THINK People!!! This is a symptom; NOT the event!!!!!

You think the SONY events were the main attraction????? You are not paying attention, and thinking of the possibilities! They are NOT pretty.......for instance....

WHAT IF????  The N. Koreans/Chinese/Iraqis or others......Actually, they could down the country to 3rd world nation in about 30 seconds......AND they likely have already made arrangements....

I am fairly sure it is NOT a WHAT IF......but rather a WHEN?????????

& Obama drones on, giving this terrorist regime one thing and the next another.......he must feel like a black Santa!

Surprise---Surprise.....Lerner of IRS & DOJ together!

Yessir! They conspired in 2010 to go after conservative groups. You have to love the coverups.....
There are lots more things to unravel folks......take a seat, grab your popcorn and watch!

Run Holder, Run.......far and fast....cause they're gonna get you!!!!

The announcement of retirement by AG Holder was greeted by President Obama with platitudes and soaring praise.....and by those seeking info on everything from Fast and Furious to IRS Misdeeds as
a shot indicating a possible mortal wound to the coverups!

Holder is fast running out of places to hide and thus has to depart. You don't suppose he is going to receive any form of executive pardon do you?

Hmmmm!

Notes on My 1,250 Miles In 22 Hours!

Monday at 5:45 in the morning I departed Rockford, IL following a visit with my daughter and her family there. At 2:45 the next morning I pulled into my driveway in Tampa, FL. Some notes on the trip:

First, Don't do such a stupid thing! Make it a two-day trip. It is now Wednesday afternoon and I have slept a total of 19 hours and still feel like the car must have dragged me most of the way home. At 30 years of age I might have bounced back faster, but at my current 70 plus years I bounce like a flattened basketball. I had made the trip up in about 27 hours, with an in-car nap of three hours at a Pilot station in Paducah, KY....just outside the Illinois border.

Second, my Hyundai Genesis V-8 is a fantastic road car. 4.6 liters, 388 hp, and it made the trip at 26.7 mpg! I held the car at 75 to 78mph in most areas where the speed limit was 70. The engine is turning at a slow 2,100 rpm at 78 mph. The car rode nicely, and even after all those hours the seat was still quite comfortable.

 I drank lots of water driving both ways, and while I increased my stops for restrooms, I am convinced that holding down my food intake and hydrating kept my physical systems working in spite of the hours.

There still seem to be a considerable number of folks who insist on driving in the far left lane. The fact of having three or four lanes from which to choose does not seem to change these folks. They seem to feel it is their god-given right to drive in the left lane, giving one dirty looks if either horn honks or flashing of bright lights does force them over.

Gas prices were all over. Highest price paid, not unexpectedly; Rockford, IL. at $3.39 a gallon. While Georgia still stays in the price fray with the lowest prices paid at $3.04 and $3.05, their prices near the Florida or Tennessee lines climb back up. As a general rule I fueled at Pilot stations....they were plentiful and priced lower than most other chains.

Most-relaxed section of roadway: Pennyrile Parkway in Kentucky. It is little-traveled, and while the speed limit is lower at 65, the lack of congestion and rolling countryside make this among the nicest stretches to drive.

All-in-all, it was a great trip and I thank Daughter Nancy, Son-in-law Jeff and my grandkids Jacalyn, G. Paul, Eddie and Ian for a marvelous time and a few days away from the Florida heat. It was 41 degrees on the morning of my departure....77 in Tampa when I arrived home.

Zoom-Zoom!

Let It Out.....Time to grieve, and....

Time to be with yourself........I hate this. I have a long history of grieving after-the-fact, and sometimes far later.

When my Mom died, I was a stoic person through the funeral and the things that followed.....I later wrote a piece to express my feelings and I let it out to my family....pre-Facebook....Before Christmas as i shared a story called "The Empty Seat!".......I cried a lot.....

Now I lost my younger brother Mark DeLand.....he had many health problems and his death was not unexpected....but to me it is still my younger brother. By nearly 10 years....I remember him as the blonde little kid who was a trial to me, and my sibling at the same time.

Now he is gone....the 2nd of my siblings to pass before me.He and I had a relationship that was drive by the fact we never had the same goals/jobs/life experiences.....We truly lived lives different and alone one from the other.

