have us pesky voters to worry about. Or the IRS targeting of conservative political action groups on his watch if not at his direction. Or the scam that was Solyndra. Or his choosing to ignore court decisions that reversed his immigration policies. Or the freaking pallet of cash he gave to his new pals the Iranians. Or the false narrative about the origin of the Benghazi attack. Or the allegations of his justice department busing in protestors for the Treyvon Martin incident and others.

Those would be a good start.

I’d really like to see investigations of even a few of Hillary’s transgressions. I still hear voices on the left saying there was no problem at all with Hillary deleting 30,000 emails, maintaining her own personal server in a storeroom in Denver, and making U.S. security vulnerable to any decent computer hack with her carelessness. Really? We’re worried about Russians hacking our election but not about Hillary forwarding classified information that ended up on Anthony Wiener’s computer?

Our friend James Comey said she was innocent because she had no malicious intent. I’m not at all convinced of that but since when is intent an ironclad defense, not to mention that doesn’t undo the damage?

That investigation would have been even more interesting because I don’t actually think Comey made that decision. I think it was forced on him by Loretta Lynch. I think she was ordered to do so by her boss, old what’s his name. And I no more think Lynch’s 90-minute meeting in a plane on a tarmac with Bill Clinton was innocent than I think the moon is made of green cheese.

I’ll take scandals for 200, Pat.

                Even more intriguing is HRC’s relationship with Uranium One and those dreaded Russians. The largest stockholder in Uranium One has primary business interests in Russia. He personally gave $100 million to the Clinton Foundation to support their good work. He raised another $31 million for the foundation in pledges at a fund raiser in Toronto. Eight other Russian investors, who just happen to have large holdings in Uranium One donated another $14 million to the Clinton Foundation. Shortly thereafter Uranium One was granted leases by then Secretary of State Hillary C to 20% of active Uranium mines in the U.S.

                Despite Hillary’s assertions to the contrary during the presidential debates, most accounts of her foundations charitable giving hover around the legal minimum 6% mark to maintain foundation status. Wonder what the rest of the money went for?

                Nothing to investigate there, right?

                C’mon you guys. I have a full-time job so I’m not even an investigative reporter and I found that much out. You can check it all if you’re even marginally proficient (a rating my children have bestowed upon me) at using The Google.

                But whatever.

                Even if Trump is guilty of the meanest, nastiest things a (deleted-redacted-deleted-redacted) liberal can think of, here is my message to the left (as if they care or would even listen to anything but their own noise):

                All that red on that map I mentioned earlier is filled with people who voted for concepts and ideas more than a man. We were sick and tired of the direction your side was taking the country and whether your histrionics gain you what you want or not with regard to Trump that won’t change.

                We won’t go away.

                We voted for border security, American jobs, tax cuts for corporations and the middle class, a better plan than Obamacare, an undefeatable military, no more murders of cops in the street by hateful racists supported and encouraged by a presidential administration, and above all, the desire to make America great again.

Do what you will to President Trump. In eight years on Obama’s watch democrats lost over 1,000 seats and offices in Federal and state government. We are here. We are Americans too. We matter too even though the left doesn’t like it. We will continue to be the pain in their side that sends them to bed crying at night.  We promise.

This past week Susan Rice found a media outlet that will still quote her and said, “It is horrible Trump wants to put America first.”

Someone is going to have to explain that one to us. (1400 words. Sorry.)

Whose Side Are We On Today?

                It is rare that I ever agree with liberals but there is a current circumstance in which I recently did (my apologies if you just spewed coffee out your nose). At least I did from October 27-January 20 when the democrats were screaming for James Comey’s firing in between convincing themselves the Kossacks made all of us in the center of the country vote for Donald Trump.

                Now, not so much. But because they came to a different conclusion, not me. Ah, if the wind would always blow from one direction.

                I really was hoping the President would fire Comey his first day in office for refusing to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton to the Justice Department. Boy, do I wish he had done it then when the democrats were all for it, albeit for different reasons. I’ve no doubt, however, they’d have done an even more abrupt about face and criticized the President for one thing or another—like breathing—even back then.

                But having perhaps the worst sense of timing in White House history President Trump chose to do it in the middle of an investigation being led by Comey into whether or not the U.S. of A. is about to become a Russian province or not.

                Oh, the reasons the President did it were sound, but not being part of the political machine that is Washington, he can sometimes act as if he is completely oblivious to appearances.  Plus he just doesn’t care how doing the right thing looks to the wrong people.

