Listen carefully to what this traitor says starting at about 00:57

https://youtu.be/m26vHUl2HeQ

Trump and his inner circle - that includes not a SINGLE political pundit or TV talking head or radio show guy or blogger or former WH official - set the timetable for rolling out this stuff they've known about since even before Trump took office.
Rand Paul went to the WH publicly today to suddenly URGE President Trump to yank the security clearances of Clapper, Brennan & other coup plotters.

Why did this only happen TODAY?

Just to be clear about it:

Words that come to mind:

Possessed

Demon

Devil

Evil

Hatred

This, the truth, is disturbing at the very least...


https://www.youtube.com/embed/_VpFNgfbebY

Maybe not the best business decision...

Kinda like eating Halal food

LL

Liberal Logic...

And Trudeau is upset with us???!!!

Funny, our priorities...

So the oldest Pre-Ranger is coming up on driving age

He will be needing something to drive

I have always just loved those simple Jeep XJ's with their simple squared off muscular and all business fenders and rooflines.

Leaning on the strength of the 4.0 inline 6, these things last a goodly long time

So around here they run from a low of $1,500 for a rough one up to $8995 for a beauty not far from here.

The median seems to fall between $4K and $5K

And here's the thing. I actually want one for myself as well!

THought I'd do a father son build thing, adding to each as we go.

These things OK to modify lightly and motor along with?

One thing that scares me is the front and rear diffs. They seem pretty small and I would see the things wearing 32" or 33" rubber soon after purchase. Can those diffs stand up to that?

What else can anyone tell me about what to look for in these cool old boxes?

This has been around, but pertinent.


1.      792,000 dreamers are over 25 years old. (That’s 88% of the official number)

2.     900 dreamers serve or have served in our military. (That’s 0.11 percent)

3.     743,000 dreamers do not attend College or have a College Degree (That’s 82%)

4.     189,000 dreamers dropped out of High School early (That’s roughly 21%)

5.     9,000 + dreamers are incarcerated (That’s 1%)

6.     657,000 dreamers receive welfare and pay no taxes (That’s 73%) but all are eligible to receive medical support via Medicaid.

7.     None have properly applied for or ever been awarded US citizenship?  (That is 100% remain illegal immigrants)

So the question is: Exactly what positive impact are these Dreamers having on our communities and society?  And, what is the media trying to prove by focusing on the few (less than 1 in 1000) who have tried to structure their lives around the American way?   What type of scam is our government running against Americans?    You can see the the DEMOCRATS want to keep these people here - Guess how they vote?

A Reminder to be Grateful

 

Four years ago today, I got up ridiculously early in the morning to say goodbye to my husband as he was leaving for a six-week training exercise.

 

"What are you doing up? You didn't have to get up."

 

"I just wanted to say goodbye."

 

I gave him a hug and a kiss as he walked out the door.

 

"I love you. Have a good exercise. I'll see you in six weeks."

 

I locked the door and as I turned, I tripped over an extra pair of combat boots he had discarded on the floor. Muttering under my breath,  I picked them up and threw them in the closet on my way back to bed. Just as I had a thousand times before over the previous twenty-one years.

 

Later that morning, I followed the trail he’d left behind him.

 

An unfinished bowl of congealed oatmeal and blueberries on the dining room table beside his laptop that he forgot (or never bothered) to turn off. Half a cup of cold coffee on the counter by the dishwasher. Pajama pants in a heap at the top of the stairs by the living room (where one naturally would leave their pjs). A plastic army clipboard on the desk in the entryway.

 

As I made my way around the house tidying up after him, I wondered if he would ever learn how to clean up after himself. He was a make-work project in so many ways. Never deliberately. He was just forgetful, and scattered, and was so clumsy. He was forever losing or spilling things.

 

I had absolutely no idea that was the last morning I would ever clean up after him.

 

Or that he would never come home again.

 

When someone we love dies, they leave a vast void in their stead. Where a life once existed, now only memories.

 

Those memories suddenly become our most precious possessions. We gather them close to our hearts and replay them over and over on a loop; like a movie reel of a life. We cling to them desperately, hoard them even, for they are all we have left of the person we lost.