However, we also spent a lot of time trying desperately to figure out life. We often, when in the same place.....mostly while he lived in Polk County and I worked there.....drinking a beer or a Jack and Coke (his choice for many years)......and we spoke of our parents and our relationship with them. Sometimes we met at a 7-11 or a similar place and got a 6 pack and sat in my car  (then a country-owned car) and toasted life while discussing where we were.....

We never got as close as I would have liked.....whatever the reason.....BUT, that being said, I loved him from birth to death....and he left behind a marvelous son, Pete......I have loved Pete, and his cousin Mike from afar as they were the younger generation. Mike passed far too young at 41 from a brain aneurism....Pete remains and is a rock in my family.....the son of my Brother Mark.....

Life goes on and now I am blessed with my 1st Great Grandson......Gabriel.... He is now 4 months old and I will see him this weekend!

Life and family proceed, but My dear brother Mark...I will miss you.....and my remaining sibling Dawn....come on kid....let us defy the odds and live for another 10 to 20 years......

Life at 71 is happy and active for me.....I will NOT go softly into that dark night....You will have to drag me fighting and enjoying life!

I love and Loved you Bro........miss you more than you could ever imagine!

What can this President NOT destroy.......??????

Obama has left us completely out of the loop, and in a position of being committed to NOTHING as a result of Putin's current incursion into The Ukraine.......He is also leaving us as a nation bereft of any form of response to the ISIS creation of a Calliphate in Syria/Iraq.......He acts as if nothing here is his responsibility...including his display of "I did not order the removal of troops from Iraq"..... BS Mr. President......you did and your crowing about the removal is still a matter of MANY video recordings.....

This President, were he a GOP.....would have been pilloried by the media...but strangely (yeah right) there is no chatter; no stories; no movement by this compliant media who are determined to protect our 1st "Black" (Yeah Right!) President......

Our country is in the hands of a calliphate of veteran pols who will do anything and everything to see they live on and protect THEIR places in Congress........They are not the reps of the people, but the people re-elect the names they have known. Idiots all....our electorate!

Changes.....Constant.....

Just completed the last issue of the 14th year of the hospital newsletter I do.....Outcomes In Perspective.....I retired some 8 years ago and agreed to stay on and publish the newsletter.

Several things occurred to me as I finished the issue and converted the draft version to .pdf format.

Changes....in the newsletter, and its delivery. My 1st edition was completed in Word. It was a bit rough around the edges and needed a lot of attention. I discovered Publisher and that changed the newsletter completely. Easy to use and quick. I worked each month to complete the newsletter, work with my boss at the hospital to edit it and then I first drove the file to the printer. Later we devised a system of sending it online. Then about 5 years ago we went on the web entirely to the site for our 5,000 doctors. Now it was in color and much more attractive. Currently the consideration is underway to drop the newsletter completely and set up a web site with links to the articles allowing our docs to pick and choose their needs and interests. Changes!

As I was completing the issue it occurred to me there were equally earth-shaking changes in the hospital and treatment and by who!!!!!  For a number of years we listed our new docs each month; welcoming them to the hospital. Today, my list of new "Medical Professionals" includes those with MD and DO and PhD.....but also some new titles....PA, CRNA, CNM, etc. As I reflected on this change it came to me that the care these new people give.....while not quite at the level of knowledge of an MD.....is probably better both knowledge-wise and technically than the care we were able to offer through our MDs just a decade ago.

Isn't progress marvelous? Every day at my hospital we implant organs in people whose own have failed or nearly-so....adding months to many years to their lives. One of our transplants, recently passed.....after MORE THAN 17 years of added life due our transplant capability.

As blogger-extraordinaire Professor Reynolds often puts it......."Faster Please!"

"The most transparent administration....ever!" Hiding it all!

Security By Obscurity! The new government evasion of transparency......

But, not the only one.....The SEC joins in.....

It is all part of the WH/Administration/Federal Agency growth of power and ignoring the laws and the people in favor of even more power!

Kill The USPS!!!!

They cost us BILLIONS....and most reports include the fact that the "mandated" cost of employees under federal union control is the reason!  Given a free employee contract situation the USPS would flourish!

Federal Unions......death of the empire!

A Time For Reflection!....A Time for Brother

He was a little skinny shrimp.....a blonde...a brother. He came into my life at age 9 and a 1/2.....

I remember my Mother and her introduction to me of my budding unborn brother. She called me to her and held my hand on her swelling belly and I felt his kicks against her.....That was amazing to me.

Then Mom went to the hospital and came home a few days later with a small, skinny, squalling little thing she called Mark.....Official name, Mark Douglas DeLand.....

