Items From My Mailbox: Thanks Bonnie. (Michelle Obama's staff.)

 

 

UGH! We never knew it was this bad.

  
Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing China for the White House during the Civil War.   
And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary.   
Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by  you the taxpayers:   
Mamie Eisenhower:  One-- paid for personally out of President's salary. 
Jackie Kennedy: One 
Rosaline Carter: One 
Barbara Bush:    One 
Hilary Clinton:     Three   
Laura Bush:       One  
Michele Obama:   Twenty-two  
  
How things have changed!  If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Mrs. Obama are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public: 

Michele Obama's personal staff:   
One..               $172,200 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff) 
Two..               $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)   
Three..            $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)  
Four..              $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)  
Five..              $100,000 - Winter, Melissa (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)   
Six..                  $90,000    Medina  , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady) 
Seven..              $84,000 - Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady) 
Eight..               $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady) 
Nine..               $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Project for the First Lady) 
Ten..                $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) 
Eleven..           $64,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B.(Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) 
Twelve..          $62,000 - Goodman,  Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady) 
Thirteen..         $60,000  Fitz, Alan O.(Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady) 
Fourteen..        $57,500 - Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady) 
Fifteen..           $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady) 
Sixteen..          $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant f or Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady) 
Seventeen..      $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady) 
Eighteen..        $43,000 - Tubman, Samantha a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office) 
Nineteen..        $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady) 
Twenty..          $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary) 
Twenty-One. .  $35,000 - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant) 
Twenty-Two.  . $35,000 - Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)   
Total              $1,591,200 in annual salaries  all for someone we did not vote for, and apparently have no control over.   
There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life.
One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense.  
Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to Europe ...   
Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press:   canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652<http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652 >  

The Canadian Free Press had to publish this. I wonder why the US media has not brought this to light???  Too scared that they might be considered racist or suffer at the hands of Obama??? 
 

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FIFA Corruption: Who Cares?

Do we need to point out everything wrong with this picture? Too many to list but we can highlight a few absurdities.

1. Priorities. The IRS investigation of political abuse has never gotten off the ground. There is strong evidence of voter fraud all over the US. It might be too idealistic to hope a Dem Administration might investigate the cozy relationships of bundlers and contributors who have received cushy government contracts but it has happened before. For that matter we might investigate the parties who hold up pipelines so that their railroads can transport potentially catastrophic volumes of oil through places like Chicago.  We might look into the choreographed rioting in US cities that is about as spontaneous as a Benghazi bonfire. We could prosecute Hillary for her pay for play (or is it play for pay?) or we could prosecute her for deleting government emails and we could prosecute her for installing an unsecured server is her home and we could prosecute everyone who facilitated this security breach. We have a Baskin-Robbins choice of scandals that beg to be investigated.

We don't have to go to Switzerland to find scandal.

2. Bribery and corruption are not necessarily criminal activities. Bribery has a specific legal definition. That legal definition is not universal. If a party offers cash to a private firm to bring the private firm's enterprise to their country, that is what is known as the way of the world. It's life. Business as usual. Hardly an international crisis.

3. The expanding US scope. How does an interaction between parties in Russia and Switzerland involve the US? It does not but DOJ justifies the meddling because US-based financial institutions were used in the transactions. Not only is that a stretch it will also give pause to anyone who wants to use US-based companies in the future.

4. There is a hidden agenda here. The Obama Administration is all deception all the time. It's all smoke and mirrors and look at the right hand as the left hand...I don't know exactly what the deal is but it smells bad.


Vladimir Putin is not the greatest leader in the world but he will stand for his country and he is capable of honesty, something we cannot say about the chronic fabulist in the White House. If I could not swap Obozo for Netanyahu or Merkel or even Cameron or Harper, I would gladly swap him for Putin.