                New Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was just approved for his position two weeks before Comey’s firing by a 96-4 vote in the Senate. One of the things directly in Mr. Rosentstein’s purview is oversight of the FBI. After a two-week review of FBI Director Comey’s performance he drafted a memo to Attorney General Jeff Sessions which was passed on to the President in which he concluded that Comey “could not continue” in his capacity as director.

                President Trump, being used to operating in the real world, acted. Then.

                I wouldn’t argue that he didn’t enjoy it. I think Comey’s history of love for the camera and grandstanding stretching back to last spring was really annoying to the President, who prefers that the camera be on him.

                But his reasoning was sound. I don’t believe he did it to shield himself from an investigation into Russian meddling in the election.

I cannot, in my most paranoid moments, muster any scenario of an investigation into “Russian collusion with the Trump campaign” that results in anything that means anything. I not only can’t imagine it but the leftwing media (is there another kind?) hasn’t floated any theories as to what their most desired result might be, and they are the most creative group of story tellers in history.

Could that be because nothing even imaginable of substance is there? I’m still trying to understand millions of people who genuinely believe Vlad Putin preferred a US President who would fire Tomahawk missiles at a Russian Ally, buzz off Russian bombers too close to our airspace with F-35’s and generally give the impression that “if you hurt me, I hurt you worse,” to a candidate who promised four more years of Obama-like policies.  E.G., Russia and everybody else could pretty much do what they wanted because we didn’t have the balls to stop them.

And the funniest part of all this is that until the left thought of blaming the Russians for Hillary being the worst candidate they’ve tried to run since Walter Mondale, they blamed Comey. Remember? Comey was the devil when on October 27, he announced he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

In fact, you may have been one of the Midwesterners who thought, “Oh no. The Justice Department wouldn’t charge her before, but this must be the end. Better take down that Hillary-Kane sign in the yard and change my vote!” Or you may have been one of us who waited for the Russians to tell us who to vote for.

Way back then (it’s been all of a little over six months) Chuck Schumer stated he had “lost all faith in the director of the FBI” and recommended his immediate firing (‘cuz that wouldn’t have looked suspicious). Harry Reid said, “He (Comey) must be fired.” Nancy Pelosi said, “Let’s all square dance!!!”

No, I’m kidding. Pelosi, poor old thing, said Comey was a nice guy and all but “he is definitely in the wrong job.” Fortunately for Nancy there was no follow up question to see if she knew what he did.

They’re all singing a rather different tune this week, aren’t they?

You may have missed it but on Stephen Colbert’s show the day Comey was fired Colbert came out and breathlessly announced the firing of Comey…to thunderous applause and cheering. Colbert quickly tried to recover by saying “I guess the audience is full of Trump supporters tonight.”

Sure, that was it. Or maybe the liberal masses, waiting to be told by their fearless leadership what they were supposed to think, hadn’t gotten the memo yet that now they are supposed to love and embrace the hated James Comey who had left their darling out in the wind to twist right before the election.

Almost everyone got in on the bandwagon, from Bette Midler (wouldn’t be an issue without Hollywood weighing in) to Dan Rather. Rather wrote an obviously heartfelt missive about the sky falling and Comey’s firing being the most heinous and out of control thing he’s ever seen in all his years of reporting. Zzzzzzzzz.

It is interesting he calls it reporting. I would think after being caught totally fabricating an untrue service record for George W. so that President Bush could be guilty of all the things Rather wanted to report in one of his left wing “hard news reports,” that he guy would be too ashamed to even show his face in public, but shame knows no mirth and hypocrisy like liberalism.

So there we are follks. Another round of the left doing a complete 180 to suit their cause du jour v. President Trump trying to run the country like it was a business rather than a corrupt institution that may never be reigned in.  I’m pretty sure we’re in for a lot of this over the next eight years.

             May as well enjoy the ride.

Bridges at Berkeley

                There is an organization at The University of California at Berkeley called BridgeUSA which was founded by a freshman there named Pranav Jandhyala. The purpose of the group is to promote and facilitate forums and opportunities for “free and fair political discussion and debate from all sides.”

                You read that right.

                I cannot imagine BridgeUSA has a membership waiting list at Berkeley but I absolutely applaud and support Mr. Jandhyala’s intentions and efforts. The sharing and challenging of opposing political ideas is what made this country great and, in my opinion, should be one of the primary purposes of colleges and universities.

                BridgeUSA is the group that invited Ann Coulter to speak on the topic of immigration. Presumably the topic of illegal immigration, though that is not how it is referenced at UC Berkeley or probably most public places in California.

                Coulter was to be the counter point to an April 17 discussion featuring Maria Echaveste, former advisor to the Clinton administration (the one that actually was president) who presented the liberal notion that illegal immigration is a great idea. The account I read said Echaveste’s presentation was peaceful and that Ms. Echaveste fielded questions afterwards from both conservative students at Berkeley.