I was asked to love him, and as Mom liked him...so did I...but he sure was a stinky, squalling, little mess.

Later I grew to like him as I took care of him from time to time and he grew and began to walk and talk. Due our home, with its strange configuration of rooms, he and I ended up sleeping in a double bed together.

WHAT A PAIN!.....he was this small skinny child who had eight elbows and 6 knees when sleeping. My god, but he made sleep difficult! I soon learned how to handle getting him to sleep.....He loved and laughed at stupid things I'd say....such as the names of children's books listed on the back of his prized books.....Things such as "Racketty-Boom!" sent him into gales of laughter. And so nightly I read the names of books to him and he'd laugh until tired prevailed and he'd sleep.....

ALL 8 elbows, and 6 knees!

When I was in my teens and playing tennis; trying to get in shape, I ran in the alley behind our home.. When he reached about 5 or 6 he joined me....he'd run laps on the alleyway....That was one of the times we shared as youngsters.

We grew apart....mostly due age; but also, due my move away after high school. I was 18; he, 8...

We were apart as he grew and moved thru his high school years. Then he graduated and married. His high school sweetheart. I, by then, had two kids and had moved about a good bit.

We again crossed paths when i came to Joliet, IL and was first a radio newsman and later Manager of the Chamber of Commerce. He came to Joliet and was looking for work. He ended up doing various jobs, and later they moved to Chicago where he tried various jobs again.

I moved on and went through my own crisis.....divorce and move back home and then a scant few years later off to Florida in 1978.

A few years later he moved to join me in Lakeland, FL...where he still lives. We became friends anew....So different; so alike........That is my Brother and I.

Time marches on and both have faced major changes; life events which altered what we did and where we lived. Both have kids and I step-kids......We remain Brothers...

I love you Bro.....you are the person, other than our remaining sister, I have known longest in life. You are the remnant of our family.....we pass on our genes, and we live, and eventually we die.

I'd chose no one else to be the brother you have been thru thick and thin.....You care....you show caring, and often at the expense of gain financial or otherwise.

I love you my Brother.

Always and forever.......

Family is 1st......

"Look Over There At The Mountains!"

There was a time when, in my family, someone needed a distraction from being called out on some mistake or offense committed, the phrase above was used to provide distraction and cover. That now seems to be the complete line for our "President-In-Absentia!"  Obama has obfuscated, ignored, avoided, and zig-zagged so many times it is beyond pathetic. This man has taken avoidance to a new art form.

He has "pivoted" to jobs so many times I am sure he and his advisers are falling-down dizzy....He has used charges of this and that to hide his avoidance of any decision about ANYTHING!!!!

Currently we are enjoying a spirited offering of Chicken Little's famous line....converted to Obama-speak as he cries out long and loud....."They are gonna Impeach Me!!!"....all in the name of fund-raising, and avoiding any substantive media looks at Iraq; Lybia; the Ukraine, etc.

If we had a major Media which did the reporting they did when I numbered among them 40 years ago, Obama would by now have become a wart on the Axx of history!

How sad that a once-fine institution called the "Press" has deteriorated to the level of obedient lap-dogs of the Liberals in office....... 

Tell Me....Please Tell Me!!!!!

President Obama made his decision about Illegals and the decision gave EVERY person seeking entry into the USA from countries South of Mexico an almost "FREE" ticket to enter this country..... His goal.....OVERLOAD the system!  He has done the same, by various means, for the IRS and the EPA and the other agencies of this country.....aided by Pro-liberal employees whose union membership insures their vote......

He is subverting this country into anarchy......I was laughed at earlier....a year or two ago...by those who did not see a bad bone in the Obama body....

I sincerely hope they are now beginning to wake up and see his attack on our country....and its founding principles.....

Tell, my liberal friends....are you happy with the mayhem of Obama????is he doing fine and fooling so many now as he did before????
Tell me!

Oh, Say it Ain't So!!!!! Yes, The War On Women (W.O.W.) is real and happening!!!!

& No finer a personage than the FLOTUS is to blame!!!  I have a sneaky feeling this will not make the3 headlines, page 2, or possibly ANY page of the Lame Stream Media! It does not fit the narrative they were given by their handlers in the WH!

I Want Change In Congress; Well, Except For MY Congressman!

Thus the primary race sending an "old GOP" back once again to perpetuate the "Washington Merry-Go-Round" is exactly why politics as usual are the norm in Washington. Too many voters are swayed by perceived "freebies"....and "entitlements", insuring nothing changes.