Direct from The Kremlin:

Question: Reports have appeared today about a major scandal at FIFA – the organisation in charge of football. It was accused of corruption and 14 employees were arrested. Do you think all this could have any bearing on the 2018 World Cup in Russia?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I do not know. This is not our business. However, I do have an opinion on the matter, of course. As we all know, on Friday FIFA was to elect its president, and Mr Blatter has every chance to be re-elected. We are aware of the pressure that was put on him to prevent the 2018 World Cup in Russia. We know of his views, which have nothing to do with any special relations between FIFA and Russia. This is his general principled position: it’s not right to mix sports and politics. Moreover, he believes sport should have a positive influence on politics and serve as a platform for dialogue, for reconciliation and a search for solutions. I believe this is the right position.

As for the arrests that were made, it seems strange in the very least as the arrests were conducted on the basis of corruption charges made by the American side. Whom did they charge? International officers. It may be possible that some of them did something wrong, I do not know, but the USA definitely have nothing to do with this. These officers are not United States’ citizens, and if anything did happen, it did not happen on the territory of the United States and the USA have nothing to do with it. This is yet another obvious attempt to spread their jurisdiction to other states. I have no doubt that this is obviously an attempt to prevent Mr Blatter’s re-election to the post of FIFA President, which is a grave violation of the principles that international organisations function on.

Meanwhile, according to our media, the United States Attorney General has already stated that these officers of the FIFA executive committee have committed a crime, as though he as a prosecutor is unaware of the presumption of innocence. Only a court can find a person guilty or not guilty, and only after that can anyone say anything, even if we assume that the United States have a reason to extradite those people, though the actions occurred on third party territory.

We are aware of the position of the United States regarding the former special services employee Mr Snowden, who was a National Security Agency employee and who made public the illegal practice of the United States practically all over the world, including tapping the phones of foreign leaders. Everybody is discussing this, including in Europe, but nobody wants to grant him asylum, guarantee his security, nobody wants to quarrel with their partners, with their senior partners.

This may be understandable, as Mr Snowden is a former security service employee and a citizen of the United States. What about Mr Assange, who has been forced to hide at a foreign embassy for several years? This is almost like being imprisoned. What is he persecuted for? For sexual crimes? Nobody believes that, you do not believe that either. He is being persecuted for spreading the information he received from US military regarding the actions of the USA in the Middle East, including Iraq.

Why did I bring this up now? Unfortunately, our American partners use these methods for their own ulterior purposes. They are illegally persecuting people. I do not rule out the possibility that the same goes for this situation with FIFA. Although I do not know what this will result in, but the fact that this is happening on the eve of elections of the FIFA president leads one to think so.

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Amen, Vladimir.

Report From Pataki Kick-Off

Let me go on record stating that I prefer George Pataki to Rick Santorum. And in light of Hillary Clinton's graft and illegal email shenanigans, I prefer George Pataki to Hillary Clinton. And I definitely prefer George Pataki to the most corrupt and abusive and deceptive and dictatorial president in US History.

It was without a high degree of enthusiasm that I dropped by Pataki's presidential kick-off. There is something serious about a presidential campaign. For this dog and pony show there were at least 100-200 members of the media on hand. And a lot of suits--lots and lots of suits--from Pataki's campaign shipped in from New York. Very few locals.

New Yorkers look out of place twenty miles outside of New York. Texans in Stetsons or Mexicans in sombreros would look more at home than these lost souls. You got the feeling they were just hoping the speech would get over with so they could find the nearest bagel and then they could complain about the local bagels.

Pataki is a good looking 72. He said he was a farm boy and he looks like he could do a day's work if he had to. He seems likable.

For reasons unknown, Pataki gave part of his speech in Spanish. He also had a major flub, concluding with a "right here in Nashua, New Hampshire." We were in Exeter, 45 minutes away from Nashua.

Protestors: A handful of Bernie Sanders types with homemade signs. There were a half dozen or so guys in lime green "No Label" t-shirts, most of whom carried clipboards. They looked a lot like landscapers. Not sure if Pataki is adopting the "no-label" label for his campaign or what they would be doing there. Some of them clapped at applause points so there must be some affiliation.

