Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!
God Bless!
God Bless!
Today's video selection is being "sponsored" by Carl David VanDemark, Esq.
(Allow me to explain...)
(Allow me to explain...)
As my best friend Carl reads this, he's finding out that the "honor" of choosing today's "theme" video is gonna cost him... cost him $25 (or perhaps more... his choice).
Actually... Carl is going to match my donation (perhaps even exceed my donation) to two organizations which deserve our support and which are going to get it on this fine Thanksgiving Day!
These two organizations are:
Hope For The Warriors
1335 Western Blvd.
Suite E.; PMB 48
Jacksonville, NC 28546
(Send 'em $20 or more, buddy!)
and
Charity Navigator
139 Harristown Rd.
Suite 201
Glen Rock, NJ 07452
(They get $5 pal!)
Why these two charities? Simple! At first I was going to donate to the more well-known Wounded Warriors Project, but upon further research - relying upon Charity Navigator - it became clear to me that Hope For Warriors is the better choice.
(Feel free to backstop my research... you'll see what I mean.)
Anyway, gang... that's the deal. Today we don't simply say "Happy Thanksgiving," we instead turn those words into a concrete demonstration of who we are as Americans.
I'm asking the rest of you reading this to join me and Carl.
Yeah... I know... no doubt all of you - all of my friends - are already quite generous with your charitable giving, particularly at "the holidays."
Well... give more! It's that simple! If you read and enjoy my newsbites and other blogging, show your appreciation by "humoring" me! Donate! I know you can spare it folks... I have very few unsuccessful friends!
(*GRIN*)
I wish each and every one of you a joyous Thanksgiving and may each and every one of us always keep in mind that whatever troubles we face... there are people out there who have faced far worse.
God Bless America...!
Actually... Carl is going to match my donation (perhaps even exceed my donation) to two organizations which deserve our support and which are going to get it on this fine Thanksgiving Day!
These two organizations are:
Hope For The Warriors
1335 Western Blvd.
Suite E.; PMB 48
Jacksonville, NC 28546
(Send 'em $20 or more, buddy!)
and
Charity Navigator
139 Harristown Rd.
Suite 201
Glen Rock, NJ 07452
(They get $5 pal!)
Why these two charities? Simple! At first I was going to donate to the more well-known Wounded Warriors Project, but upon further research - relying upon Charity Navigator - it became clear to me that Hope For Warriors is the better choice.
(Feel free to backstop my research... you'll see what I mean.)
Anyway, gang... that's the deal. Today we don't simply say "Happy Thanksgiving," we instead turn those words into a concrete demonstration of who we are as Americans.
I'm asking the rest of you reading this to join me and Carl.
Yeah... I know... no doubt all of you - all of my friends - are already quite generous with your charitable giving, particularly at "the holidays."
Well... give more! It's that simple! If you read and enjoy my newsbites and other blogging, show your appreciation by "humoring" me! Donate! I know you can spare it folks... I have very few unsuccessful friends!
(*GRIN*)
I wish each and every one of you a joyous Thanksgiving and may each and every one of us always keep in mind that whatever troubles we face... there are people out there who have faced far worse.
God Bless America...!
12 comments:
My thanks to Carl for cheerfully agreeing to match my charitable donations!
BILL
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-this-was-always-a-civil-war-and-the-victors-are-not-merciful-6267104.html
The conflict in Libya was always much more of a civil war between Libyans than foreign governments pretended or the foreign media reported.
The "detention" of 7,000 people in prisons and camps by the anti-Gaddafi forces is not surprising.
The winning anti-Gaddafi militia are not proving merciful. ... Gaddafi supporters are being hunted down.
The international media was overwhelmingly hostile to Gaddafi's regime and tended to highlight atrocities committed by it and disregard or underplay human rights violations carried out by his opponents. An example of this occurred when eight or nine bodies of Libyan soldiers were found who appeared to have been executed. The rebels claimed they had been shot by Gaddafi's men because they tried to change sides. But Amnesty located a film of the soldiers being captured alive by the rebels and it was presumably the rebels who killed them.