De-Unionize Federal Employees!

I am in agreement with this....Federal employees unionized are, by the fact they are not accountable, prone to becoming both single-minded about support for the party that supports, helps them, and more importantly, work actively against the other party.

Many early leaders of the union movement agreed that unionization of federal employees was not a good idea.....it was only due a long-term Democrat control of the Congress and Presidency that the unionization occurred. It is time to deunionize the IRS, as a beginning.

The Government is a FAILURE at EVERYTHING!

There is not a federal government program that WORKS!  There are http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/06/23/va-collective-action-veterans-healthcare-government-scandal-column/11235623/
Things that tell us the govt. control of anything is WRONG!

"I Don't Know Where I'ma Gonna Go....When The Volcano Comes!"

Reminds me of the either lie-filled, or stupidity delivered, pronouncements of our "Dear Leader", the marvelous Peace Prize winner in Oslo, even before he took action.....

His lack of knowledge...or lying about it has moved President Peanut to 2nd place on the incompetent president list!

The volcano part is going to be the citizen rebellion which is sure to come, and is known to "O" as reflected in the fact he has militarized every department of government......we even have militarized sections of the Department of Agriculture!

The idiocy is near an end.....and it ain't gonna be pretty!

STOP THE GAME-PLAYING! - Get A Special Prosecutor

Lois Lerner, it would certainly seem, is being protected from her own idiocy in office by an IRS determined to avoid any accountability on anything to do with transparency to the Congress and Tax Payers!

Questions to be answered:

1. How can they, in this techno age, claim emails lost? I'm willing to bet the NSA has a copy of all of them!

2. Her computer crashed and all was lost?  Trust me, there is a server, or two or three, in her IRS office that still has the emails....trust me!

3. What about the computers of those in other departments with which she communicated (Read: DOJ; WH; FBI; etc.) which have NOT crashed?  They and THEIR servers also have the email.

All told, I'd guess there are at a minimum 4-6 servers still holding copies of her emails. COME ON IRS....stop trying to treat us as the uneducated, techno-challenged oafs you'd like us to be, and get some openness.....I'm pretty sure there will be LOTS of action to insure that after the GOP takes the Senate this Fall!

The Veteran's Administration Goes Into Crisis Mode

Hiding any facts; protecting jobs; obfuscating; YOUR VA in action.......The Bureaucratic Nightmare is unraveling! 

I maintain that any time you have a union in a government organization, and any time a governmental entity begins to feel it is immune to oversight, this is the outcome. I have a feel there will be a lot of folks at the VA leaving....some in handcuffs.

Cantormageddon!!! or The Tea Party is DEAD...OOPS! Guess Not!

Lots of folks around the country awaken....  & hear the sound of citizens wanting thier country back by having their Congresscritters actually, you know, REPRESENT THEM! Not a particular D.C. Power group!

Prez-BO is still destroying our Constitution

He stays on the path, and is now going to try to release  the Guantanamo folks crate-blance.....
Oh boy am I gonna be part of the music

Is It Just Me?????

Or......is it the new normal? 

Our President has just defied a RULE OF LAW on an obviously fake pretext....He has decided, as he said, that the pen is in his hand........Meaning he is going to do what he wants, what he wishes.....to hell with the Congress......

Of course he is operating not in a land of alert protectors of our "freedoms"....but instead in a field of Congress which is hobbled by both the fact of a Harry Reid "roadblock" of any and all things to be considered from House measures to BUDGETS, and also a lack of GOP backbone to either pursue legal avenues of reproach for the errant President,  or to sue him thru the courts to correct his behavior!

This President will damage the balance of powers, and the state of this Union far beyond what most scribes even anticipate. He knows he had two years and a Congress run by both placatory idiots, or by blockade........it matters not....in either scenario he must be stopped if we are to survive as a Country and as a republic!

You Can Tell She is A MAJOR Threat When......

The DSCC calls her "The Sarah Palin of Iowa!"  Nice to see the DEMs have not changed....if you are popular and a GOP female, you are to be tarred and feathered on the spot!

The DEMs are so cute in their ritual attempts at assassinating any such person, and particularly this year they seem a bit more flighty.....perhaps because they are about to face a potential landslide election taking their props from under them.....not to mention leaving behind a VERY GOP Congress.

The "Tea" May Be Stronger Than Thought!

