Touch MY Entree

…I kill you.

“A young French Muslim shouts in Paris restaurant “People can’t eat because it’s the ramadan“. After he reverses tables, and throws food on the ground.”

200 Years Ago Today

Ebola Gives the HuffPo a THOROUGH Fisking

…as they agitate to liberate Guam.

“Guam–the only occupied U.S. territory in the Pacific–was the first island to be invaded by the Japanese and the last to be liberated by the United States.”

The only occupied US territory in the Pacific? If you’re looking for civilian US territorial populations during WWII, why not mention the Philippines? I notice it is mentioned only in passing, which suggests some ignorance of Philippine history, especially during the time period being discussed. The Philippine islands were attacked at virtually the same time as Guam, ironically in the midst of seeking their independence from the United States, and weren’t liberated from Japanese forces until March of 1945, almost a year after the liberation of Guam. The Philippines may have departed as a US territory in 1946, but let’s not pretend that they weren’t one and that we didn’t lose American and Filipino lives over that area to make a facile appeal to emotion case that purposely or ignorantly devalues lives lost.

Philippine (civ/mil) and United States military deaths were between half a million and a million and a half, by most estimates. Guam losses were between one to two thousand dead, with the census at the time placing the population at 20,000; while “10%” might be statistically correct if we assume the most extreme estimations, it is absolutely feckless to insinuate that our honored dead matter more or less than some other grouping of our dead, only relative to the landmass on which they are killed or that their impending status as a non-territorial organism of the United States somehow made their lives worth less.

“The United States, however, continuously disregards Guam’s sacrifices….not only did the act fail to provide meaningful citizenship rights, it explicitly stated that the president could still dispose of Guam’s land for military purposes at will.“

The Organic Act and subsequent Acts until 1952 gave the exact same citizen rights as other territories enjoy to this day. Here on Guam individuals have all the benefits of being an American citizen, except for voting for President; the population of which could move towards becoming an associated free state, like Micronesia, an incorporated territory or remain an unincorporated territory. The 14th Amendment assures individuals of citizenship rights in territories, and the Organic Act incorporated Guam as a territory, rather than a military rule. It is well within the power of the people of Guam to incorporate, move for independence or remain, if that is their wish. The fact that author implies they are simply being stripped of their due rights is blatant victimization, as though they had no say in their relation to the United States. This is vaguely ironic to put forward; especially given the absence of nearly any mention of the Philippines, a now independent self-governing body that peacefully achieved that independence, directly after WWII, from the U.S. and then booted the remaining U.S. military out 1991.

“Guam’s veterans receive inadequate medical services and communities adjacent to military bases generally obtain the least investment of any community under the U.S. flag.“

As the U.S. Naval hospital on Guam cares of retirees, active duty and more, while also working with Guam Memorial Hospital to take on emergency care of the local population, when and where they can, I’d love to see some backing of this statement that actually makes a legitimate comparison to contiguous US services offered to my fellow veterans, much less citizens surrounding those bases.

“Now, a proposed military buildup is opening old wounds as it aims to bring 35,000 additional military personnel to Guam and take up 2,500 more acres of land.“

The author is overshooting that number by 30,000 additional military personnel. Only 5,000 Marines and their families are planned to be moved to Guam. The 2,500 acres are on Northwest Field, which is military land already. The effects of that are the installation of a range and possible impacts to the Ritidian Wildlife Refuge, near it, which is a separate argument based on environmentalism.

If the author wants to make the case that US territories, or even specifically Guam, as Puerto Rico has had a number of votes on the matter, should be encouraged to vote on their status as a territory? That’s fine, I’m all for it. However, the author chose not to bother actually examine history, because it would have been inconvenient to an appeal to emotion fallacy she wished to propagate. The author appears to seek value and devaluing the lives of US military, citizens and territorial citizens lost and impacted by the war, based on where they were lost, to further add emotional emphasis to that fallacy. That includes the lives of a great number of people on this island and even my own family members, who fought through this island chain to push the Japanese back from US territory.

TL;DR The author should be ashamed. The Huffington Post should have invested at least an iota of effort in fact checking.

~ Ebola

The contents of this rebuttal are the personal views of the poster, not the views of the Government of Guam, United States Government, military or any of its components.

Averaging an Hour From Sighting a Target

…to (PERHAPS/MAYBE/SCHMAYBE) a clearance to fire. Doesn’t sound like ‘micro-management’ to me. You?

US military pilots complain hands tied in ‘frustrating’ fight against ISIS

U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are heavy-handed rules of engagement hindering them from striking targets.