* MEET THE NEW BOSSES; SAME AS THE OLD BOSSES.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57330909/n-korea-threatens-south-with-sea-of-fire/
North Korea threatened Thursday to turn Seoul's presidential palace office into a "sea of fire"...
* YOU FOLKS DO KNOW THAT NORTH KOREA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS, RIGHT? NOT THAT I DON'T VIEW IRAN AS A NUCLEAR POWER A THREAT, BUT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU HEARD ANY OF THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES - LET ALONE PRESIDENT OBAMA OR SECSTATE CLINTON - THREATEN PRE-EMPTIVE WAR AGAINST NORTH KOREA? JUST SAYIN', FOLKS... JUST SAYIN'...
On Wednesday, South Korea mobilized aircraft, rocket launchers, artillery guns and naval boats for the first anniversary of the artillery attack on a military garrison and fishing community on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. Two marines and two construction workers were killed in the attack, the first on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.
* RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU EVEN REMEMBER THIS. IT WAS ONLY A YEAR AGO!
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE REASON THE FOCUS IS ON IRAN AND NOT SOUTH KOREA IS THAT WE'RE BEING MANIPULATED BY THE POLITICIANS AND THE MEDIA.
Relations between the two Koreas sank to the their lowest point in years in 2010 after two incidents: the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors.
* ANYONE RECALL THE IRANIANS SINKING A U.S. OR EVEN ISRAELI WARSHIP? AN ALLIED WARSHIP? (*SHRUG*) JUST SAYIN', FOLKS... JUST SAYIN'...
* U.S. FOREIGN POLICY SHOULD NOT BE RUN LIKE A GAME OF THREE CARD MONTY.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577054513557012398.html
The descent of the National Labor Relations Board from independent referee to a wholly owned AFL-CIO subsidiary is speeding up.
Now its two Democratic appointees are attempting to ram through a new rule requiring quickie organizing elections, with barely any notice and little consultation with its sole GOP member.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Once a sleepy, ostensibly independent agency, the NLRB has become the point of the spear for Democratic labor policy since Republicans took the House last year. Earlier this year its general counsel sued to block Boeing from making its planes at a new plant in South Carolina, a case that is still proceeding and could kill thousands of jobs.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... OBAMA IS PLAYING FOR KEEPS AND DAMN THE CASUALTIES AMONG ANY WHO DON'T MAKE UP HIS BASE.
Now Chairman Mark Pearce, an Obama appointee, says he'll hold a vote next Wednesday on rules to shorten the time frame for union elections.
(The fire drill is intended to approve the union-favored plan before the recess appointment of the board's other Democrat expires and they lose their quorum.)
President Obama gave longtime union lawyer Craig Becker a recess appointment in March 2010 after even Senate Democrats considered him too radical to confirm, but that appointment expires at the end of the year. The Obama appointees need at least two of the NLRB's three occupied seats (two are vacant) to approve new rules.
Originally floated in June as a proposed rule-making, the plan would shorten to as little as 10 to 14 days the period between the time a union seeks an election to organize a work site and the election date. Under current rules, companies typically have five to six weeks to make their case to employees before the union holds a secret-ballot election. The Becker-Pearce putsch would give labor organizers months to quietly pitch workers, then give targeted companies less than two weeks to react and make their own case before a quickie election.
* FOLKS... DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOUR AMERICA? NO... BUT IT DOES SOUND LIKE OBAMA'S AMERICA. "CHANGE" INDEED!
When unions couldn't get a "card check" bill banning secret-ballot elections through even a Democratic Congress, they turned to the NLRB for this and other dirty work.
* MISUSING ADMINISTRATIVE POWERS TO SIDESTEP DEMOCRATIC PROCEDURES. (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*) FOLKS... THIS IS THE OBAMA MODUS OPERANDI!
