This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: DC Government

  • The Sky is Falling!

    Ok I am not sure what to make of this and when it became a impending issue?

    President Barack Obama set a lofty next goal this week for Americans in space: Visiting an asteroid by 2025. But reaching a space rock in a mere 15 years is a daunting mission, and one that might also carry the ultimate safety of the planet on its shoulders.

    If humanity doesn’t develop a capability to meet space rocks head-on, and win, than it is almost a certainty that an asteroid will eventually threaten life on Earth, he added.

    So let get this straight we are going after all the things we are dealing right now we are going to put funds into a program that has a goal that most likely not even going to happen.

    Oh and try to make sense of one

    “By going to a near-Earth object, an asteroid, and perhaps even modifying its trajectory slightly, we would demonstrate a hallmark in human history,” said Grunsfeld, who flew on three shuttle missions to fix the Hubble Space Telescope. “The first time humans showed that we can make better decisions than the dinosaurs made 65 million years ago.”

    If humanity doesn’t develop a capability to meet space rocks head-on, and win, than it is almost a certainty that an asteroid will eventually threaten life on Earth, he added.

    You make Captain Picard Cry.

  • Marion Barry censured

    The Washington Post reports that the DC City council has voted to censure Marion Barry and refer him to the US Attorney General for corruption charges;

    The move stems from a report by Washington attorney Robert S. Bennett that concluded that Barry personally benefited from a $15,000 personal service contract he secured for his on-again, off-again girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt.

    Barry has apologized for poor judgment. However, he has maintained that he broke no laws.

    Barry has been rousted by Park Police for hanging around the parks in DC, probably to purchase illegal drugs and he hasn’t paid a penny of his taxes for the last 11 years, despite the fact that he was so ordered by a Federal Court.

    I wonder which bitch set him up this time.

  • Napolitano FINALLY Admits The Obvious About The Ft. Hood Massacre

    From Fox News (Emphasis my own):

    “Violent Islamic terrorism … was part and parcel of the Ft. Hood killings,” Napolitano told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday morning. “There is violent Islamic terrorism, be it Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen or anywhere else, [and] that is indeed a major focus of this department and its efforts.”

    Political correctness has governed the Army’s and DHS’s handling of the Ft. Hood massacre since day one, blatantly ignoring Hassan’s ties to Islamic extremists in this country and overseas. The fact that the Napolitano now admits that this was act of Islamic terrorism does not make up for the fact that the DHS and Army deliberately ignored the obvious for months.

    More importantly, it does not make up for the fact that the Army and DHS bear responsibility for the deaths of those 13 American soldiers at Ft. Hood by repeatedly ignoring the fact that Hassan was an Islamic radical.

  • It’s Saturday Night Links

    Just a few quick links since there is nothing too big for it’s own post. So lets begin;

    To start off, there has been a fourth Church that has been burned down Malaysia that is suspected of being linked to the law that allowed Christians to use Allah to refer to God.

    The violence comes as Muslims protest a recent court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use the word “Allah” for God. Muslims believe Allah, an Arabic word, should only be used by Muslims.

    Next is that the suicide bomber that killed at least 6 CIA personal set off his bomb before he was searched.

    Those at the scene on Dec. 30 had been trying to strike a balance between respect for their informant — best demonstrated, in the regional tradition, by direct personal contact — and caution, illustrated by the attentiveness of the security guards, according to CIA officials.

    Also in Dallas a guy eager to see his girlfriend caused the Airport to be shut down for seven hours when he wanted a hug before she left.

    “He just wanted to say goodbye to his girlfriend, I don’t think he realized what he [was] doing,” said another pal, Ning Huang, 33, who plays soccer with Jiang.

    Separately

    TSA guard Ruben Hernandez had temporarily left his post unguarded, highlighting porous security at the airport despite recent terror alerts.

    Lastly seems that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has publicly apologized for his comment back in 2008.

    “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans, for my improper comments.”

    We shall see what happens with that. Now if he would appoligize about his comment that the Iraq War was Lost. I know, not going to happen.

    To end it off I figured something funny. Remember when Cindy Sheehan made her “Under the Death Star” speech? Well seemed that this cartoon came out tow years before it and looked like it was made for it.

  • The Story That Won’t Go Away (and Why It Shouldn’t)

    Today I saw a story on my Yahoo homepage about a third party crasher getting into the White House state dinner last November. The Secret Service hasn’t released the party crasher’s name yet, but has said that it was a male with the Indian delegation and that he didn’t get close to the President or First Lady.

    When this story broke, I got very interested in the details behind it and not because I am a huge fan of The Real Housewives series, polo, or Virginia wine (I wouldn’t be caught dead near any of those three things). As I mentioned in my first post, I spent the first part of my enlistment serving as part of the Marine Security Company at Camp David. I worked a lot with the Secret Service and developed a respect for their professionalism and skill. I also know and served with one of the Marines that was photographed with the Salahis. When information about how the Salahis got into the White House started to emerge and when the White House started to try and throw the Secret Service under the bus, naturally I got a little suspicious about the story the White House was putting out about how the Salahis got in.

    Lets first go over some things about the Salahis that haven’t been widely reported.

    1. Tareq Salahi was a member of the Virginia Wine Board and eventually was appointed its chairman by Governor Warner. When Tim Kaine was elected governor of Virginia, he appointed Salahi a member of the state’s tourism board in the hopes that Salahi would help attract wine tourists to the state and that Virginia would develop the equivalent of California’s Napa Valley. Tim Kaine’s inaugural committee even bought $25k worth of wine from Salahi’s now bankrupt vineyard. Salahi also has donated money to both Republican and Democratic politicians in Virginia. Its no secret that Tim Kaine helped Obama win Virigina (and the Presidency) in 2008 and Kaine is now chairman of the DNC.

