Mission Accomplished - Part 2

 

 

 

"Sometimes that karma thing can really turn around and bite you on the butt"



On May 1, 2003, President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to address the troops. The Navy wanted to mark this historic occasion by hanging a huge banner on the superstructure of the ship which read "Missioned Accomplished". The liberation of Iraq was going very well, and President Bush thought it might be time to phase out combat operations and begin the transition into a Iraqi government. President Bush, as well as the rest of us, grossly misjudged the situation on the ground. Iraq was in no way ready to come together under a coalition government. The worst part of the war was about to begin.

The Democrats jumped all over the President for this miscue. They jumped on him and jumped on him for the rest of his term. It was a real "pile on". In fact, one of the late comers to the pile on was some young brash Senator from the state of Illinois. It seems this young, very inexperienced Senator decided after spending a few months on the job, it was time to run for President. The "Mission Accomplished" goof up made excellent campaign material.

The young Senator from Illinois became our next President. Many of the actions and methods he railed against President Bush doing, he also did - sometimes more so. By the luck of the Irish, he was the Commander in Chief when our Seals were able to kill Osama Bin Laden. Our new President could barely contain his glee. He may have not taken full credit for the kill, but he sure took the lion's share. It was a simple case of "spiking the football", over and over and over again.

It all made for good campaign fodder in his run up to his re-election. Not only did our first term President take credit for killing OBL, he also claimed to have "decimated" Al Qaeda. Wow! Not bad. I hoped he was right, as he had also told us over and over during his first term the War on Terror was over. All wars come to an end. Right?

Flash forward to today. It seems we have a small problem. Osama may truly be dead, but Al Qaeda far from decimated. In fact, they have come up with a new command structure and more clandestine, deadly methods. Here on August 6, 2013, based on intercepted intel, we have shuttered almost 20 embassies and have told all Americans in Yemen to "run for their lives". Whoops. It seems our "Mission Accomplished - Part 2" was not ready for prime time. In fact, here we are again, all bunkered in, waiting for the "hit" which may or may not come.

I guess some on the Left, including the Commander in Chief, might owe President Bush an apology. I have said this before - we may want the War on Terror to be over, but the bad guys don't. In the future it might be more advisable to lead with our fists, and not with our chins.

Climate Change?

 

 

"Al Gore, where are you brother, when we really need you?"

 

 

 

 

You will have to excuse my typos in this article. As with many days this summer, I am having trouble waking up. I go to bed with the windows wide open, and the cool, almost autumn like breeze comes in the bedroom. Most humans sleep very deep and very well in conditions like that.

Last year we had an historic drought. The corn crop was a mess in most of the country. For some reason, Minnesota was spared. Our farmers had a good crop with very good prices. This year the corn crop nation wide is even better. Everywhere we look when we are driving around the corn is outstanding. So good in fact, the nation will have a bumper crop. The good news - we can continue to feed the world as well as ourselves. The bad news for farmers - corn prices will be the lowest since 2010.

I am what is referred to by green eggheads as a "flat earther". I ignore the reality of "climate change". To that charge I respond, "guilty as charged". I do believe in changing weather - I have seen it my entire life. Climate change however, is a different story.

We have been told for decades now the polar ice caps are melting. This is a very bad thing for many different reasons. The worst effect of having the ice caps melt is our coastal cities will end up under water. Last year, I took my wife down to Pensacola to visit where I was stationed in 1969. I spent quite a bit of time on Pensacola Beach when I was in the Navy. My wife and I walked on the same beach I spent so much time on decades ago. The water came up on shore to the same spot it did in 1969. Not an inch more, not an inch less.

In addition, when I was stationed in Pensacola the first time, Hurricane Camille came a knocking. On August 17, 1969, this monster storm hit the gulf coast just to the west of Pensacola. It was a Category 5 storm (very rare) and remains today the only recorded storm outside of the Pacific to have sustained winds of over 190 miles per hour at landfall. We have had strong storms since, but not quite a vicious as Camille. If Al Gore's movie (An Inconvenient Truth) had been true, storms like these would have been the norm by now.