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... READ THE FULL OP-ED.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577054370383139472.html
On a sweltering day in August, federal agents raided the Tennessee factories of the storied Gibson Guitar Corp. The suggestion was that Gibson had violated the Lacey Act - a federal law designed to protect wildlife - by importing certain India ebony.
The company has vehemently denied that suggestion and has yet to be charged. It is instead living in a state of harassed legal limbo.
(*PURSED LIPS*0
Which, let's be clear, is exactly what its persecutors had planned all along. The untold story of Gibson is this: It was set up.
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
Most of the press coverage has implied that the company is the unfortunate victim of a well-meaning, if complicated, law. Stories note, in passing, that the Lacey Act was "expanded" in 2008, and that this has had "unintended consequences." Given Washington's reputation for ill-considered bills, this might make sense.
Only not in this case.
The story here is about how a toxic alliance of ideological activists and trade protectionists deliberately set about creating a vague law, one designed to make an example out of companies (like Gibson) and thus chill imports - even legal ones.
* WELL... I'M ALL FOR CHILLING IMPORTS... BUT I WANT IT DONE VIA TARIFF AND I WANT IT DONE TRANSPARENTLY AND ABOVE BOARD!
* FOLKS... READ THE FULL ARTICLE. IF THE LINK DOESN'T WORK (BECAUSE OF THE PAY WALL) JUST GOOGLE "STRINGING UP GIBSON GUITAR + STRASSEL"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-pakistan-nato-idUSTRE7AP03S20111126
NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.
* FUNNY HOW IT'S "NATO" HELICOPTERS AND FIGHTER JETS BUT "U.S."-PAKISTAN RELATIONS, HUH?
(*SMIRK*)
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in just under a third of the alliance's supplies.
* "NATO" SUPPLY ROUTES... YEAH... THAT'S IT...
(*SNICKER*)
"This is an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty," said Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. "We will not let any harm come to Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity."
The Foreign Office said it would take up the matter "in the strongest terms" with NATO and the United States.
The powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said in a statement issued by the Pakistani military that "all necessary steps be under taken for an effective response to this irresponsible act.
* BOY, OH, BOY... AIN'T HILLARY AND BARAK JUST DOING A BANG UP JOB?! (GET IT... "BANG" UP...)
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... NONE OF THIS IS FUNNY. OBAMA IS TOTALLY INCOMPETENT. DANGEROUSLY SO!
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/11/25/obama-plays-golf-30th-time-year/
It is an unseasonably warm 65 degrees in the Washington area, and President Obama has bolted out of the White House to go golfing.
It’s his 30th time golfing this year and the 88th golf outing of his presidency.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-26-08-52-26
President Barack Obama will be just a fan at this basketball game.
Obama, who plays in pick-up games as often as he can, is bringing his family to Towson University, just north of Baltimore, to watch Towson play Oregon State on Saturday afternoon.
Catching an Oregon State game has become a post-Thanksgiving tradition for the Obamas.
* SO WHAT... WE JUST BOMBED PAKISTAN, KILLING 24 PAKISTANI TROOPS. IT'S NOT LIKE PAKISTAN'S A NUCLEAR POWER OR ANYTHING... (*JUST ROLLING MY EYES*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THIS MAN IS A DISASTER AS PRESIDENT. HILLARY CLINTON IS A DISASTER AS SECRETARY OF STATE. ERIC HOLDER IS LITTLE MORE THAN A CRIMINAL... AND WE COULD GO ON AND ON.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/11/25/8th-oui-charge-for-east-boston-man-with-lifetime-license-suspension/
An East Boston man with seven previous OUI arrests and a lifetime license suspension is behind bars after being charged for an eighth time with driving drunk.