After the speech, reporters literally bumped into each other trying to find locals to talk to. A real feeding frenzy with just a few scraps of meat in the water.

Given that the GOP field will have more candidates than Spinal Tap had drummers, the race will probably be decided at the convention and just about anyone can win the nomination. I won't write off Pataki, or anyone else for that matter, just yet.

Items From My Mailbox: Thanks Bonnie (I Might Move To Texas One Of These Days)

This is apparently from a wife of one of the Navy Seals in attendance... 
it makes interesting,  disturbing, but hardly surprising reading. 

Chris Kyle became the armed services number #1 sniper of all time.
Not something he was happy about, other than the fact that in so doing, he saved a lot of American lives. 
  
Three years ago, his wife Taya asked him to leave the SEAL teams
because he had a huge bounty on his head by Al Qaeda. He did and wrote the book "The American Sniper." 100% of the proceeds from the book went to two of the SEAL families who had lost their sons in Iraq. 
  
That was the kind of guy Chris was. He formed a company in Dallas
to train military, police and I think firemen, how to protect themselves in difficult situations. He also formed a foundation to work with military people suffering from PTSD. Chris was a giver not a taker. He, along 
with a friend and neighbor, Chad Littlefield, were murdered trying
to help a young man that had served six months in Iraq and claimed to have PTSD. 
  
Now I need to tell you about all of the blessings.

Southwest Airlines flew in any SEAL and their family from any airport to the funeral... free of charge. The employees donated buddy passes and one lady worked for four days without much of a break to see that it happened.  Volunteers were at both airports in Dallas to drive them to the hotel. 

  

The Marriott Hotel reduced their rates to $45 a night and cleared the hotel for only SEAL's and family.

The Midlothian, TX Police Department paid the $45 a night for each room. I would guess there were about 200 people staying at the hotel, 100 of them were SEALs. 

Two large buses were chartered (an unknown donor paid the bill) to
transport people to the different events and they also had a few rental cars (donated).
The police and secret service were on duty 24 hours during the stay at our hotel.

At the Kyle house, the Texas DPS parked a large motor home in front to block the view from reporters. It remained there the entire five days for the SEALs to meet in and so they could use the restroom there instead of the bathroom in the house. 
  
Taya, their two small children and both sets of parents

were staying in the home.  Only a hand full of SEALs went into the home as they had different duties and meetings were held sometimes on a hourly basis.
   

It was a huge coordination of many different events and security. Derek was assigned to be a Pall Bearer, to escort Chris' body when it was transferred from the Midlothian Funeral Home to the Arlington Funeral Home, and to be with Taya. A tough job. Taya seldom came out of her 
bedroom. The house was full with people from the church and other
family members that would come each day to help. I spent one morning in a bedroom with Chris' mom and the next morning with Chad Littlefield's 
parents (the other man murdered with Chris). A tough job. 
  
George W Bush and his wife Laura, met and talked to everyone on the Seal Team one on one. They went behind closed doors with Taya for quite a while. They had prayer with us all. You can tell when people were sincere and caring

Nolan Ryan

sent his cooking team, a huge grill and lots of steaks, chicken and hamburgers. They set up in the front yard and fed people all day long including the 200 SEALs and their families.

The next day a local BBQ restaurant set up a buffet in front of the  house and fed all once again. Food was plentiful and all were taken care of. The family's church kept those inside the house well fed. 

  

Jerry Jones, the man everyone loves to hate, was a rock star. He made sure that we all were taken care of. His wife and he were just making sure everyone was taken care of....Class... He donated the use of Cowboy Stadium for the services because so many wanted to attend. The charter buses transported us to the stadium on Monday at 10:30 am.  Every car, bus, motorcycle was searched with bomb dogs and police. I am not sure if kooks were making threats trying to make a name for themselves or if so many SEALs in one place was a security risk, I don't know. We willingly obliged. No purses went into the stadium! 
  