    2. The Salahis were organizing a polo event with the Indian Embassy and were at a reception at the Indian Embassy two months prior to the incident at the White House. Obviously they would have known a lot of the staff at the Indian Embassy.

    3. Tareq Salahi is a board member of a Palestinian “peace group” that has hosted powerful Democratic and Republican politicians.

    Take these facts into account and its obvious that the Salahis aren’t just social climbers. They have some very real connections in DC, especially in some powerful Democratic circles. So what does this have to do with the Secret Service and what happened at the White House state dinner? Having worked security at VIP events in the DC area, I can tell you that at these events a lot of pressure is put on the security personnel not to “offend” the wrong people by “inconveniencing” them with time-consuming security procedures.  Usually at events like this, members of the social staff put out a list of guests and there is usually a member of the social staff at each security checkpoint, nominally there to greet guests but really there to make sure the Secret Service, Marines, Capitol police, or whoever don’t piss off anybody important.

    So here is what I really think happened: the Salahis show up with all the cameras and hoopla and walk up to the first checkpoint (I guess Katie Couric was there too). The Secret Service has a guest list and they aren’t on the one the Uniform Division has (the people responsible for perimeter security at the White House and other Presidential events). They check with the social staff (which probably included people from the Indian Embassy who had to have known the Salahis) and either they have a list with the Salahis on it (and the White House won’t admit it) or they assume that the Salahis had to have been invited and don’t want to risk offending them (and most importantly their friends). So the social staff tells the SS to let them in (or threatens them if they don’t) and the rest of the story everybody knows by now.

    There is no “smoking gun” to prove that this is what happened at the checkpoint. But most of the blame is being placed on the Secret Service that is unfair to them. The real story here is how the Obama White House is throwing three Secret Service Officers under the bus in order to protect their social staff, most importantly the head social secretary Desiree Rogers.

    So much for looking out for the little guys…

  • DC cop brings gun to a snowball fight

    dc-cop-snowball-fight

    A man who identifies himself as “Detective Baylor” in the following video, was brutally attacked and forced to draw his weapon on 14th and U Streets yesterday in order to quell a vicious hurling of precipitation formed into odd-shaped, never-before-seen clumps;

    Pussy.

    Funny how the government in DC, which fights all the way to the Supreme Court to prevent it’s citizenry from owning firearms, reaches so quickly, and so unreasonably, for their own weapons.

    Here’s a video of the event the “detective” sought to quell;

    The Washington City Paper reports that it wasn’t even the cop who got hit, but rather his personal unmarked vehicle, a Hummer (no penis issues there, huh?). So he pulls his gun.

    Again. Pussy.

  • Dasvedanya, Don’t Get Any on Ya!

    In the middle of the night, the White House announced that Van Jones, the Green Jobs adviser that didn’t know how to define a green job as of July, has resigned. This came about while the media was asleep at the switch (except for Glenn Beck and Jake Tapper) , and a mild-mannered blogger from the Midwest dug up some documents that Van Jones was another run-of-the-mill Truther. From Breitbart:

    The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones’ name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officials had allowed the attacks to occur.

    It’s frightening how much of the world still believes in this ridiculous 9/11 as an inside job conspiracy despite all evidence to the contrary. In the Bangkok ex-pat community alone, I have encountered many well-educated Europeans who actually believe this crap, which is both offensive and disturbing on many levels. For anyone who has spent time in California, it’s no surprise that there are people like Van Jones. But they have absolutely no place at the highest levels of government that would give 9/11 conspiracies legitimacy. This has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with racism.

  • Some Level of Federal Indoctrination More Equal Than Others

    Tim Rutten of the LA Times sums up the controversy of Obama’s Sept. 8th speech as the paranoid delusions of the Right-Wing Hate Machine (patent pending) akin to Birther/Muslim type conspiracies found in scary corners of the internet:

    Miller has identified precisely the process at work in the healthcare hysteria and, increasingly, elsewhere where the GOP thinks it can shove the Obama administration into a ditch. Republican officials such as the Florida state chairman are playing a dangerous game with an unhinged segment of public opinion that regards Obama not as an elected official with whom they disagree, but as an illegitimate usurper of the presidency.

    That paranoid fantasy is what’s really behind the “birther” movement and the allegations that the president is — take your pick — a secret Marxist or a secret Muslim.

    A bit extreme in his characterization, since he doesn’t mention the fact that the Department of Education issued a memo for kids to think about what they could do for the president (later revised), which was summed up superbly by Professor Jacobson as a bit “creepy“. BooRadley (who has a lot of kids and might know something about being a parent) already summarized the low-level anxiety at TAH, and noted that the President speaking to school kids is fine, but using the opportunity to stump for the political issue of the day is not.

    But, I’m confused, because I thought the left was always looking to protect school kids from the imperiali$tic/capitalist horrors of Uncle Sam , at least if its the military. Remember the lady in Seattle who wanted to ban recruiters from public parks because her wuss kids might be scared? The Marines in Berkeley getting their recruiting vandalized? Most, recently the ever-moderate Mother Jones exposing a secret plot within the Pentagon to garner information on potential recruits from public schools. Our favorite commentator, Jim Staro, offered his keen insight into the scandal (note the two exclamation points means you really better read this!!):

    This was just more from the cheney/bush cabal acts against the country, and their growing list of proof of crimes against this Nation and Our Constitution, no one was safe, especially our children, needed to fill the ranks of bringing democracy? to others by extreme force!!

    You can only wish that the left would apply some sort of ideological standard on what constitutes outrage in public schools before they attempt to squash all criticism from their political opponents, because I’m now baffled on what is “genuine” outrage.