 

We can’t help but think of all the memories that will never be made; all the should-have-beens and momentous occasions they will miss— graduations, weddings, grandchildren born.

 

We think of all the unfulfilled hopes and dreams; the aspirations and plans for the future that are now all gone.

 

We think of the things they will never get to do, the trips they won’t get to take, things they won’t get to see.

 

But gone isn’t just those big momentous events or the things they’ll never do.

 

Gone is so very much more than that.

 

Gone is a thousand tiny seemingly insignificant, ordinary things that we took for granted every single day. Things we may have even once complained about.

 

Gone is no more dirty dishes: no half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, no cold cup of coffee

 

Gone is no more pajamas abandoned in a pile in the most random spot.

 

Gone is no more PT gear or uniforms to wash.

 

Gone is no more blackberry constantly buzzing.

 

Gone is no combat boots in front of the door to trip over.

 

As I was leaving for my run this morning, I paused in the entryway by the door. I stopped and I listened to an echo of a memory,

 

“Seriously Daniel, can’t you just once put your damn boots in the closet?”

 

 I looked down at the floor.

 

There was nothing there.

 

Just an empty space.

 

Sometimes you don’t fully comprehend the significance of something so simple in your life until it is no longer there.

 

All too often we don’t appreciate how fortunate we are until what we have is gone.

 

Not that we are purposely ungrateful. We just get so caught up in the chaos of life, so busy hurrying from one day to the next, we forget to stop and be grateful for all that we have.

 

And sometimes in all of the stress, all of the rushing to and fro, we don’t even see how much we have to be grateful for.

 

We don’t realize just how meaningful a pair of combat boots by the door really are.

 

We very rarely stop to think about what gone actually is because, well, we never really think it will happen to us.

 

Gone isn’t just some throwaway term or trite cliché used to define the absence of someone. Gone is real, and it’s enduring.

 

And gone, it does happen to us. Randomly; unexpectedly. On a sunny May afternoon.

 

Four years ago today I didn’t know the true meaning of gone.

 

I didn’t know just how hard it would be to start over at 43.

 

I didn’t know about the challenges of only parenting three teenagers.

 

I didn’t know about the long lonely years ahead of me.

 

And I certainly didn’t know how profoundly sad an empty entryway can be.

 

I locked the door behind me and as I turned, I caught one brief, final glance of the empty entryway through the window. I brushed away a tear. Just as  I have a thousand times before over the last four years

 

What’s gone is gone, forever.

 

As I ran down my street, I couldn’t help but wonder how many wives were muttering under their breath this morning as they tripped over a pair of combat boots.

 

Or how many husbands were grumbling because their wife bought yet another pair of shoes.

 

It’s so easy to be annoyed by those things; to roll our eyes and shake our heads.

 

The inconvenience, the cost, the clutter. And why do your combat boots need to be there? Why can’t you put them away? And really who needs that many pairs of shoes? I don’t even want to know how much they cost.

 

It is only after they are gone that we realize their true value.

 

Gone.

 

In one heartbreaking instant.

 

This morning stop for a moment and look around you. Take it all in— the combat boots, the laundry, the dirty dishes, the blackberry that never stops buzzing, the shoe collection.

 

Stop and think about what it all represents.

 

Appreciate it.

 

Savour it.

 

Now, while you still can, before it becomes but a memory.

 

And as you do, know just how fortunate you are to have it. Every annoying, ordinary, lovely bit of it.

 

Because someday you might just find yourself like I was this morning, standing in an empty entryway with nothing but your memories, longing for the musty smell of mud and boot polish on a pair of combat boots that will never be worn again.

 

Be grateful for those combat boots by your door.

 

You truly will miss them when they are gone.

 

More than you could possibly ever imagine

Whether this is fact or proves to be otherwise, I love this president and what he is doing for our nation!
I stand with him!



Thought you’d like to be informed, since the media won’t let you

Know…The White House....short report..... it's called ‘Trump

Derangement Syndrome’ - as titled by Rush Limbaugh.

 Nothing Trump does - to the good - will ever make it on the

National news. The media have their agenda and they're going to

Stick with it, no matter what.