 

I will say this to our President. Many of us understand your plan of Cap and Trade is simply a ruse to further transform our economy into something less spectacular. The fuels we are burning keep getting cleaner every year. Our crops are doing fine. Our oceans are not rising. The polar bears are not dying. Our big blue marble is a pretty tough place. It has been hit with meteors, asteroids, comets, and even a small planet when our moon was formed. This world was created for us to live on. We are doing fine, thank you.

 

So is there anything at all to climate change? Yes there is. It has made Al Gore a very rich man indeed!

 

 

Another Look at Energy

 

 

"Our new Energy Czar looks and talks like he escaped from Haight-Ashbury  in the 1960's..."

I believe when other countries look at how we struggle with energy, they must be scratching their heads. We really do stumble all over ourselves. We finally got rid of Steven (lets make our gas cost $10/gal) Chu, and replaced him with another refugee from academia. The madness continues.

Our latest fiasco is the green eggheads which "run" the city of Minneapolis would like to take over the management of electric and gas utilities which service the town. Why? Is it because the service is so expensive or lousy? No, of course not. It is because the green eggheads will be able to effect "change" on how much renewable energy is used to supply the city. In fact, one of the Lefties running for mayor has said he will be the Greenest Mayor in the history of the city. Good grief. 

Here is the truth on renewable energy as it stands in 2013. It is not yet ready for prime time. Period. Not opinion, just fact. For example, should the City of Minneapolis be successful in implementing this hair brained idea, energy for the city will become scarce and very, very expensive. In addition, there will be tens of thousands of dead birds and bats laying at the base of countless, ugly windmills. However, the green eggheads will feel good about themselves as they read their Henry David Thoreau by candlelight every evening.

When I was in high school (maybe it was junior high), I did a paper on coal. Back then, coal was not looked at as the "boogie man". In fact, the biggest concern about coal was the fact we were running short on Anthracite. Anthracite has always been the "Cadillac" of the coal industry. We do however, have a boat load of Bituminous and Sub-Bituminous coal left in the ground. As I have written about earlier, this country was made great on the back of the coal industry. We still get about 1/4 of our power from coal.

If we put all the hyperbole aside, here is the truth about coal today. It is much, much cleaner to use than it was a hundred years ago. New mining, scrubbing and reclamation techniques are very good and getting better all the time. That being said, we are still probably drawing to the end of the coal era. It will not be a hard stop, but rather a slow phase out. Once it ends, we will probably still have quite a bit left in the ground. The most logical near term replacement is another abundant fuel we have in this country - natural gas. Both coal and natural gas are abundant and cheap. Solar, wind and geothermal will have a place at the table, but not yet - not for a while. Today, they are still being developed and very, very expensive.

Back to our Energy Czar - sorry, I need to get with the times. I mean our Secretary of Energy. Where is the viable plan forward? Please don't insult me with talk of more wind farms and solar panels on roofs. As I have said, some renewables will be a part of our future, but not yet. We need clear thinkers on energy - not fuzzy headed intellectuals. Realism, not idealism. Build the damn pipeline and get on with it! Stop importing oil from countries that hate us - we have enough here, thank you. Most of all, stop bowing to the extreme left on this most important subject. None of us want dirty air - all of us want cheap abundant energy. As Jean-Luc Picard would say on Star Trek, "Make it so!"

 

The War on Terror, Part 2

 

 

"We tried renaming the 'War on Terror' to be 'Overseas Contingency Operations' - we tried renaming 'Terrorist Attacks' to be 'Man Caused Disasters.'  None of it has worked so far..."

 

 

Alert! Alert! Alert! We are on high alert this weekend! Why? We intercepted some communications from Al Qaeda which said they are ready to do us some harm. Why? We are not doing anything wrong. We got rid of the "cowboy from Texas" and now have "Mr. Reset" as our leader. We will be good, we promise. Please don't try to kill us anymore.

 

Years ago, some folks practiced PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). For example, if you focused on not being sick, some say they could "will" the illness away. Mind over matter. If you ignore it, it will go away. We have tried that with this new, hidden enemy. So far, no good.

For the past five years, we have pretended the "War on Terror" is over. Who won - who cares. The most important thing is this - this made up war that President Bush came up with is now over. The Arab Spring is in full bloom and everyone in the Middle East and Northern Africa will like us again and will treat us with respect.

