Author: Hondo

  • Unintentional Truth In Advertising, Political-Style

    Here’s a quote for ya. Let’s see if you can guess the source:

    “And of course, the reason is we’ve proved that Communism works. If you give everybody a good government job, there’s no crime.”

    Now, who said that? Lenin? Khrushchev? Stalin? Brezhnev? Mao? Castro?  The leader of the Shining Path, or some other Communist guerrilla group?  Maybe Marx, speaking of his future Communist utopia?

    Nope. None of the above.

    If you guessed a current Member of Congress from South Florida – give yourself a big honking Attaboy (or Attagirl).

    No, I’m not joking. It was Representative Joe Garcia of Florida. He currently represents western Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys.

    I’ll leave figuring out Rep. Garcia’s political party affiliation as the proverbial “exercise for the reader.”

    Predictably, Garcia has since backed away from his statement.  He’s now claiming that he never intended to endorse Communism and was being “tongue in cheek” when he made the remark.

    Of course, this was the same Congressman who was also caught on-camera  engaging in what can at best be described as rather disgusting personal behavior on live TV (House Jusdiciary Committe markup, broadcast live on C-Span).  And who’s also featured video of himself hanging out with a politician awaiting arrested last summer on public corruption charges in a recent political ad (which has since been pulled from Youtube).  And who thinks we have a “border problem” in Puerto Rico.

    So personally I just don’t buy his claim of, “I was just kidding.”

    “Tongue in cheek”, hell – try “foot-in-mouth Freudian slip”.  Or maybe, “I was just doing what comes naturally – being the village idiot.”

    Hopefully the good voters of South Florida will replace this    moron        idiot    fool with someone of at least normal intelligence in November.

  • So, How Are East-West Relations Today?

    Remember how this Administration claimed it would set new directions in US foreign policy?  How this Administration would gain new respect abroad by being more “nuanced” and collaborative in it’s dealings with other nations?  That the world was tired of the US going it alone, like a tactless, blunt “cowboy”?

    Well, seems like things are working out a bit differently than intended. Here’s an article title from that bastion of right-wing thought, the UK Daily Mail:

    Russian prime minister warns Obama is bringing the world to the brink of ‘a second Cold War that nobody needs’

    Here are a couple of short quotes from the article:

    In a videotaped interview published Tuesday, he told Bloomberg Television that ‘we are slowly but surely approaching a second cold war,’ in part because President Barack Obama ‘could be more tactful politically.’

    . . .

    Asked about the now-infamous ‘reset button’ effort that he co-engineered with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March 2009, Medvedev said the Obama administration has unraveled any Russian good will that may have existed five years ago.

    Yeah, the Russian Prime Minister, Dimtry Medvedev, has an agenda here.  But sometimes you can use God’s honest truth to further an agenda.

    Current relations with China aren’t any better.  The Chinese recently summoned the US Ambassador over recent US public accusations of industrial espionage committed by members of the Chinese military.  Further Chinese diplomatic actions may be pending.

    And don’t even get me started on this Administrations foreign policy efforts regarding the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the Syrian Civil War, Iran, or Korea.

    Yeah, that “nuanced, collaborative” style of diplomacy has really improved things for US interests worldwide, hasn’t it?

    GMAFB.  I’ll be so glad when adults are managing US foreign policy again vice naive tools and/or clueless fools.

  • So Much For “We Didn’t Know”

    The more that comes to light, the more it’s apparent that senior officials in the VA years ago knew damn well that games were being played with patient scheduling.

    Why?  Because as this Army Times article states, in April 2010, the VA’s Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and Management, William Schoenhard, wrote a memo to regional directors “calling for ‘immediate action’ to review scheduling practices to eliminate “inappropriate” strategies.”  He wouldn’t have done that had senior VA leadership been clueless regarding the problem.

    This means that senior VA leadership knew about the problem at least 4 years ago.  Dunno about you, but 4 years seems like long enough to get that one problem fixed.

    Shinseki claims he “had not seen” the memo in question.  While that may be technically true, I bluntly do not believe he was ignorant of the problem.

    Robert Petzel, the VA’s designated scapegoat in the matter, has indicated he was aware of the memo.  Maybe that’s why he ended up being the designated scapegoat – lack of “plausible deniability”.

    Time to uphold the bushido code of your ancestors, Shinseki.  As well as to display the honorable conducted expected from a former US military officer.

    It’s time for you to resign. Now.