We were taken to The Legends room high up and a large buffet was available. That was for about 300 people. We were growing.

A Medal of Honor recipient was there, lots of secret service and police and Sarah Palin and her husband. She looked nice, this was a very formal military service.  The service started at 1:00 pm and when we were escorted onto the field I was shocked. We heard that about 10,000 people had come to attend also. They were seated in the stadium seats behind us . It was a  beautiful and emotional service. The Bagpipe and drum corps were wonderful and the Texas A&M men's choirstood through the entire service and sang right at the end. We were all in tears.

The next day was the 200-mile procession from Midlothian, TX to Austin for burial. It was a cold, drizzly, windy day, but the people were out.

We had dozens of police motorcycles riders, freedom riders, five chartered buses and lots of cars . You had to have a pass to be in the procession and still it was huge. 

Two helicopters circled the procession with snipers sitting out the side door for protection.

  

It was the longest funeral procession ever in the state of Texas . People were everywhere. The entire route was shut down ahead of us, the people were lined up on the side of the road the entire way.
Firemen were down on one knee, police officers were holding their hats over their hearts, childrenwaved flags, veterans saluted as we went by.

  

Every bridge had fire trucks with large flags displayed from their tall ladders, people all along the entire 200 miles were standing in the cold weather. It was so heartwarming.  Taya rode in the hearse with Chris' body so Derek rode the route with us. I was so grateful to have
that time with him. 
  
The service was at Texas National Cemetery. Very few are buried there and you have to apply to get in . It is like people from the Civil War, Medal of Honor winners, a few from the Alamo and all the historical people of Texas.

  

It was a nice service and the Freedom Riders surrounded the outside of the entire cemetery to keep the crazy church people from Kansas that protest at military funerals away from us.

Each SEAL put his Trident (metal SEAL badge) on the top of Chris' casket, one at a time. A lot hit it in with one blow. Derek was the only one to take four taps to put his in and it was almost like he was caressing it as he did it. 

Another tearful moment. 
  
After the service Governor Rick Perry and his wife, Anita , invited us to the governor's mansion. She stood at the door, greeted each of us individually, and gave each of the SEALs a coin of Texas. She was a sincere, compassionate, and gracious hostess. We were able to tour the ground floor and then went into the garden for beverages and BBQ. So many of the Seal team guys said that after they get out they are moving  to Texas. They remarked that they had never felt so much love and hospitality. The charter buses then took the guys to the airport to catch their returning flights. Derek just now called and after a 20 hours flight he is back in his spot, in a dangerous land on the other side of the world, protecting America

  

We just wanted to share with you, the events of a quite emotional, but blessed week." 
  
To this day, no one in the White House has ever acknowledged Chris Kyle; his service, his death, his duty, his generosity, his caring, his life. 
However, the President can call a sports person and congratulate him on his bravery for announcing to the world that he is gay.

  

He can say on national television that someone, a man who has committed a crime and was shot by police in the line of duty, would have made him a good son.
The SEALS have asked that you please, keep this moving if you
think Chris Kyle would have made a good son.

Will We Ever Know Anything About Barack Obama?

I have accepted that for the rest of my life I will periodically try to find out who Barack Obama REALLY is.

Seven years into his administration we still know little about this international man of mystery. Once more American Thinker provokes thought. Jack Cashill compares and contrasts Barack Obama with fictional TV character, Don Draper. In case you missed it, Don Draper is the lead character in the captivating TV show, "Mad Men". I am a big fan of the show and I was struck with "The Great Gatsby" parallels early on.

Like Jay Gatsby, Don Draper is a Midwesterner of humble origins who obliterates his history, goes to New York, conquers a corner of the world and finds his conquests less than satisfying. Both characters are driven by unquenchable thirst.

Reinvention of oneself is a proud American tradition. Muhammad Ali was often interviewed by Jewish men with gentile names, Howard Cosell being the most famous. A screen name was once de rigueur in Hollywood. Stan Jefferson, Marion Morrison and Archibald Leach fared well with their chosen identities. Decades later contrived personas would be mandatory in the rap industry. There would be countless Kreskins and Koreshes and Princes in between.