 

One very small problem - nobody told the bad guys the "War on Terror" was over. In fact, it is fine with them that we believe it is over. It is similar to a football game where the "O" line does not show up as they think the Defense will not rush anymore. They are going to come after us hammer and tong and we can either prepare for it, or just wait to get hit again, and again, and again.

A good example of our escape from terror reality happened at Fort Hood in 2009. Major Nidal Hasan, an American born Muslim, performed a mini "jihad" on some of our soldiers as they were waiting at a clinic. We caught this guy dead to rights. He stood up with loaded weapons, called out Allāhu Akbar, and then killed thirteen innocent soldiers and wounded dozens more. What did our Administration call this? "Workplace violence". Give me a break. This was an act of terror thru and thru.

We have known since the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda was going to try and hit us again. They will try anything, from the spectacular to smaller, "soft target" attacks such as happened in Boston. The attacks may come from organized teams, small autonomous cells or even a "lone wolf". They will hit us where ever and when ever they can get away with it. They don't care. We may have grown bored with the "War on Terror", but to them it is just starting.

I am reminded of the movie Independence Day. After an alien is captured, the President wanted to dialogue with him. The President asked, "Can there be peace between us? What is it you want with us?" The alien had a very simple answer - "Die. We want to you die."

There is only one way to defeat an enemy that wants you to die. Victory, total and absolute victory. If they want to kill us at home or abroad, we must kill them first. They don't want peace negotiations, they just want us gone.  We did not start this "War on Terror", but if we can recognize it for what it is, we can sure finish it.


 

Pixie dust and magic...

 

 

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble"

 

Macbeth

 

 

Well, we saw it again this past week. What, you might ask? Magic! The GDP numbers came out for the second quarter as well as the jobs report for July. The good news - we are in great shape. The economy is healing. Hundreds of thousands of excellent jobs are being created. It is two chickens in every pot for every household. Nirvana, to say the least.

 

At least, that is what the wizard has told us. As he continues to try and make a silk purse out of a sows ear, the pixie dust is flying like dust in a Kansas twister. I am going to blow some of the pixie dust away to see if we can find some clarity on what is what with the economy.

 

Jobs - The jobs report was released late last week. It was okay, as it showed 162,000 jobs added. That brought the total number of jobs created in 2013 to over 900,000. Plus, by the magic of U3 employment statistics, the unemployment rate went down to 7.4%! Pop the corks, we are on a roll now! However, there are a couple flies in the ointment. First off, over 700,000 of the 900,000 jobs created are part time. In addition, many are in the service or hospitality sectors. Finally, the workforce participation rate continues to shrink, especially for the young. Good jobs lost, crumby jobs created, more people not working. Same song, different month.

 

GDP - For the past sixty years, our GDP have averaged 3.3%. Most economists agree that is a healthy economy. In 2013, the first quarter's GDP was 1.1% and the second quarter's was 1.7%. How does that stack up? Under President Reagan, our economy grew an average of 5.6% for his first three years in office. That was coming out of the Carter economy, which almost killed the country. Although some doubt its validity, China's GDP is close to 7.5% and still going strong. China - a communist country is beating the pants off of the beacon of free enterprise and capitalism (or it use to be).

Youth - Being young these days has to suck. I have already addressed the fact that the labor participation rate for youths is dropping like a rock. In addition, the unemployment rate for those still looking for a job is stuck in the double digits. Finally, it was reported last week that over 1 out of 3 young folks, ages 18 - 35, are still living at home with Mom and Dad.

Now that I have taken care of the pixie dust, here is the unvarnished truth - the economy has never healed and it still feels as if we are in a recession. Forget the stock market - that is where the real pixie dust exists. Nature will take care of the bloating in the market in due time and when it happens, it is not going to be pretty.

So the next time the wizard pivots on the economy, we need to make sure it is not a 360. In addition, we need someone to take away the wand and pixie dust. Just the facts and truth please....

A Return to Benghazi

 

 

"Time heals all wounds....or does it?"

 

 

I love my wife dearly, but I hate watching mysteries with her. She is always able to guess the plot and who the bad guy is when the show is less than half over. It is a real spoiler for me. I asked one time how she was able to do it. Her response - she looks for things that don't smell right.