    Oh, and to anyone who may have falsely told investigators they were unaware of the problem, I have some free advice.  You really might want to “lawyer up”.

    Because as I’ve said before:  it wasn’t the break-in that ended up putting many of those involved in Watergate in jail. It was their participation in the cover-up.

  • More on Social Security Disability

    I’ve written before (here and here) about Social Security Disability.  Well, ti’s time for an update.

    Yeah, the Social Security Disability rolls set another record last month.  In April 2014, according to the Social Security Administration nearly 11 million Americans (10,996,447) were receiving Social Security Disability benefits.

    This total was an increase of over 15,000 from the previous month.

    Nearly 9 million of those receiving benefits – 8,942,232, to be precise – were disabled workers. The other 2+ million beneficiaries were spouses and children.

    The fraction of America receiving Social Security disability continues to rise also.  In 1967, 2 million were receiving Social Security disability benefits – out of a population of roughly 198.7 million.  That was about 1.01% of the US population.

    Today, the Census Bureaus says the US population is roughly 318 million. Doing the math, that means that nearly 3.5% of the US population (3.46%) is currently drawing Social Security disability benefits.

    The number of people drawing Social Security disability benefits today is greater than the estimated population of Tunisia.  The number is approaching the population of Cuba.

    Any questions regarding why the SSA is now saying that the Social Security Disability Fund will go broke in about 2 years?

    The CNS article has an excellent graph showing the number of Social Security Disability recipients by year, but it’s scaled rather small and doesn’t display that well in their article.  Click here to see that graph as a separate image.

    We are so screwed.

  • I’ll Just Leave This Here . . . .

    Man Busted For Trying To Have Sex With ATM
    Cops: Drunk suspect, 49, also sought to tryst with picnic table

     

    Yeah, alcohol was indeed a contributing factor.  “Contributing”, as in “the guy was plowed“.

    Must have been a  one helluva wild night over at the Grand Ole Opry.  (smile)

    Unlike the time the guy in Seattle tried to make it with a SUV there doesn’t seem to be video of this little incident. But based on the description and the guy’s mug shot, that’s probably a good thing.

  • What Goes Around, Comes Around

    National Review Online has a short, but good, article detailing how the POTUS has played politics with VA medical care over the years – and how his administration would “fix things”.  IMO, It’s worth a look.

    Petard, own, hoist.  That kind of thing.

     

    Update:  Well, so much for the “we didn’t know that this might be an issue” argument.  Apparently the current Administration’s transition team was briefed that this could be an issue 5 1/2 years ago – in late 2008.  So if they haven’t been monitoring it, I’d certainly like to know why the hell not.

  • Ever Wonder What the Current Administration Thinks Was A Good Example of “Bipartisanship”?

    Did you guess the 2010 vote that passed the    asinine abomination    wonderful law creating what is currently referred to as “ObamaCare”?

    You didn’t? Why not? I mean, that was a sterling example of both parties working together to craft legislation that everyone could endorse, right?

    Yeah, I know – I had to stifle the urge to toss my cookies writing the  above. We all know that’s total bullsh!t.

    In case anyone’s forgotten, the bill creating ObamaCare was passed using a  questionable (and underhanded) parliamentary maneuver, with zero GOP input or support, literally in the middle of the night.

    Bipartisan?  Yeah, right.  Bipartisan my azz.

    But that doesn’t stop the current Administration from touting that vote as an example of bipartisanship.  And no, I’m not joking.

    Sheesh.  I’d expect that kind of transparent snow job from    Opie    Jay Carney.  That’s what he gets paid to do:  dissemble on demand.  But I previously gave the Secretary of the Treasury some credit for having common sense – and a bit of integrity.

    Are they really that clueless?  Or do they just like p!ssing on our leg and telling us it’s raining?

  • Oh Boy

    The VA treatment scandal keeps spreading. Now, a former psychiatrist at the Huntington VA Medical Center, Charleston, WV  VA – Dr. Margaret Moxness – has come forward with some pretty damning accusations.

    Specifically, Dr. Moxness claims she was told to delay treatment for patients needing it.  She further claims that her complaints about those delays were ignored by her superiors.  And she also claims  that at least two individuals committed suicide while awaiting treatment.

    This is not exactly a new case, either. The individual reportedly worked for the VA at Huntington VAMC from 2008 to 2010.

    Details are here, courtesy of Fox News.  IMO, it’s worth a read.

    The VA has not yet commented on the matter.