On Friday, the Trump administration released
Their annual report to Congress on White House Office
Personnel. It includes the name, status, salary and
Position title of all 377 White House employees.

The report also said that Trump decided not
To take a dime of his salary. Instead he donated it to
An amazing cause! (see below).

The report also showed that President Trump
Is far better at saving money than Obama was.
The total annual White House salaries under Trump are
$35.8 million vs. $40.9 under Obama, a savings of $5.1
Million. Here are some other key findings. There are
110 fewer employees on White House staff under Trump
Than under Obama at this point in their respective
Presidencies.

Nineteen fewer staffers are dedicated to The
First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS). Currently,
There are five staffers dedicated to Melania Trump vs.
24 staffers who served Michelle Obama (FY2009)

However, it's what the report said Trump did
With this salary that has everyone talking. Instead of
Taking his salary, Trump donated all $400,000 to the
Department of the Interior where it will be used for
Construction and repair needs at military cemeteries!
AMAZING! It's so great to have a President who loves
Our brave military men and women so much!

Oh, and where's the media coverage of this?
Oh that's right, they don't cover anything good that the
President does.

NO, BUT WE WILL!
PLEASE, PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO ALL YOUR EMAIL
PALS AND OTHERS! TOGETHER, WE'LL GET THE MESSAGE OUT.

World history is about to change in Asia and the Mideast, and all for the better.  It will be a change that affects events for multi generations:

 

The press is now widely reporting that the N Korea mountain where the nukes were tested, and Kim had his main nuke facilities, has collapsed, and killed maybe 200 workers and scientists. In short, Kim possibly has no nuke program any longer. China has seen radiation in the air near their border, and they will not tolerate this. The sanctions have really had an impact, and it is getting worse, and China is not bailing them out.  In short, Kim has no alternatives left but to do a real deal with Trump. There really will be an agreement that works. Trump, unlike Obama, is not hung up on human rights as a priority, but instead wants the end of nukes and missiles first. China wants no part of any war on their border. Kim no longer has a viable nuke program when the mountain collapsed. This is the ideal time to strike a real deal, as opposed to the disaster of the Iran deal where we had Iran collapsing and Obama and Kerry bailed them out, and funded all their efforts to control the region. I predict there will be a real agreement in N Korea, and it will hold because Trump and Pompeo and Mattis are realists and not ideologues, and because Trump and Xi understand each other. There will be no desperate deal with all the money up front.

 