* FOLKS, I GIVE YOU THIS STORY AS A NEWSBITE BECAUSE IT SHOWS HOW DEEPLY DYSFUNCTIONAL OUR "JUSTICE" SYSTEM IS. THIS MAN SHOULD BE EXECUTED - HE'S OBVIOUSLY A THREAT TO SOCIETY AND WILL ALWAYS BE ONE AS LONG AS HE'S ALLOWED OUT INTO SOCIETY. HE SHOULD BE EXECUTED BEFORE HE KILLS SOMEONE - BUT HE WON'T BE. EVEN IF HE'S JAILED THIS TIME, I DOUBT IT'LL BE FOR MORE THAN A FEW YEARS AT MOST... WITH TAXPAYERS PAYING THE TAB.
http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/24/money-slated-for-health-law-gets-detoured/
In cash-strapped Washington, President Obama’s $1 trillion health care law is presenting a tempting target for lawmakers seeking funds for other projects, as Congress last week raided the health care piggy bank for the third time in less than a year.
(*SNORT*)
Congress last week axed a part of Democrats’ signature domestic achievement to "find" $11 billion to cover the cost of repealing a withholding tax that otherwise would have hit government contractors in 2013. Mr. Obama signed that bill into law on Monday.
* MEANING THE $11 BILLION IS STILL GONNA BE SPENT TODAY... PLUS... THERE'S A NEW IOU FOR $11 DOWN THE ROAD!
All told, Congress and the president have tapped some $50 billion earmarked to pay for benefits and programs in the health care overhaul in future years to fund more-immediate spending needs.
* BUT, FOLKS... WE WERE TOLD THAT $50 WAS ABSOLUTELY VITAL FOR OBAMACARE TO WORK AS PROMISED. NOW IT'S NOT...??? COM'ON... IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR YOU'D GO TO JAIL FOR SUCH SCAMS!
* FOLKS... WE HAVE CON-MEN (AND CON-WOMEN!) RUNNING OUR COUNTRY! IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLY.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/meow_trage_at_algonquin_73LjLIUVYEdf5HITLCeroJ
The NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene has sunk its claws into another beloved New York institution - The Algonquin hotel’s lobby cat.
Matilda III - the latest in an illustrious line of free-roaming Algonquin felines - has been banished from the lobby lounge, leaving guests fruitlessly searching for her under chairs and sofas. She’s the 10th Algonquin cat since Rusty, a k a Hamlet I, moved into the hotel, legendary home of the “Round Table” literary salon, in 1932. The pampered pussies are as much a part of The Algonquin’s cozy confines as the oak paneling and upholstered chairs and sofas. Hotel staff have delighted in pointing out Matilda’s hiding places to guests. Like her predecessors, she had the run of the house, but the lobby, home to the Round Table restaurant and lounge, was called her “natural habitat.”
* BUT NO LONGER!
Prodded by Nanny Bloomberg, the DOH has been socking restaurants with steep fines for minor violations - and slapping dreaded “C” ratings on places where no one was known to get sick.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
Algonquin General Manager Gary Budge...acknowledged, “The [Health] department in the past months suggested to us that pets in food-service facilities are no longer commingled. “The lobby is an area where we serve food and beverage. We always want to be respectful of the Department of Health.”
* YA KNOW WHAT, FOLKS...? THE OWNERS OF THE ALGONQUIN SHOULD PUBLICLY TELL MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND HIS GOONS TO STUFF IT! TAKE OUT FULL PAGE ADS IN THE NY NEWSPAPERS! ENOUGH IS FRIGG'N ENOUGH!!!
A DOH spokeswoman said, “According to the New York City Health Code, live animals are not allowed in food-service establishments unless a patron needs a service dog.” Some places are taking no chances, eliminating popular features before the DOH can strike them down. The party-pooping agency recently nudged Sardi’s to eliminate cheese snacks at its bar.
* IS THIS REALLY THE WORLD WE WANNA LIVE IN...? REALLY...???
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577016092542307600.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
'What has the country so angry," says Fred Siegel, "is the sense that crony capitalism has produced a population that lives off the rest of us without contributing; they're right - it's not paranoid!"
The [noted] economic historian of the American city has spent a lot of this autumn on Wall Street. He met many of the protesters who camped out at Zuccotti Park, before the city's finest cleared them out last week. He also knows the bankers and finds the theater of the Occupy movement ironic. "They're on the same side of the street politically," he says. "They're both in favor of big government."
