This and That...

[Warph]

Whoopsie – President Obuma Is Part Of The 'War On Women' – Video of President Calling Michelle Obama "Bossy" !!

The Clown finally got something RIGHT!!!

[Warph]

Yesss!  Turkish Fatwa Finally Bans Muslims From Eating Otter Meat

Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) has issued a fatwa stating that kangaroo meat and grasshoppers are "halal" food, but Islam bans eating "badgers, martens, weasels, beavers and sea otters."
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/kangaroo-meat-halal-turkeys-directorate-general-for-religious-affairs-says.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63428&NewsCatID=393

..."free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last"...

[Warph]

What advice would you give to a retired Air Force Colonel that has three graduate degrees and that cannot even find work as a janitor?  59-year-old Robert Freniere once served as a special assistant to General Stanley McChrystal, and he has spent extensive time in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  But now this man who once had an office in the heart of the Pentagon cannot find anyone who will hire him.  In addition to his story, in this article you will also hear about several other middle-aged professionals that cannot find work in this economy either.  Despite what the Obama administration and the mainstream media are telling you, the truth is that there has been no employment recovery in this country.  What you are about to read is absolutely heartbreaking, but it represents the reality of what is really going on out there in the streets of America today.

From the Pentagon to Life in a Van

Robert Freniere in the van where he lives. "He's done a lot of things. . . . He's got the gift of gab. Very smart," said Adm. James Hogg, who officiated at Freniere's retirement.

By Julie Zauzmer, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: January 06, 2014
http://articles.philly.com/2014-01-06/news/45885460_1_veterans-day-homeless-veterans-hogg

http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/20140105_From_the_Pentagon_to_life_in_a_van.html?viewGallery=y

After a 30-year military career in which he earned three graduate degrees, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as an aide to Pentagon brass, Robert Freniere can guess what people might say when they learn he's unemployed and lives out of his van:

Why doesn't this guy get a job as a janitor?

Freniere answers his own question: "Well, I've tried that."

Freniere, 59, says that his plea for help, to a janitor he once praised when the man was mopping the floors of his Washington office, went unfulfilled. So have dozens of job applications, he says, the ones he has filled out six hours a day, day after day, on public library computers.

So Freniere, a man who braved multiple combat zones and was hailed as "a leading light" by an admiral, is now fighting a new battle: homelessness.

"You stay calm. That's what we were trained for when I went through survival training," he said recently in King of Prussia, where he had parked his blue minivan, the one crammed with all his possessions and held together with duct tape.

As of January 2012, more than 60,000 veterans were homeless, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Reducing that number has been a priority for the Obama administration - and the number of homeless veterans dropped 24 percent nationwide from 2009 to 2013. In Pennsylvania, however, it jumped 46 percent, to more than 1,400.

Joblessness among returning service members is even more common. Freniere describes a monthly lunch he has attended in Washington, a hushed tradition that he says attracts about 200 veterans. After they eat, the men and women who are unemployed stand up one by one to recite their service records, hoping someone else in the room will hire them.

Many, he says, are highly accomplished.

Like Freniere.

"He's done a lot of things; he's been a lot of places. . . . He's got the gift of gab. Very smart," said Adm. James Hogg, who officiated at Freniere's retirement ceremony in 2006.

Last month, Freniere teared up as he asked Hogg for advice on finding a paycheck. Hogg was stunned.

"That's crazy," Hogg said in an interview. "With all his experience, especially in intelligence, there's got to be a spot for him."

Spots are hard to come by. Freniere, like many of his fellow down-on-their-luck veterans, does not match any hat-in-hand Hollywood image of homelessness. He receives an annual pension from the military of more than $40,000.

His struggle to find a job after retiring from the Air Force collided with the end of his marriage nearly two years ago. Unable to return to the home he shared with his estranged wife, and faced with expenses including bills for two sons in college and debts that mounted when he maintained a nicer lifestyle, he took up a nomadic existence.

Between spells on the couches of friends in multiple states, he sleeps occasionally in motels and other times in the dented blue van.

On Veterans Day, he found himself in King of Prussia. He had paid for a motel room the night before, to be near his younger son, Eric, a student at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Wayne.

But Freniere could not afford another night, so he was packing his belongings into his minivan.

A motel guest who noticed Freniere's Air Force cap and packed van struck up a conversation, and ended up paying for Freniere to stay another night.

That same week, Freniere agreed to share his story with an Inquirer reporter who had heard about his plight.

Over chips and salsa at a Baja Fresh in King of Prussia, he spent more than four hours engaged in a rambling conversation in which he quoted Dante, Andrew Jackson, and the novelist Leon Uris. He touched on his hobbies, from painting to playing guitar to learning new languages.

Freniere, who said he had been found to have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, said he earned the nickname "Lightning" in the military for his constant motion and ability to talk anyone's ear off.