Iran is now in a bad situation, and there is a real opportunity there to crush them. This time, the Arabs are with Israel, Trump has made it clear he will have Israel’s back,  the  Sunni Arabs want to see regime change in Tehran as much as Israel does, and Israel just taught Iran that in a war, Iran will get crushed. Israel wiped out all of Iran’s military bases and equipment in Syria in a couple of hours, at no cost to itself. It showed that its missiles and fighter aircraft can penetrate at will. That happened while Netanyahu was sitting next to Putin in Moscow. That was very meaningful. Putin seems to know backing Iran against Israel will be a loser for him.   He gets it far better than Merkel and Macron. He did nothing at all when Israel attacked, and said nothing after. Note that not one Arab nation stood up for Iran. Even Assad did little.  If Iran tries to rebuild its bases in Syria, Israel will just destroy them again.  This changes all of the calculus of Iran’s plan. They lost their capacity to launch attacks on Israel other than thru Hezbollah. We just had a major historic inflection point, and most of the US media barely noticed. Israel would never have done this under Obama because he did not have their back, and he would probably have publicly condemned Israel. Trump changed everything. And now with the end of the US in the nuke deal, and major sanctions being reset, Iran has real problems. Iran only has Hezbollah and Hamas now, and Hamas is coming apart in Gaza.  We see now that all Hamas can do is send fools to be killed trying to breach the fence.  They are impotent, which is why they are of no help to Iran. Israel has found a way to stop the tunnels and they seem to have no more rockets. The economy there has collapsed, and no Arab nation is funding them.    As my friend indicated, the Palestinians are on their own now, and have no financial capacity. Gaza is in a state of economic and social collapse. They are no real threat to Israel, and Iran cannot be of much help in Gaza with new sanctions by the US. Egypt maintains a tight blockade. Many will get killed this week when they try and fail to crash the border. Iraq is not joining any war on Israel or the US. That leaves Assad and Hezbollah. Assad is not able to attack Israel, so he is a nonstarter. Hezbollah has 125,000 rockets to fire at Israel, but you might notice, Israel is not attacking Hezbollah. There have been stories lately that the people in the areas that supply the fighters for Hezbollah are seeing hundreds of their sons killed or badly wounded fighting for Assad and Iran, and for no benefit to the Lebanese. Some speculate that initiating a new war against Israel on behalf of Iran will not be the first priority of these people. The Houthis are slowly being killed by the Saudis, and the siege of the area they hold, so they are no help to fight Israel.  Putin is not going to start a war with Israel to help Iran, and have to deal with Trump and Mattis. It is one thing to support Assad in Syria, and a very different thing to take on Israel and the US. Trump has now demonstrated that he is not afraid to use military attacks in the Mideast, even when Russian troops are close by. With Obama gone, the calculus is completely changed. The Saudis and Emirates will quietly help Israel, as will Egypt and Jordan.  Egypt needs Israel to destroy ISIS in the Sinai, so they owe Israel now. So Iran is alone in an all-out war with Israel.  This is not 1967. Iran cannot win a war with Israel.  Trump will cut Iran off from the US dollar banking system, and he will force the EU to stop their deals. With all of this, the Iranian people are already having strikes and protests. 35% of Iranians are really Azerbaijanian. They do not want to be Iranian. As the sanctions start to really disrupt the economy., the people will protest more and make it harder for the regime to start a major war with Israel. If Merkel and Macron would get aboard, this would accelerate the problems for the regime, but that is not likely. Merkel does not get it. She is still more interested in business deals, than terminating the regime. It is too bad she remains in power. Ironic that it is the Germans who do not get it.

 

The Israeli attack in Syria was very large and detailed. It had to have been well planned for weeks, just waiting for Iran to do something to trigger it. There is no way Israel would be able to pull this off in the detail accuracy and complexity without the US somehow involved in intelligence sharing. The GPS coordinates, cyber-attacks to debilitate Syrian anti air, and the aerial photos likely had some input from CIA and the Pentagon. Despite Hilary, Kerry and others working to derail Trump on Iran, it is becoming even more clear ending the nuke deal is the exact right thing to do at this time. Now the US can reimpose severe sanctions and bring about much more unrest inside Iran. All the statements by many on the left that ending the deal will prevent a deal with N Korea are already being proved completely wrong. We don’t know most of what is really going on, but based on past Mossad efforts, and now with CIA involved aggressively, you can be sure there are things happening to undermine the Iranian regime and the military.

 

Iran could attack Israel, but the blowback to them would be severe. They have only two ports, and those would quickly be destroyed by Israel, as would much of their military capacity. Their economy would collapse. Their missiles would be shot down by Iron Dome and Israel’s other anti air systems. This time Israel is ready for war. If Iran attacked a US ship in the gulf, then Trump would launch an all-out attack, and joining with Israel and the Saudis, Iran would get crushed quickly. I am sure Netanyahu is coordinating with Trump, and Israel and the CIA and Pentagon have joint planning and joint cyber warfare attacks on Iran. Hezbollah would likely attack, and it would be ugly with all those missiles, but then the US might join in to attack Hezbollah under the theory we are coming to the aid of an ally. It would all be very messy and a lot of dead, but in the end Iran gets wiped, Hezbollah loses its only support, and everything in the world changes. I believe Iran knows all this, and Trump will now squeeze them until they bleed, with or without the EU. He does not care what the EU or the left in the US  says. As my friend said, he has already told Merkel and Macron, “you have accomplished nothing, and look what I have accomplished in N Korea”. Trump gets it, the EU, as usual, does not. The next several months in the Mideast are going to set the stage for the next several decades, and Trump ending the nuke deal with reestablishment of sanctions, and fully supporting Israel, is the difference. Ending the nuke deal, and moving the embassy will prove to be absolutely the right thing. (my liberal friends are by now going nuts with my view).

