My "small step"? Getting a new phone from the kids on my birthday. (Yes, I'm a year older... no big deal.)
My "Giant leap"? It's my first smart phone.
Yesterday I got my first iPhone. Its an iPhone 4, not the latest and greatest, but a nice phone and my first. I won't bore you with the experience of getting to know the device... I'm sure all of you have experienced it already (probably years ago).
I wanted to share just one aspect of the experience with you: podcasts.
I've never owned an iPod, and never utilized the mp3-feature on my past phones. I've seen a few podcasts online, but most were oriented solely towards fantasy football... very limited, in other words.
Yesterday, I discovered the wealth of material floating around out there as "podcasts" and I wanted to recommend one in particular.
Dan Carlin.
I've gotten a couple of episodes of his "Hardcore History" down already... and it is wildly entertaining! He does a "Common Sense" theme about American current events, and I'm sure they are just as good. Please, check him out and see what you think. I have a sneaking suspicion that his thoughts and comments will spark more than one discussion here at the Bund.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
On Obama...
Years ago, when the Bund was still meeting under F Ryan's aluminum carport and Jambo's driveway, we discussed the Watergate timeline in depth. I hope you guys can recall that discussion, because I don't want to re-hash it all here.
In short, and assuming that we all understand the drama that was the 26 months of '72 -'74...
Had McCord not "blown the whistle" about hush-money and perjury during the initial break-in trial, and had the existence of the "tapes" made by the White House not become public knowledge, and had the Supreme Court not ORDERED the President to turn over all relevant material to the investigators (which led to the "Smoking Gun tape")... then I doubt very much that an impeachment would ever have succeeded, let alone a conviction by the Senate.
Nixon actively and with forethought broke the law, and there was ample proof to convict him. Thus, he resigned to avoid the conviction and was pardoned by Ford for ANY wrong doing that might have occurred while he was in office... known or unknown.
Obama has managed his White House more than poorly since his election in 2008... but without a whistle-blower of McCord's proportions and without proof of the caliber of the "Smoking Gun", nothing but falling approval ratings and less and less Congressional support will result from the "Obamagate" drama.
In short, and assuming that we all understand the drama that was the 26 months of '72 -'74...
Had McCord not "blown the whistle" about hush-money and perjury during the initial break-in trial, and had the existence of the "tapes" made by the White House not become public knowledge, and had the Supreme Court not ORDERED the President to turn over all relevant material to the investigators (which led to the "Smoking Gun tape")... then I doubt very much that an impeachment would ever have succeeded, let alone a conviction by the Senate.
Nixon actively and with forethought broke the law, and there was ample proof to convict him. Thus, he resigned to avoid the conviction and was pardoned by Ford for ANY wrong doing that might have occurred while he was in office... known or unknown.
Obama has managed his White House more than poorly since his election in 2008... but without a whistle-blower of McCord's proportions and without proof of the caliber of the "Smoking Gun", nothing but falling approval ratings and less and less Congressional support will result from the "Obamagate" drama.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The Mime of Pennsylvania Avenue
Let me just get this straight on the trifecta of scandals engulfing the White House...
1.) The people now admitting to knowledge of the three year Inspector General query into the IRS targeting scandal now include the White House General Counsel (the Oval Office lawyer), the Secretary of Treasury, and the director (soon to be former) of the IRS. Yet according to Obama's own words and those of his Press Secretary Jay Carney (from today), the president was never informed and found out about it "in the press" only when the story broke.
2.) Erik Holder, the Attorney General of the United States (and Obama's personal friend), defended his actions - namely intercepting (spying on) the emails, text, and phone calls of 100 AP reporters - because the source they were trying to pin down was responsible for "the third most damaging national security leak since 1973", yet the AG never informed the president of the situation, and Obama found out about it only when the story broke. (an addendum to that scandal, it has grown to include the targeting of Fox News reporters)
3.) The president (plus the veep and SoS, I might add) claims he never knew of any enhanced security requests for outpost Benghazi. In addition, he last spoke to the Sec Def on 9/11/12 at 4pm, and did not speak to any member of the military apparatus the entire evening and made no decisions to ":stand down" or not, and only learned that such decisions were made the following day. In addition a White House representative, one "Mr. Phifer", went on all 5 Sunday morning talk shows two days ago and was repeatedly asked point blank, "Where was the President during the attack (situation room, oval, etc)?" Mr. Phifer refused to answer. No one knows or is willing say where the Commander-in-Chief was during thBenghazi asault. We can't even pin down the ROOM.
So in each scandal we don't know where the president was, what he was doing, or who he talked to, but what we definitely do know, iron clad, 100% is that he never heard of the scandals, never knew of the scandals, and never saw the scandals. In addition, he doesn't know anything about Fast and Furious, never heard of this Saudi who was swept away after the Boston bombings, and it wasn't him who came up with the "blame it on a video protest" story. He wants you to know he is not a crook because people deserve to know whether their preside .... err, wait, sorry, wrong president.
I want to remind you all that at this point in the Watergate scandal Nixon's approval ratings were still climbing and safely North of 40%. So ... how long before this glass house starts to crack?
1.) The people now admitting to knowledge of the three year Inspector General query into the IRS targeting scandal now include the White House General Counsel (the Oval Office lawyer), the Secretary of Treasury, and the director (soon to be former) of the IRS. Yet according to Obama's own words and those of his Press Secretary Jay Carney (from today), the president was never informed and found out about it "in the press" only when the story broke.
2.) Erik Holder, the Attorney General of the United States (and Obama's personal friend), defended his actions - namely intercepting (spying on) the emails, text, and phone calls of 100 AP reporters - because the source they were trying to pin down was responsible for "the third most damaging national security leak since 1973", yet the AG never informed the president of the situation, and Obama found out about it only when the story broke. (an addendum to that scandal, it has grown to include the targeting of Fox News reporters)
3.) The president (plus the veep and SoS, I might add) claims he never knew of any enhanced security requests for outpost Benghazi. In addition, he last spoke to the Sec Def on 9/11/12 at 4pm, and did not speak to any member of the military apparatus the entire evening and made no decisions to ":stand down" or not, and only learned that such decisions were made the following day. In addition a White House representative, one "Mr. Phifer", went on all 5 Sunday morning talk shows two days ago and was repeatedly asked point blank, "Where was the President during the attack (situation room, oval, etc)?" Mr. Phifer refused to answer. No one knows or is willing say where the Commander-in-Chief was during thBenghazi asault. We can't even pin down the ROOM.
So in each scandal we don't know where the president was, what he was doing, or who he talked to, but what we definitely do know, iron clad, 100% is that he never heard of the scandals, never knew of the scandals, and never saw the scandals. In addition, he doesn't know anything about Fast and Furious, never heard of this Saudi who was swept away after the Boston bombings, and it wasn't him who came up with the "blame it on a video protest" story. He wants you to know he is not a crook because people deserve to know whether their preside .... err, wait, sorry, wrong president.
I want to remind you all that at this point in the Watergate scandal Nixon's approval ratings were still climbing and safely North of 40%. So ... how long before this glass house starts to crack?
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