"Lightning" mentions the screenplay he wrote about astronauts going to the moon, and the beginning of a romance novel. He describes competing in sailing regattas with friends. He says he once tried to start a business with his wife and mother selling football-themed stuffed ducks.

Some of what he says is not easily or independently verifiable. But the bulk of his story - and one that is confirmed by military records - is a story of service.


A career dream
It's a story that goes back generations. In one of the many boxes in his van, Freniere holds on to letters written from France during World War I by a great-grandfather who, according to family lore, lied about his age so he could still fight at 60. Freniere's father served in World War II and Korea, then raised his family on Air Force bases all over the world.

Freniere was born in 1954, the third of five children. He says his oldest brother served in Vietnam; his sister is a retired Navy nurse; and two more brothers are retired colonels.

Freniere and his two younger brothers became Eagle Scouts together, then went together to the Citadel, he said. Military records confirm that he joined the Army in 1976. His first post was in Schweinfurt, West Germany, where troops were then on guard against a Soviet attack.

There, Freniere said, he was tapped to lead an investigation into drug trafficking by soldiers on the base.

"All I had ever wanted to do was be in the Army," Freniere said. "The Vietnam War had just ended, and the military really was very down on itself."

In the drug investigation, he found a sense of purpose. "I didn't know anything about drugs, because I'd never used them. I was a goody-two-shoes boy," he said. "I finally felt like I was really doing something for my country, because I was getting rid of these bad guys."

He said that his role in arresting members of his own platoon caused tension with his superiors. He left the Army for the Air Force, where he pursued his newfound interest in investigation as an intelligence officer.

As he moved through the ranks, he served in combat zones in Somalia, Panama, Haiti, and Kuwait, Freniere said. He also married his childhood neighbor, had two sons, and earned master's degrees in political science and criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati and a master's in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College.

Records show that Freniere moved to the Pentagon in 2000. He said he was there when it was hit by terrorists Sept. 11, 2001.

Two years later, he became special assistant to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the vice director of operations of the Joint Staff.

In 2005, Freniere said, he volunteered to go to Iraq. "Everybody thought I was nuts, especially my sons," who were 15 and 13 at the time, he said. "But I'm a counterterrorism guy. That's what I do."

But as he was preparing to deploy, he said, he felt his legs go numb one day. He had suffered from back pain since he was injured in his 20s, when a soldier he was training to operate a tank fired the gun too soon.

Three days after the numbness began, Freniere underwent back surgery. Instead of flying to Iraq, he spent a year and a half convalescing, he said. In 2006, he retired from the Air Force.


The struggle for work
After his retirement, Freniere said, it took him a year to find work. Like many retired servicemen, he turned to jobs with defense contractors. Twice, the work took him to Afghanistan, he said.

When he came home, he had nowhere to go after separating from his second wife. (In an interview, she said that he does not help her pay the mortgage on their home.)

Freniere said he had not been able to find a contracting job since August 2012. He blames the federal sequestration for squeezing contractors of money and of the confidence to hire people. He has not lasted long at other jobs, as a substitute teacher and an executive in a company writing proposals for government grants.

One of his complaints about the latter job was that it took him too far from his sons - Bobby, enrolled at a community college in Virginia, and Eric, at VFMA.

Eric, 21, plans to follow in his father's military footsteps. "My dad's the most motivated person I've ever met in my whole life, and he's living out of his van," Eric said. "A full colonel with three master's degrees? I don't get it at all - it doesn't make sense to me. If he had a job right now, we'd be fine. We're not fine right now."

Freniere says dyslexia makes focusing on a computer screen difficult. Online applications are so hard for him, he said, that tears well in his eyes as he describes his days at public libraries.

"How many applications can you fill out in a day? And it takes you six or seven hours, and then you don't hear from any of them. You start getting hopeless," he said.

But Freniere said that he had not lost hope, that he returns to tropes he learned back in survival training - "stay calm," "get the job done" - when he needs comfort.

"I'm a military guy. I'm mission-oriented. You don't give up," Freniere says. "I've got a lot of good experience. I've got two beautiful sons. I've got a van. I don't know how long it's going to hold up, but I've got it. I've got a lot of things to be thankful for."

[Diane Amberg]

Robert Freniere is local to Philly and got some coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Since then he has had many job offers, offers of places to stay and offers of help from the local vets groups. (There was some comment about possible military related mental problems and difficulty making decisions...?)
His pension is due to increase next year, so he will not be destitute.
   He sounds like a really interesting person who should be OK soon. I'm not sure how someone making $40,000 ends up living in a van, but I'll not question it. That's more than some people make while they are working.

[Ross]

Turns out Obama and Chris Christie were childhood friends.......

[Ross]

[Ross]

Think Arizona almost did something horrible? Well "Oklahoma is doing it anyway,"

From Glenn Stanfield:

Oklahoma is the only state that Obama did not win even one county in the last election... While everyone is focusing on Arizona 's new law, look what Oklahoma has been doing!!!!