The Tea Party is Dead,,,,,,,,LONG LIVE THE TEA PARTY!

My guess is  there are some "entrenched" pols who are not near so secure as they thought! Snicker....

$15 for minimum wage in The Liberal Capitol of The World?????

This is going to be funny.....not due the folks dismissed due the new wage, and the obvious lack of real support for same....but also for the folks who are seeking jobs and find they are given a TOP WAGE  despite the market! But they are going to have to do a LOT more!!!!!

We shall see, but I feel the minimum wage of such proportion will impact employment.....

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/02/seattle-council-passes-15-minimum-wage/

They will charge us HUGE fees no matter what!!!!!

Yes, we are facing Obama-induced fees of huge proportions.....
This is the plan!.....Oh yes, this man intends to make us pay HUGE amounts for our power......
I as a retiree am not ready to do that.....

Stop the thief before he takes your money!

News Flak! Carney!

Carney, as Obummer's Press Secretary is a complete loss......he first of all simply defies all negatives, despite their proven impossibility.....then he parrots the line the "Obamaites" have decided to follow. I, as a former newsman, could not do that. I would choke on the words. I find it impossible to think Carney can stomach these words. He will make MILLIONS after leaving the office...a fate he embraces obviously. Sorry folks...I may have been the poor news director of a small midwest station, but I was honest and gave both sides in my news stories.......News today is sad, and tainted....

& The Elitist Left Scores Another Notch In Their Belt!

Jane Fonda......hated by every Veteran worth his salt since the Vietnam fiasco of a war fought by soldiers who died by the thousands, and controlled by idiot Politicians in DC......Now she is the Speaker at UCLA (stands for "United Class of Losers in Academics!")......The Left will do anything to halt free speech, unless it is their people doing the speaking.

Jane Fonda should have been granted a permanent post aboard a U. S. Merchant Marine vessel and never allowed to return to her birth country after the chicken-hearted, headline-grabbing fiasco of her visit to Vietnam....one she should have never been allowed to complete.

She will be the lone person atop my hate list til I die!

Upsetting to you, my liberal friends......read about it, and try being a supporter of this country which has succored you in so many ways......

Is Nothing Going to Prompt Boehner to Action?

Obama has kicked the dog to the curb, kicked the GOP in the teeth, and managed to violate more laws than dillinger......and the GOP, led by hapless John B. do.........NOTHING?????

What the heck will it take to end this idiocy? Control of the Senate? Maybe. They, the GOP, should have by now filed any lawsuit possible to rein in Obama's constant barrage of illegal actions. His defiance of the Constitution, and constant re-setting of the goal posts, and even the placement of the sides of the field, is unimaginable had it been either Bush.....The Uber-Liberal so-called main stream media have been complicit to the nth degree.

It is just plain sickening much of the time, and exacerbated by GOP lack of a spine and leadership.

6-7 BILLION.....small change????

Walter Russel Mead explains why.....After all...that would be work!

Astounding how our public employees simply have a mind-set that they won't sweat the small stuff, and to them it is not their money, so it is ALL small stuff.

The number again was BILLIONS! Oh, and by the way i am sure they need more money for their department.....not to fix this hemorrhage of $.....but to slide in another layer of bureaucracy and a few new protected government union jobs for which no one can be held accountable.

Jeesh!!!!

Long time.....NOTHING!

I gave up posting about a year ago. I was both tired and doing the far simpler, and usually thus less well-thought-out, FaceBook. I have determined that to keep myself a bit more sharp in the mind, and to hone my writing skills a bit, I will need to go back to organizing and writing specific articles on this site.

I cannot deny that a good bit of the production herein will be political in nature. I feel this Fall's national elections will be quite critically important. While many, surprisingly to me, still view this President as positive...or at best neutral...I find him to be a huge danger to the stability of our nation. It is my feeling that only by electing both houses of Congress GOP/Tea Party are we likely to garner enough strength and resolve to vote a halt to the chaos being created by this man who is self-resolved to use any and all powers he has....as well as any he does not possess, but will use as he apparently feels somewhat impervious to any backbone being shown by the current House, and being completely sure of the dead-in-the-water Senate run by Harry Reid.

Well, that should set the tone quite nicely.......Onward to another election year, one in which I am sure the same shenanigans used in 2012 to re-elect a President by denial, delays, and hiding the truth, will again be promulgated by this President who is an obvious denier of the Constitution of this great country.