 

And that brings me to today's topic. As we are approaching the one year anniversary of the Benghazi attack, some memories are growing dim and history is being rewritten. In fact, the attack has become part of the new narrative called "Phony Scandals". The only person who has been punished for this act of terror is someone who was not involved. The man who made the "video" which became the center of the Administration "talking points" still sits in the can. Meanwhile, the guilty and the accountable continue to roam free and untouched.

In the past few weeks, I have seen one or two pictures floating around on the internet showing the final hours of Ambassador Chris Stevens. Quite frankly, they made me sick. It seems the rumors we have heard since the attack were true. Ambassador Stevens was not just killed, he was tortured. He was sodomized, branded with a cattle prod and burned. For seven hours we abandoned our ambassador and other brave patriots. We left four of them to die in a far off land, all alone, waiting for help which never came.

The twists on this story continue. It seems the culprits which caused the attack have not been located nor captured by the FBI or our intelligence services. However, CNN was able to find Ahmed Abu Khattala, who many think was the ringleader of the attack. They found him "hiding in plain sight" in Libya, sitting at a coffee house. In the interview, Khattala told CNN he had not been contacted by either Libyan or American authorities. Huh?

The other thing which happened in July which was almost as bizarre, was the mysterious Marine Corps Col. George Bristol. It seems Col Bristol was stationed at AFRICOM (Africa Command) while the attack was taking place. Congress wanted to interview him to ascertain why calls for help went unanswered during this attack. The Pentagon said Col. Bristol had retired and therefore policy dictates he could not be questioned. And then, all of a sudden, Col Bristol appears! Not retired at all! Imagine that! However, since he is going to retire very soon, he did appear in a closed door session with Congress this week.

So where are we on Benghazi? If you get the feeling it is being "swept under the rug", I feel you. If we just ignore it, it will go away. The only problem is this - there are way too many people which feel Brian Terry never received justice from Fast and Furious. There are even more people who feel justice was denied to Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and former SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

Some may forget the horror and injustice on that awful night last September. I will not, and I am sure others will not also.


 

 

Fear of Flying

 

 

"Excuse me miss - is anyone flying this plane?"

 

 

Believe it or not, this is not a story about flying - well, it sort of is. It is the story of what happens to us prior to getting on the plane. You guessed it - it is about the government organization we all love to hate - the TSA.

In my working days, I logged quite a few miles in the air. I made the "million mile club" with NWA, and have flown many times on such former airlines such as Western, Eastern, Braniff, and TWA. You name the airline, and I have probably flown on it at least once, either domestically or overseas.

On to the TSA. Many think the worst thing to come out of the 2001 terror attacks was the Patriot Act. I disagree. I think the worst thing to come out of 2001 was the TSA. Now a part of Homeland Security, their primary function is to keep the flying public safe. In reality, it is nothing more than a low paying, "make work" program for the Feds. I have run into some of the laziest, most "un-smart" people in the Federal Government working the gates at some of our airports. Truthfully - the worst airport (in my opinion) by far is Reagan (National) in WDC.

The only people who are excited about how hosed up the TSA is the DMV and the USPO. Those two examples of government inefficiency actually look pretty good when compared to the TSA.

The latest revelation about the TSA comes as a surprise to practically nobody. Yesterday, CNN reported the following:

A new report from the Government Accountability Office released in July 2013 says misconduct by Transportation Security Administration workers has increased more than 26% in the last three years, with more than 9,000 cases of misconduct documented. More than 1,900 of the incidents were deemed significant enough to be possible security threats. Some of the most serious violations include: Employees sleeping on the job, letting family and friends go without being screened, leaving work without permission and stealing.

So besides having a history of groping and voyeurism at security checkpoints, we can also add sleeping on the job, stealing, drug usage, dereliction of duty, leaving assigned post, and so on. Out of the tens of thousands of people employed by the TSA, very few have been fired. Some suspended, some given letters of reprimand, others nothing. In the real world, infractions such as this would result in being fired for cause - immediately.

This article is appropriately called Fear of Flying. Do I have a fear of flying? No. I do however, have a great and growing fear of getting past the inefficiency of TSA to get on an airplane.