They blame a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: “There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn’t get clearance to engage.”

He added, “They probably killed innocent people and spread evil because of my inability to kill them. It was frustrating.”

Sources close to the air war against ISIS told Fox News that strike missions take, on average, just under an hour, from a pilot requesting permission to strike an ISIS target to a weapon leaving the wing.

O-bomb-a. NOT.

Our Missing Marines ~ I Hope They Find Them Quickly

Here’s the wonderful report the CBS Evening News did when the Marines originally arrived in Nepal to help.

And The Whiney Loser Award Goes TO:

…guess who?

George Galloway launches legal battle to overturn election defeat
The former Respect MP says he has evidence of ‘malpractice’ in postal voting and wants the result set aside

Courage

…Ly was the daring pilot who landed his single seat cessna with his wife and five children on the USS Midway.

The flight deck was crowded with U.S. sailors and Vietnamese people, just like that day 35 years ago. High in the sky above their upturned faces, a Cessna circled the aircraft carrier Midway, symbolizing the pilot’s desperate plea to land.

Bung Ly was surrounded by San Diego Bay this time instead of the South China Sea, telling the story of how he crammed his wife and five children into the two-seater Bird Dog plane, fleeing over the waters ahead of the advancing Viet Cong.

Extraordinary means to save those things that mean the most to you in extraordinary circumstances.

Would I Lie to You?

Would I lie to you, honey?

Obama Kept Iran’s Short Breakout Time a Secret

The Barack Obama administration has estimated for years that Iran was at most three months away from enriching enough nuclear fuel for an atomic bomb. But the administration only declassified this estimate at the beginning of the month, just in time for the White House to make the case for its Iran deal to Congress and the public.

Speaking to reporters and editors at our Washington bureau on Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz acknowledged that the U.S. has assessed for several years that Iran has been two to three months away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. When asked how long the administration has held this assessment, Moniz said: “Oh quite some time.” He added: “They are now, they are right now spinning, I mean enriching with 9,400 centrifuges out of their roughly 19,000. Plus all the . . . . R&D work. If you put that together it’s very, very little time to go forward. That’s the 2-3 months.”

Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed to me Monday that the two-to-three-month estimate for fissile material was declassified on April 1.

Here is the puzzling thing: When Obama began his second term in 2013, he sang a different tune…

Would I tell you something that wasn’t true…?*

Apologies to Annie Lennox

ths update: Lemme get this straight. So it sounds like we’re NOT slowing them down at ALL, bomb-wise.

To the unwashed and uneducated, THIS SOUNDS like we want to BUT IT FOR THEM.

State Department Won’t Rule Out $50 Billion ‘Signing Bonus’ For Iran
Largest cash infusion to terror regime in recent memory, experts say

The State Department on Monday would not rule out giving Iran up to $50 billion as a so-called “signing bonus” for agreeing to a nuclear deal later this year, according to comments made to journalists following reports that the Obama administration had formulated a plan to release tens of billions of frozen Iranian funds.

Experts have said this multi-billion dollar “signing bonus” option, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, could be the largest cash infusion to a terror-backing regime in recent memory.

A cash release of $30 to $50 billion upon reaching a final nuclear agreement would come in addition to the more than $11 billion in unfrozen assets that Iran will already have received under an interim nuclear accord reached in 2013.

Word From Lausanne About Lurch and President Skippy: You Guys Are Da BOMB!

How pathetic ARE you really when the FRENCH are taking public potshots at your ineptitude and frailty?

US WIMP-OUT ON IRAN DEAL?
France claims Kerry team caved to
keep Iranians at the table, get a deal

US reportedly backed down on initial goals in Iran talks

U.S. negotiators reportedly lowered the bar for their own goals during talks over Iran’s nuclear program in response to resistance from the Tehran team. And, on the heels of a framework deal being announced in Switzerland, France’s top diplomat on Friday admitted his country had initially held out for firmer terms.

The emerging reports indicate the U.S. team, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, gradually backed down over the course of the talks as Iran’s delegation dug in. The Wall Street Journal, citing current and former U.S. representatives at the discussions, claimed the White House had initially hoped to persuade Iran to dismantle much of the country’s nuclear infrastructure when talks started in late 2013, only to be told categorically that Iran would not do so.

So BFD ~ SoCom and State Told Them to Surrender Their Weapons

After all, what difference would it make?

The commandant of the Marine Corps told lawmakers that Marines who disarmed before departing Sanaa, Yemen during an embassy evacuation last month did so on the orders of U.S. Central Command and State Department officials.