The Bush and Obama administrations bailed out the large banks, and that economic stimulus and near-zero interest rates kept them flush. "Obama's crony capitalism has been very good for New York's crony capitalism," he says. Over at Zuccotti Park, "there are a few people there who do get it, but very little of their animosity follows from this."
(*SIGH*)
One can appreciate why the "We Are The 99%" militants might resist Mr. Siegel's logic. He links the liberalism of the 1960s, not any excess of the free market, to today's crisis. The Great Society put the state on growth hormones. Less widely appreciated, the era gave birth to a powerful new political force, the public-sector union. For the first time in American history there was an interest dedicated wholly to lobbying for a larger government and the taxes and debt to pay for it.
(*NOD*)
A former editor of the left-leaning Dissent magazine, Mr. Siegel...calls his hometown "the model for cross subsidies" in America.
"Wall Street makes money off the bonds that have to be floated to pay the public sector workers in New York."
* YEP...!
In Mr. Siegel's estimation, only Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has tried the needed fix after last year's elections. "Part of the reason Walker has become such a lightning rod" is that he pushed "straight up, unambiguous structural reform." His move to restrict collective bargaining for state employees isn't as important, says Mr. Siegel, as ending the requirement that state workers pay union dues.
(*NOD*)
On his first day in the governor's mansion in 2005, Indiana's Mitch Daniels also stopped deducting dues automatically; most workers chose not to pay. "The union has a guaranteed flow of income, which they then use to lobby the government," says Mr. Siegel. This reform, he adds, "evens the playing field."
(*THUMBS UP*)
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
It is often forgotten how many New Deal Democrats were skeptical about public-sector unions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the idea of strikes by government workers "unthinkable and intolerable." New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia said, "I do not want any of the pinochle club atmosphere to take hold among city workers."
But union organizers would eventually tap into the language of the civil rights movement to present collective bargaining as another overdue "right."
New York Mayor Robert Wagner extended collective-bargaining rights to government employees in 1958. He saw early that, says Mr. Siegel, "public sector unions are displacing political machines as the turnout mechanism for the Democratic Party. They are the new Tammany Hall."
Coming off a nail biter of an election, President John F. Kennedy saw this future as well. In 1962, he signed Executive Order 10988 to give federal workers the right to unionize, though not to collectively bargain. By 1980, half of all delegates to the Democratic convention worked for the government.
(*SIGH*)
During the presidency of George W. Bush, the number of government workers who belong to a union surpassed the number of unionized private workers.
The future of his city worries Mr. Siegel. Forty years ago, New York had the most manufacturing jobs in America. But as the finance sector's share of the national economy grew to 23% in 2007 from 7% in 1980, New York turned almost into a one-company town. Meantime, the growing claims on the public purse by those who make little to no contribution to the economy have driven up taxes and the costs of doing business. The city creates jobs in tourism, hotels and restaurants at the lower end of the scale. "What we don't create are private-sector middle-class jobs," says Mr. Siegel. "We have a ladder with the middle rungs missing."
Mr. Siegel's feelings about NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg come unfiltered. He chose to court rather than confront the teacher unions and "the race racketeers" (in Mr. Siegel's phrase) like Rev. Al Sharpton. "Bloomberg had the leverage - he didn't have the guts. Instead of being influenced by interest groups, he buys the interest groups. The outcome is the same. The interest groups get what they want."
(*SADLY NODDING*)
The institutional barriers to change have grown, too. The "Working Families" Party, founded in 1998, is the political arm of government unions and a driver of turnout in local elections. Though little known outside New York, the influence of this third party can be seen on the City Council, which has come to tilt heavily Left. So far, says Mr. Siegel, the party has a better political track record than Tammany. "With the exception of Giuliani, they've never lost an election. No matter who wins, they're OK."
"We are what the 'Tea Party' fears for the rest of the country. Crony capitalism, and low-end work, and the loss of mobility, and no place to do business if you're a small business," announces Siegel.
(*SIGH*)
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