We know more about Lady Gaga than we do Barack Obama. In fact I worked with a lady who knew Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (yes I had to look it up) when they both attended NYU. Amazingly, I have accidentally found as many schoolmates who can vouch for Lady Gaga's enrollment as have verified Barack Obama's presence at Columbia.

We know more about 50 Cent, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Drake, Usher, the former members of The Village People and fill in the blank than we know about Barack Obama. What is discouraging is not that we know nothing, it is that a majority of Americans insist on playing Sergeant Schultz.

We know of the fabricated Barack Obama persona but will we ever learn about the Barry Soetoro persona? Or the self-identified Kenyan persona? The invisible student persona?  The Hyde Park persona? The more-Marxist-than-Marx Occidental persona?

People who place any value on truth can never understand the mental processes of David Remnick or David Maraniss.  Jack Cashill once more:

Even a supportive Obama biographer like David Remnick called Dreams a "mixture of verifiable fact, recollection, recreation, invention, and artful shaping."  

What polite society used to call "Utter Bullshit".

More Cashill:  Equally friendly biographer David Maraniss agreed.  "The character creations and rearrangements of the book are not merely a matter of style, devices of compression, but are also substantive," wrote Maraniss, four years after his dishonest 2008 bio piece in the Washington Post helped Obama get elected.

Yes he is a compulsive liar but he is OUR compulsive liar.

Do we really want a fabulist as president? 53% say "Yes We Can". The insignificance of truth has long been established. 

As we remove the skins from the onion we can't help but cry. It hurts. It really burns. Life would be easier if we diverted our eyes. 

As with "Mad Men" maybe the Obama Era will end in an upbeat fashion. The entire world will assemble on a mountaintop to sing a gleeful jingle about drinking the Obama Kool-Aid. Hope and Change forever. Yes We Can.

Oh and by the way, "Mad Men" has positioned itself for countless spin-offs and sequels should they choose to exercise those options.

Wishes For A Reverant Memorial Day

Humanity loves warfare. We often thought of war as being a byproduct of the nation state. Today, nation rarely rises against nation and we have about as much mayhem as we have ever had. By and large countries behave. Groups like Isis and Hezbollah and the Taliban...that's another matter.

Coming of age in the seventies I was dismissive of the military. A few of my friends joined the service and the rest of us looked down on them for doing so. We were not anti-military in the Jane Fonda sense of the term but we viewed the service as a vast welfare program. Post-Vietnam youth saw Vietnam veterans as well-intentioned-losers, but losers nonetheless. That might seem like a harsh judgment but the fact is, the military did decline in the 1970's. They couldn't even rescue hostages held by a mob in Iran.

In retrospect, I have to give credit to men like Ronald Reagan, Colin Powell and dare I say it, Oliver North. These men restored the dignity and integrity of the armed forces. I was not on board at the time. To me it was all a bunch of false patriotism. It was all a bunch of hokum. That's not how I see things now.

9/11 instantly changed my worldview. It saddens me that it did not change more people's worldview. If people like Christoper Hitchens could get on board, why couldn't the Michael Moores get on board? It's a question for another time. As with all things Leftist, they are only sympathetic to people who can be used as political pawns. They might not respect servicemen but if disabled vets and wounded warriors can be used to showcase the evils of Cheney et al...

The Millenials are America's stupidest generation with no close competitors. They turned out like lemmings to elect and re-elect a fraudster they knew nothing about and could not be bothered to learn anything about. The torch was passed and they used the torch to commit arson.

Yet, out of America's stupidest generation arose bold and brave and noble Americans who fought with honor in Iran and Afghanistan. Some of these heroes paid the ultimate price. Perhaps more important than their flesh and blood contributions, these gallant warriors brought honor to the homeland. Honor!

Let us hope that we do not lose sight of their contributions.