                Ok, I made up “both,” but it’s Berkeley for crying out loud. How many conservative kids do you think were there?

 
               Ann Coulter’s presentation had to be cancelled because the threats of violence (not just of protest and dissent, but v-i-o-l-e-n-c-e) grew so severe and serious that neither the campus administration nor the local police could guarantee Ms. Coulter’s safety. Sounds like we may have a ways to go on “free and fair political discussion” at Berkeley, doesn’t it?

                God bless him for trying to be open-minded, but Jandhyala does say that “many” feel that Coulter is “an inflammatory figure whose destructive beliefs disqualify her from speaking at an institution of higher learning.”  Destructive beliefs like you should enter the country legally?

                Hey, that’s exactly why we didn’t invite Maria Echaveste to our block party! (I’m just kidding. We haven’t had a block party this year.)

                To his credit—and I give him a lot—Jandhyala, while he admits he disagrees with Coulter, holds that the proper way to deal with “dangerous views” (I think he means Coulter’s) is to present “better views” (by which I think he means his). And he is exactly right, at least about the exchange of viewpoints and actively challenging those with whom you disagree without using a baseball bat or a Molatov cocktail.

                I am way more encouraged by young Jandhyala’s efforts than I am discouraged by the riotous, violent, burn-it-to-the-ground temper tantrums of the Berkeley students when confronted with ideas they don’t like. It is, after all, Berkeley and my expectations are pretty low. They are their parent’s problem, not mine.

                The fact that on what has to be a top ten liberal campus there are young people (I think it’s safe to assume that BridgeUSA has a larger membership roster than just Jandhyala) who recognize the need to listen to opposing points of view and openly debate them without resorting to beating the crap out of those you disagree with because you aren’t smart enough to form sentences to express your point of view or without fleeing for your safe space and modeling clay for the same reason is very refreshing.

                It gives me hope. Especially because it’s clear in his article that Jandhyala himself leans to the left and yet he is open-minded enough to want to give voice to the right.

                The left seems to have this notion that the right is filled with hate, evil, negativity and general meanness because we disagree with them and dare to express ourselves out loud. I know that those of us on the right feel like all we are doing is responding to their point of view when we commit our egregious crimes against humanity.

                In fact, we are not immune to accusing the left of hate, evil, negativity and general meanness but my observation is that such an accusation made of them by the right is met with vehement anger and disgust that we would suggest they are being unreasonable when they publicly call for the death of President Trump.

                I guess it’s a matter of whose foot the shoe is on or something like that. I’m sure we’re both guilty of unreasonable behavior and I can vouch for the fact that many of the liberal memes I see posted on Facebook make my blood boil but I will be the first to admit (and save everyone else the trouble) that I post more than my share of inflammatory conservative memes.

                I know there has even been some violent response to today’s political climate by the right though it seems to me one has to look a lot harder to find incidences. The left, however, I think has far and away won the contest for violent and riotous behavior since the election of President Donald Trump.

                I assure you those are not conservatives setting fire to businesses and buildings, beating Trump supporters with baseball bats and rioting and adding the odd big-screen tv to their list of possessions as some twisted measure of free speech. Nope they are the left and until liberal leadership, from the top of the liberal food chain to the grass-roots level of your neighborhood begins to condemn that behavior and speak out against it the left has to own it.

                Oh, I know most liberals are actually decent human beings no matter how screwed up I think their political point of view is. While many of them have raised kids wailing in college safe spaces, many more have raised good kids who want nothing more than to live their lives peacefully and freely (which makes one wonder how they can be liberal, but I recognize my own bias).

 I know many of them pray, it’s just not popular amongst their side. I know many of them perform kind and charitable acts. In fact between setting things on fire they think charity is their exclusive providence although a quick check of the facts proves otherwise. Most of them have great value systems and really want nothing more than good things for this country and its inhabitants (hold your outburst here, they really do, they just see a different path to get there that apparently makes sense to them).

But I am sick and tired of them screaming “hater,” every single time a conservative dares to disagree with them. I am tired of being told we are on the side of evil when it is not conservatives murdering cops in the street, blocking highways, creating sanctuary cities that do not discriminate between hard working immigrants (who shouldn’t be here under illegal circumstances) but are not violent, and MS13 members killing people in the street.

Can’t we talk about it kids, without screaming at each other? Does it really take a college freshman to create the forum for the free exchange and discussion of political thought?

Shouldn’t somebody with a little more experience as an adult have thought of that first?