 

Bottom line, N Korea will get resolved because Pompeo has done a great job preparing the ground, China is on board, and Kim has no choices now. After the air attacks, Israel has the upper hand, and Iran is now isolated. There might be a war, but Israel and the US would win quickly, and there would be regime change in Iran eventually. Iran does not have a powerful military compared to Israel and the US. War with Iran might be the best strategy now, and would result in a massive change in the Mideast for the better.  It might be the only viable solution now, just as war was the only solution for Hitler. The situation is analogous. Obama was Chamberlain, and Trump is Churchill who was also hated by the left. (go see Darkest Hour). For my liberal friends, that likely sounds dreadful, and just feeds their view of Trump as dangerous, and me as nuts. I see it as geopolitics and  power politics played as it should be, with the US in control of events again. Regan revisited. War is often the only real solution where there is a regime like in Iran, which is analogous to Hitler. In the end, we would win, and Putin would have to fall in line. Xi will also see that he needs to work with Trump, and not get into a military confrontation with the US just as we are rebuilding our military power. Lots of people would be killed in an Israel -Iran war, but that is what happens when there is a crazy ideology and maniacs in power as we have in Iran, and as we had in Nazi Germany and the various kingdom’s before and during WWI.  Chalk the dead up to Obama and the nuke deal and failure to support the revolution taking place in 2009. Add those dead to the dead in Syria due to Obama failure to act. War now would be better than a bigger war later, if that is what it takes to get regime change in Iran. There are no nice diplomatic solutions or agreements like Obama did that will work.  Surely by now it should be obvious to all that the nuke deal only fed Iran’s ability to become aggressive with $150 billion and the lifting of sanctions. With Iran defeated, the entire world geopolitics changes, and I think Trump, Pompeo, Mattis, and Bolton understand this, and they are willing to go for it. Now is the moment. Especially since they will have Israel lead the battle, and not the US. We will see what happens over the next few months, and what Iran does about being wiped out in Syria. This is one of those major historic inflection points. Stay tuned in. Obama’s nuke deal and his dissembling of the US military, just made it all far worse than if he had dealt with Iran eight years ago. History repeats. Strength by the US matters, and horrible regimes eventually have to be destroyed.

 

If both N Korea and Iran are dealt with ,then  Republicans keep the House and Trump is unbeatable in 2020.  But the press prefers to focus on a stripper, Michael Cohen, and an investigation that has no basis.

 

Joel Ross

THE DEMISE OF CALIFORNIA

 This is an article from Victor Davis Hansen, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University (Emphasis added by Mr. Hansen

The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.


      During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.

      Here are some  general observations about what I saw (other  than that the rural roads of California are fast  turning into rubble, poorly maintained and  reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in  the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming - to such an extent that the 20 to100 acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.

      On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas - which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment - have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself - from almonds to raisins - has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

      Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look  to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps  substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos  cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls  unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens  roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, and constant inspections - but apparently none of that applies out here.


      It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators' defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?


      Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebago’s are on former small farms - the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don't think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly - with suddenly soaring farm  prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world's richest agricultural belt, with  available water on the east side of the valley  and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers?  Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?


       California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland.  Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.


      In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here - composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children's plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.

      We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in   California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a "counter business." I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no "facilities" such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.


      At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.

 

[The hi-lighted paragraphs are ways in which at least some of the nearly 47% of U.S. non tax payers are able to get by]


      In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.


      By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camry’s, Accords, or Taurus’s, had iPhone, Bluetooth’s, or Blackberries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don't editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?


      Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I  stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or  drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in  Parlier, or went to a corner market in  southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only  non-Hispanic - there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of "diversity," but those who cherish that ideal  simply have no idea that there are now countless  inland communities that have become  near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the  first language, the schools are not at all  diverse, and the federal and state governments  are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income - whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public  schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.


      Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California's entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources,  the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially  diverse and upscale areas of  California.

 
       Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president's announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won't comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program's sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.


      I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If  one were to consider the classes that deal with  Mexico at the university, or the visible  displays of national chauvinism, then one might  conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive  and moral place than the United  States.