Gen. Joseph Dunford fielded hard-edged questions on the mission Tuesday morning from Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., during a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee. Kline, a retired Marine officer, is the author of a letter to the State and Defense departments demanding detailed answers about a controversial order to Marines to destroy their weapons and depart the country unarmed.

Someone in the White House Needs

…a WAAAHmbulance.

ABC: ‘There’s a Lot of Disappointment at the White House This Morning’ with Bibi Victory http://t.co/J4CBoNk9gD pic.twitter.com/u5bM7Zcymm

— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 18, 2015

No WONDER They Were Pissed

…about the Senators’ letter to those mean, nasty old mullahs! Somebody might have REALLY taken offense and skipped their party!

First Lady celebrates Iranian New Year at the White House

…1. Celebrating culture
To introduce Obama, University of Maryland student Ashley Azmoodeh spoke about her own family’s connection to the holiday and its importance.

“The most memorable celebration from my childhood, one that we continue to celebrate annually, is Nowruz, meaning ‘New Day,’” Azmoodeh said.

The First Lady paid homage to the holiday by noting its long history and cultural significance for people around the world.

“For more than 3,000 years, families and communities in the Middle East, Asia and all around the world, including here in the United States, have celebrated this holiday to mark the renewal of the Earth in spring time,” Obama said.

WHAT’S in the Water

…in NEW JERSEY?!

Menendez Pulls No Punches: Takes Shots at Rice, ‘Political Friends,’ Nuclear ‘Mothballing’

The Democratic author of Iran sanctions measures that have drawn ire from the Obama administration took aim at his critics and embraced his allies in a passionate address before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, also took a dig at National Security Advisor Susan Rice as he rallied the conference crowd in the speaking slot after the administration official.

“I take issue with those who say the prime minister’s visit to the United States is ‘destructive’ to U.S.-Israel relations,” Menendez said. Rice made such comments in an interview with PBS aired last week.

“And tomorrow I will be proud when I escort Prime Minister Netanyahu to the House Chamber to give his speech,” he continued. “To show him the respect he deserves from every American who cares about our relationship with the only true democracy in the Middle East.”

The senator stressed that “when it comes to defending the U.S.-Israel relationship, I am not intimidated by anyone — not Israel’s political enemies, and not by my political friends when I believe they’re wrong.”

Menendez noted the “political timing” of Netanyahu’s speech “may have been unfortunate,” but British Prime Minister David Cameron of Great Britain came to Washington in January to lobby Congress against Iran sanctions.

“It seems to me that if it’s okay for one prime minister to express his views, it should be good for all prime ministers,” he said.

Our Supposed “Opposition” Politicians Are Lucky

In DC the GOP shoots themselves.

In Moscow…

Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot to death in central Moscow late Friday.

The head of the Moscow police department is on the scene, according to TASS news agency. Moscow police sources say there were witnesses to the shooting who are now being questioned.
“Today at approximately 11:15 PM Nemtsov was walking with a female companion along the Bolshoy Kamenniy bridge. A car approached, from which several shots were fired. Four shots hit Nemtsov in the back,” Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson Elena Alekseeva said.

…Nemtsov was 55 years old. He was a former deputy prime minister in the Russian government under President Boris Yeltsin. At one point he was considered a likely presidential candidate. After Vladimir Putin became the country’s president, Nemtsov actively criticized the administration and its policies.

Vladimir Putin decried this “random” attack.

202 Years Ago Today

A big badda-boom, 6 dead and over a 1000 people injured. Oh, if ONLY these guys had had jobs, right?

The 1993 World Trade Center bombers: Where are they now?

On Feb. 26, 1993, an ugly new phase of terrorism was ushered in when Jordanian Eyad Ismoil drove Kuwaiti Ramzi Yousef and a 1,300-pound nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced bomb also stuffed with cyanide into the parking garage below the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Yousef lit a 20-foot fuse, and the two fled quickly enough to evade immediate capture by authorities. The bomb killed six people and injured more than 1,000 that day.

When the bomb went off, their goal of bringing down the Twin Towers failed, but the event was the first in a continuing string of indiscriminate attacks on civilians by terrorists designed solely to kill as many as possible.

I’m kinda sick of these Muslim-terrorism tinged anniversaries anymore, you know? Why can’t WE have at least ONE where we kicked some serious ass and MEANT it?

Contrary to Our Over-educated President’s Opinion

…The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

Read “What ISIS Really Wants” and be truly educated.

It Started 70 Years Ago Today

Iwo Jima.

