McDonald directed the booster rocket project at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol. He was responsible for the two massive rockets, filled with explosive fuel, which lifted space shuttles skyward. He was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the launch of the Challenger “…to approve or disapprove a launch if something came up,” he told me in 2016, 30 years after Challenger exploded.
His job was to sign and submit an official form. Sign the form, he believed, and he’d risk the lives of the seven astronauts set to board the spacecraft the next morning. Refuse to sign, and he’d risk his job, his career, and the good life he’d built for his wife and four children.
“And I made the smartest decision I ever made in my lifetime,” McDonald told me. “I refused to sign it. I just thought we were taking risks we shouldn’t be taking.”
What a loss, but I am grateful his suffering is at an end.
Untold numbers of people thought they were alone and universally despised before Rush broke through the wall of coastal snobbery and reached them. Without him, there would be no right-wing media, no voice beyond the screeching of our hateful elite. RIP to a legend.
— Klavan Squarebeard, first of his name (@SpencerKlavan) February 17, 2021
I have never once heard even a minute of his radio show, although one of the highlights of our early Swilling was having one of our scoops featured on it (Folks were kind enough to send us the transcripts.). But these past few years – especially during the latter days of the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton’s run – I came to look forward to his appearances on shows, and read guest columns.
What an intellect. And, oh, how he loved this great country of ours.
And the folks in it. The “you”s, “me”s, and “us”s – all of US regular types.
He told us we weren’t crazy. We WERE seeing what we WERE seeing, and he laid it all out on the table time and again, in clear, concise, take-no-prisoners language that gave voice to the frustration, and resentment felt by a neglected, massive swath of this great land’s hardworking citizens.
He heard, he saw, and he gave such vociferous voice. There was, at last, a true people’s champion speaking. An America first champion.
…Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause] When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. What we see — what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don’t think that person doesn’t have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [Applause]
We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
We don’t want to tell anybody how to live. That’s up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we’ll try to stop it, but it’s a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that’s been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause]
We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we’re all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we’re all the same, that we’re no different than anybody else. We’re all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That’s up to them. They are created equal, given the chance – -[Applause]
We don’t hate anybody. We don’t — I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience — let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. [Applause]…
I was so very shocked and saddened to get a text message from THS that Kathy Kinsley had died.
She was a long time commenter here, and she’d always keep checking in during those times when we had some gaps in posting, and always with grace and class.
“No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger, other than self-defense and that rarely ever occurs,” he said. “So we have to just change the culture. Period.”
Then he maybe took it too far, adding, “And keep punching at it and punching at it and punching at it,” making matching punching motions with his fist.
The big takeaway from Impeachment Theater is that American voters have influence over a much smaller portion of the federal government than they believed. Washington is a feudal bureaucratic empire with a small suggestion box.
Last week American voters were introduced to the idea that the elected President of the United States can be accused of “undermining” foreign policy determined by the permanent bureaucracy, which spends billions of our tax dollars but is not even slightly interested in our input.
Thanks to Ace, I will say up front I feel very sorry for this guy’s kids, it’s horrible what he’s put them through, but sweet baby Jeebus I swear it’s impossible to read through this without laughing out loud several times:
“The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn’t seem like an obvious mark, would he? “
The 41st President will be carried to his final rest wearing socks that pay tribute to his lifetime of service, starting as an 18 year-old naval aviator in war. That legacy is now being carried, in part, by the brave, selfless men and women aboard @CVN77_GHWB. #Remembering41pic.twitter.com/OabtK756fO
…has shuffled off his mortal coil, and undoubtedly gone to Heaven.
This is my favorite portrait of him. Not only because it is so incredibly informal and human, but also because it looks eerily like my Dad. I’ve been lucky enough to meet the artist (Jeffrey Bass), and told him how much this picture affects me every single time I visit it in the National Museum of Naval Aviation.
George Bush was an American hero and national treasure. I hope Barbara doesn’t give him too much grief when he hits the Pearly Gates.
Hillary Clinton, in an interview with a British newspaper this week, appeared to compare herself to wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill while responding to a question about being a polarizing figure.
“I’m sure they said that about Churchill between the wars, didn’t they?” she told The Guardian when asked if she should withdraw from public life to help heal divisions in the U.S., given her reputation.
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee then immediately claimed she wasn’t actually comparing herself to Churchill, before going on to elaborate on the analogy.
Churchill went into the political wilderness between the two World Wars and during that time was a key voice criticizing then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler. He would go on to become prime minister himself and help lead the Allies to victory in World War II.
The Guardian report notes that Clinton made the Churchill reference “a fraction too quickly for the line to sound spontaneous.”
Clinton continued: “I mean, I’m not comparing myself, but I’m just saying people said that, but he was right about Hitler, and a lot of people in England were wrong. And Churchill was a pain. He kept popping up all the time.”
I love the note from the Grauniad, it’s perfectly true. She has never done anything in her entire life that was spontaneous. Everything she does has been planned to move her up the power chain.
And she will never understand, and certainly never forgive, the peasants for rejecting her
…just jumped Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell. God bless her, she rips back at them.
Dangerous, but don’t we ALL want to.
BREAKING: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife harassed by violent crowed, as Maxine Waters urges more protests pic.twitter.com/vC9SeMbjiu
Her mother also has a loving, EMPLOYED husband and 3 other children she ABANDONED to light out for that big WalMart in the North. Who's abusing that child again? https://t.co/PbgAjFlr72
— tree hugging sister (@treehuggingsis) June 22, 2018
EXCLUSIVE: ‘They’re together and safe: Father of Honduran two-year-old who became the face of family separation crisis reveals daughter was never separated from her mother, but the image of her in tears at U.S. border control ‘broke his heart’
Son of a bitch thing to do, the son of a bitch. We always knew he was a wreck and one of the world’s biggest assholes, but he’s ALWAYS been one. He didn’t have to leave.
New York (CNN)Anthony Bourdain, a gifted storyteller and writer who took CNN viewers around the world, has died. He was 61.
CNN confirmed Bourdain’s death on Friday and said the cause of death was suicide.
“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” the network said in a statement Friday morning. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time.”
Bourdain was in France working on an upcoming episode of his award-winning CNN series “Parts Unknown.” His close friend Eric Ripert, the French chef, found Bourdain unresponsive in his hotel room Friday morning.
My favorite Anthony Bourdain episode: Beirut.
At minute 20 or so, he starts to become American again, and his paean to the United States Marines who rescue him from a war zone makes me cry to this very day.
#APNewsBreak: Secret Obama-era license would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7B by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after 2015 nuclear deal. https://t.co/yo0UAMozAj
Man, I HATE these holier-than-thou, mendacious, anti-American sumbitches with a passion more every day.
There’d better be justice for the American citizen coming…SOMEWHERE…SOMEDAY…for at least ONE of these assholes.
UPDATE: More…
The Obama administration secretly gave Iran permission in 2016 to sidestep sanctions and convert $5.7 billion in Omani currency into US dollars https://t.co/pz0ZOqRMUe
People | tree hugging sister | 
March 8, 2021 2:44 pm | 
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