       So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, "Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate." I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What is it about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?


      I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed "indifferent." California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant - no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we over-regulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd - to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta - that California is at once both the nation's least free and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.

 

       Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California - and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.


      Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of "Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the fall of Rome”, and the author of "The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern."

I believe Boeing builds a 737 in 18 hours, well assembles all the sub assemblies into a flyable airplane

Boeing currently builds 40 every month, nearly 500 a year!

https://youtu.be/SE71NJl-naY

You think there is just a little bit of corruption in DC ? ................

 

Read this ............It might help explain it all.

From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

A Grand Jury had been empaneled.

Governments from around the world had donated to the “Charity”.

Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those “Donations” to the Clinton Foundation were declared.

Ok, now you would think that an honest investigator would be able to figure this out.


 

Guess who took over this investigation in 2002 ?

Bet you can’t guess.

No other than James Comey.

Now, that’s interesting, isn’t it ?

Guess who was transferred in to the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS?

Your friend and mine, Lois “Be on The Look Out” (BOLO) Lerner.

Now, that’s interesting, isn’t it ?

It gets better, well not really, but this is all just a series of strange coincidences, right ?

Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005 ?

No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein.

Now, that’s interesting, isn’t it ?

Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time-frame ? ?

I know, it’s a miracle, just a coincidence, just an anomaly in statistics and chances, Robert Mueller.

What do all four casting characters have in common ?

They all were briefed and/or were front line investigators into the Clinton Foundation Investigation.

Now that’s just a coincidence, right ?

Ok, lets chalk the last one up to mere chance.

Let’s fast forward to 2009.

James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.

Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, on her own personal email server by the way.

The Uranium One “issue” comes to the attention of the Hillary.

Like all good public servants do, you know looking out for America’s best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.

Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn’t, the People got absolutely nothing out of it.

However, prior to the sales approval, no other than Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one hour speech then meets with Vladimir Putin at his home for a few hours.

Ok, no big deal right ?

Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside the money laundering and bribery scheme.

Guess who was the FBI Director during this time-frame ?

Yep, Robert Mueller.

He even delivered a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009.

Guess who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland.

No other than, Rod Rosenstein.

Guess what happened to the informant ?

The Department of Justice placed a GAG order on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke out about it.

How does 20% of the most strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands when the FBI has an informant, a mole providing inside information to the FBI on the criminal enterprise?

Guess what happened soon after the sale was approved ?

~145 million dollars in “donations” made their way into the Clinton Foundation from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.

Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division ?

No other than, Lois  Lerner.

Ok, that’s all just another series of coincidences, nothing to see here, right ?

Let’s fast forward to 2015.

Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the 9 “investigations” the House, Senate and at State Department, Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi discovers that the Hillary ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.

He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her “Public Service” as Secretary of State which was required by law.

He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email.

Sparing you the State Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth from the necks of the Kerry State Department, we shall leave it with this…… they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary.


Now this is amazing, guess who became FBI Director in 2013 ?

Guess who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer.

No other than James Comey.

Amazing how all those no-bids just went right through at State, huh ?

Now he is the FBI Director in charge of the “Clinton Email Investigation” after of course his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner “Matter” at the Internal Revenue Service and exonerates her.

Nope couldn’t find any crimes there.

Can you guess what happened next ?

In April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy.

They didn’t even convene a Grand Jury.

Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true “Gangsta” Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016, and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing.

Can you see the pattern ?

It goes on and  on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation sham by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.

FISA Abuse, political espionage..... pick a crime, any crime, chances are...... this group and a few others did it.

All the same players.

All compromised and conflicted.

All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves.

All connected in one way or another to the Clinton's.

They are like battery acid, they corrode and corrupt everything they touch.

How many lives have these two destroyed ?

As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Bring+Him+Home+the+Soldiers&&view=detail&mid=12C85DC59CDF0591A81B12C85DC59CDF0591A81B&&FORM=VRDGAR

Mini Sermon 7: Does God punish you? Is it a good thing?


Does God punish you? Do you get angry with him when he does?