Our Marines, with Navy, Army and Coast Gaurd elements alongside (including Ebola’s grandfather with the SeaBees) waded ashore on that ghastly, black hellhole.

By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully.

Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.

~ Adm. Chester A. Nimitz

Semper Fi.

This NYT Op-Ed Writer Apparently

…didn’t get the memo.

Islam and the West at War

After a Danish movie director at a seminar on “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression” and a Danish Jew guarding a synagogue were shot dead in Copenhagen, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the prime minister of Denmark, uttered a familiar trope:

“We are not in the middle of a battle between Islam and the West. It’s not a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims. It’s a battle between values based on the freedom of the individual and a dark ideology.”

This statement — with its echoes of President Obama’s vague references to “violent extremists” uncoupled from the fundamentalist Islam to which said throat-cutting extremists pledge allegiance — scarcely stands up to scrutiny.

It is empty talk.

Today TWENTYONE CHRISTIAN Heads Rolled Onto the Libyan Sand

…thanks to ISIS butchers and their knives.

But before you get all ‘upset’ and shit, Christians, you’d do well to remember our President’s words of wisdom:

GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE

There.

Better now?

I Mean It

So. The world's on fire and three guys are center stage. I've never been more proud to be an Ameri… #JustShootMe pic.twitter.com/3UEAQp73Og

— tree hugging sister (@treehuggingsis) February 6, 2015

Between Bibi and Abdullah

…there’s quite a set of huevos in the Middle East. Abdullah’s pissed and, as we say in the Corps when things’re fixin’ to blow: ISIS better stand the f*ck by…

After ISIS execution, angry King Abdullah quotes Clint Eastwood to U.S. lawmakers

…”He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn’t seen,” said Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., a Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, who was in the meeting with the king. “He mentioned ‘Unforgiven’ and he mentioned Clint Eastwood, and he actually quoted a part of the movie.”

Hunter would not say which part of “Unforgiven” the king quoted, but noted it was where Eastwood’s character describes how he is going to deliver his retribution. There is a scene in the picture in which Eastwood’s character, William Munny, says,

“Any man I see out there, I’m gonna kill him. Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I’m not only going to kill him, I’m going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down.”

I remember when we had people that felt like that in charge…

RIP, Warrior

Let us remember Moaz Al-Kasasbeh as he would have wished. Daesh be damned. God Bless you, Sir. As-salamu Alaykum. pic.twitter.com/n4pGcBKXEE

— Chris Keniston (@NoFear3136) February 3, 2015

And never, EVER forget: We are flying combat routes over these assholes.

One lucky shot and that brave young lad could easily be one of our own.

Bravo FLOTUS and Oh, HAY-YULL, Yes!

And, yes ~ something with MASSIVE KUDOS for Michelle Obama REALLY did just come out of my computer.

She met the Saudis with her gum-chewing, bow-prone husband yesterday…IN PANTS AND UNCOVERED. About frickin’ damn time SOME AMERICAN woman stood as unswathed instead of looking (as Ebola put it) like “a Sherpa heading upmountain”.

For the first time in my life, I’m actually PROUD of our First Lady.

Michelle Obama navigates limits on women in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — For first lady Michelle Obama, just a few hours in Saudi Arabia were enough to illustrate the stark limitations under which Saudi women live.

Joining President Barack Obama for a condolence visit after the death of the King Abdullah, Mrs. Obama stepped off of Air Force One wearing long pants and a long, brightly colored jacket — but no headscarf.

Filed Under: Things Even 12 Year-Old Girls Know

Proving YET AGAIN that our Fearless Leader and his Le Grande Toadie, the Secretary of State, are as spectacularly tone-deaf as any fence post in America, John Kerry heads over to France to make nice for dissing the millions who marched for freedom and against Islamic murderers…and brings JAMES TAYLOR to warble “You’ve Got a Friend”. GTFO, right? Shameful as it is, it’s true. James. Taylor.

When anybody and EVERYBODY (including Obama, if he’d bother to read the entertainment section of the paper) KNOWS how to musically go STRAIGHT to EVERY Frenchmen’s…EVERY EUROPEAN’S (!!)…heart.

Yeah. The. Hoff.

And the whole of the Continent is eating fromage from your palm.

Mission accompli. DUH.

In a Country With “Free Speech CODES” Vice a First Amendment

…this is a rare thing.

“Go F**k Yourself You Communist Turd” Senator Says To Anti-Free Speech Democrat

‘Course, he’s NEW and hasn’t been prosecuted yet…