Well for me the answer is yes and yes. And what if I told you there is a silver, (Actually a gold) lining in all of that? Yep its true and I’m gonna prove it to you. Our God the father is exactly that. He is a father. He is the father of your father and every father in existence. He created every momma, and he’s their father as well. Unlike this dad (Me) who forgets to sign notes from his boy’s teachers, forgets about upcoming games and a myriad of other things, the big father in the sky doesn’t miss a detail. Nope, knows every hair on your head! (Luke 12:7)

Dads are not always your buddy. They try to be but when you cross a line they have set down, they often hold that line which then places you on the offender column. That may be an unpleasant place. Depending on your age it may involve a spanking, or a time out or giving up the car keys for a week or two. The manner of punishment changes, but the fact that you just got body slammed by the big authority figure never changed. From then to now a good father is consistent.

A godly father tries to stay connected to his father in heaven so that he will know the boundaries, gain in wisdom, and be a fair adjudicator of justice. Would we even need laws and police and even a military of fathers were all Godly, and they all did their job? Think about it. So right there I have identified a failing in human fathers, but that’s not news we see it on every street corner, and in most homes across this land.

But remember I started off saying there was a silver lining to when God punishes us. Assuming you were called by him and invited to accept his son, and you now live with Jesus as your one and only king, well then you are part of God’s system of justice. If you cross a line or continue to do so, he may in time punish you. His term for the act is to “Chasten” you. Chasten and punish are roughly the same thing. The act stings and sets you on notice that you just crossed a line which the Father does not like. It invites us to make a heading correction to get back on course and back into the good graces of a loving father. Remember that a loving father is not always your buddy, but he always has your back. He always wants you to make the right call, take the right road, and choose the correct course of action. That’s a guy I like to call “Coach.” In my military mind, life is not meant to be easy. Easy is for, well, now that I’ve given up cussing, I am struggling to find a word. But taking the easy road is not for men of courage, for the warrior clan if you will allow.

This isn’t meant to be long, but only to show you something and that is found in Hebrews 12:4-9

Hebrews 12:4-9 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, "My son, do not make light of the LORD's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the LORD disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son." 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined-and everyone undergoes discipline-then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!

Look carefully at what verse 6 says: 6 because the LORD disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son

Get this: He accepts you as a son! And where exactly does God live? Say it, say: Heaven. YES HEAVEN!!!!! And that is the place where the streets are made of what??? Say: Gold. You see the old Warrant Officer has a point here. If God took the time to whack you, he did it because he knows you are one of his and therefore you can see proof, even in the midst of sin, that he has your back, and your eternal destination is a really great place with a friend in the name of Jesus, and reigned over by our eternal Father, God himself

Yea, I’m liking that. Takes a bit of the snap out of that sting I received just two days ago for strayin’ when I should have been sailing a true course. Yes Sir, Father God, I got that, Please forgive me sir, I’m back reporting for duty…again!

Yepper another book should be coming out someday. 

I hope to presale a dozen copies if the market is big enough! 

Nothing like setting your sights low enough to ensure success 

And as if anyone in their right mind would read the mindless ramblings of this old crusty Warrant Officer. 

But, some do, and on the shoulders of those boneheads I hope to make my millions!

Yea, so I was thinking about Distant Thunder and how it talked about the experiences we have going off to war and living a military life, but I wanted to do more. I wanted to write about the Christian aspect or side to that story. Then one day I was talking with a long time friend, Jeremy who said I should do it. HE said write it up in such a way as to be a self-help book sold on the Christian market.

He is a bit of a wizard about such things, so we dove in a bit deeper. He just seemed to know how to promote the thing and steer its development, so i started writing.

Then one morning I awoke with the idea that he should become my agent and promo and market the whole thing. So I approached him with the idea, and he said of course, he would love to do it.

So he plans to create a web site where peeps (Not yous, none of you boneheads...I need thinkin' people)! Just kiddin! So he builds this web site where you can talk with the author, and news about the new book and Distant Thunder can be had. He would arrange for speaking engagements and interviews and all of that and I would pound my fingers to the bone whilst figurin' out how to get sarge unstuck or this darned turbo removed from my truck!

So I started some time ago and I now find us some 405 chapters deep and something over 23,000 words. I shoot for 70,000 words which makes for 240 or so pages and add or subtract as necessary to make my point

So the way this one lays out is that I first have a concept, like, say, "faith." That concept is supported by a story which occurs somewhere in my military experience. I develop the story and lace it with scripture and in the end one can see where God was present all the time.

Anyway, off we go to the races, we'll see where this one leads!

How do civil wars happen?    Read below Al Noble

 

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge.

 

That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

 

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that. But it’s not the first time they’ve done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn’t really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election. There’s a pattern here.

 

What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don’t accept the results of any election that they don’t win. It means they don’t believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections.

 

That’s a civil war.

 

There’s no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to kill a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice. But the Democrats have rejected our system of government.

 

This isn’t dissent. It’s not disagreement. You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship.

 

Your very own dictatorship.

 

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress. They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can’t scratch his own back without his say so, that’s the civil war.

 

Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that’s not the system that runs this country. The Democrat's system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country.

 

If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything. And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance. His power is unlimited. He’s a dictator.

 

But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can’t do anything. He isn’t even allowed to undo the illegal alien amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented. A Democrat in the White House has “discretion” to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy. A Republican doesn’t even have the “discretion” to reverse him. That’s how the game is played. That’s how our country is run. Sad but true, although the left hasn’t yet won that particular fight.

 

When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren’t even allowed to enforce immigration law. But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own immigration laws. Under Obama, a state wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without asking permission. But under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying that California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries.

 

The Constitution has something to say about that.

 

Whether it’s Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.

 

Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can’t serve in if you’re not a member. If you haven’t been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals. If you aren’t in the club. And Trump isn’t in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren’t in the club with him.

 

Now we’re seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down.

 

That’s not a free country.

 

It’s not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an “insurance policy” against Trump winning the election. It’s not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It’s not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It’s not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn’t supposed to win.

 

Have no doubt, we’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government.

As Nate accurately predicted, with the start of this new round of modifications to the 2011 Silverado, I'll start part five in this long running series.

So at the moment, I have owned the truck a bit more than 6 1/2 years and the truck still has less than 90,000 miles, I think in the 88,500 mile range. It continues to tow all the time, and is used off road pretty much every week. Today was no exception. The truck as of this writing is covered in mud, which is really more the norm for this Silverado than being clean. The paint is holding up well, although now there is a pretty good coverage of rock chips and a couple very small dings, from hitting deer, a buzzard, a couple other things and running into trees and the like more times than I can recall.

Anyway, to allow for another couple hundred thousand miles of use, I decided to replace the problematic CP4.2 high pressure pump, and while I was at it, go for an upgraded turbocharger.

I procured all of that from Diesel Ops of Michigan and the new tune from Motor Ops of Ontario, Canada. They wrote me a new tune and I have already downloaded it into my laptop, and will soon complete its journey into the truck via the downloader.

Today marks the point where the final parts came in. All the Fleece stuff was piled up outside the garage door when we all got in from a hard day's work at the farm.

Three big boxes:

OK, let's talk torque converters

The subject vehicle will be C-Max, a 2011 LML Silverado in great condition with right at 90,000 miles

The truck has 37" tires, 4.56 gears, a stock trans with a deep aluminum pan, and is working with a soon to be 600HP engine.

The line pressures and shift programs have all been modified with EFI Live tuning and frankly the thing shifts very well.

I use the truck as my daily driver (Except for the horrible turning radius), Who would want to drive anything else...except maybe a Land Rover/Range rover...oops, sorry me British side crept out there!

I tow mostly light loads around 4000 lbs but on occasion get up around 8000 lbs, but seldom anything higher. I tow about 25% of the time (Really) and the truck gets into 4-Wheeling situations almost weekly.

So with all these factors in mind, what or whose torque converter would be best for this application

Note: Based on the advice from several sources in the diesel performance world, I will be keeping the stock transmission in it's EFI "Adjusted" state in the truck without replacing it with some stronger variant.

Someone dropped this in my inbox...

https://facebook.com/james.h.fetzer/videos/10156040035767978/

https://www.facebook.com/FreedomFromSocialism/videos/784207958370525/