An update from Oklahoma :

Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9 an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values...! HB 1330

Guess what.......... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake.

Guess what.......... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Recently we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal's to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB 1102

Guess what......... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so.

More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Carolina's, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi and Florida. Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003

The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a setback for the criminals The Liberals didn't like it -- But....

Guess what........... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL drivers' license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma , you must read and write English. Really simple.

By the way, the Liberals don't like any of this either

Guess what...who cares... Oklahoma is doing it anyway.

I do not have a link for this as I took it off my Facebook.
I have not verified a single word of this but even if it isn't true it would be great wishful thinking.

[Warph]

Cost Of Manure Hits Record High Of $32,400 At Obuma Fundraiser

(Not including the cost of the spreader)

Via Allen B. West
Talk about the high cost of living – here in Florida, you can get a generous bag of manure at Home Depot for about five bucks. But in Washington, DC it will cost you $32,400.

According to The Hill reporter Justin Sink (no relation to defeated Democrat congressional candidate Alex Sink), around 40 Democrat donors paid $32,400 per ticket to benefit the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The event was hosted at the Manhattan home of private equity fund Blackstone Group President and Chief Operating Officer, Tony Jones. In attendance at the event along with President Obama was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. This was the president's second fundraiser of the night, following a roundtable discussion hosted by the Democratic National Committee where approximately 25 supporters contributed up to $32,400 to attend that one as well.

Gee, I thought Obama and DeBlasio hated those mean old one-percenters. And where were the "Occupy Wall Streeters" complaining and protesting their beloved progressive socialist President and Mayor hanging out with the stinking rich? I'd like to know the names of everyone who attended in full disclosure – so I can steer clear of them.

I suppose no one between canapés discussed the fact that Obama and DeBlasio have an average approval rating somewhere around 39 percent.

[Warph]

China Warns West Against Russia Sanctions as Obama Warns Russia

Thursday, March 13, 2014, 12:51 PM

China's top envoy warned the West about punishing Russia with economic sanctions.
This is despite Russia's troop buildup on the eastern Ukrainian border.

Alleged disposition of Russian troops on Ukraine's eastern border

Reuters reported:
China's top envoy to Germany has warned the West against punishing Russia with sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, saying such measures could lead to a dangerous chain reaction that would be difficult to control.

In an interview with Reuters days before the European Union is threatening to impose its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, ambassador Shi Mingde issued the strongest warning against such measures by any top Chinese official to date.

"We don't see any point in sanctions," Shi said. "Sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences. We don't want this."

The interview was conducted on Wednesday, the same day that the EU agreed a framework for sanctions that would slap travel bans and asset freezes on people and companies accused by Brussels of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has taken the lead in trying to mediate in the crisis, has said the measures, which mirror steps announced by the United States, will be imposed on Monday unless Russia accepts the idea of a "contact group" to resolve the crisis diplomatically.
Meanwhile, Obama warned Russia yesterday after meeting with the prime minister of Ukraine.

[Warph]

BREAKING: US Officials Believe Missing Flight #MH370 FLEW FOR 5 HOURS – Transponders Shut Down Intentionally (VIDEO)

Posted by

Thursday, March 13, 2014, 8:01 PM

US Officials Believe Missing Flight #MH370 FLEW FOR 5 HOURS – Communications Shut Down Intentionally

The new information stretches the search map out to 2,530 miles – All the way to Pakistan!

Jetliner 'Pinged' Satellites With Location, Altitude for Hours After Disappearance

** US investigators believe the aircraft flew for five hours after the transponders stopped functioning

** Three automated tracking features were turned off during the flight

** The transponder was shut down at 1:21 AM

** The belief is that this was intentional

** The USS Kidd is traveling to the Indian Ocean to search for remnants of the flight

** US officials are looking into information that the plane was diverted to a private location for use later

Megyn Kelly led off her show The Kelly File tonight with this breaking news:

Investigators believe the plane was sending signals for up to five hours.

The Wall Street Journal reported:
The investigators believe the plane flew for a total of up to five hours, according to these people, based on analysis of signals sent by the Boeing 777′s satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of certain onboard systems to the ground.

Throughout the roughly four hours after the jet dropped from civilian radar screens, these people said, the link operated in a kind of standby mode and sought to establish contact with a satellite or satellites. These transmissions did not include data, they said, but the periodic contacts indicate to investigators that the plane was still intact and believed to be flying.

Investigators are still working to fully understand the information, according to one person briefed on the matter. The transmissions, this person said, were comparable to the plane "saying I'm here, I'm ready to send data."

Investigators are trying to determine, among other things, whether the plane may have landed in an unknown location at some point during the period under scrutiny, these people said.

The plane could have reached Pakistan in four hours.

[...]

Missing Malaysian #MH370 Jet – Could Have Flown to Pakistan in 4 Hours

Thursday, March 13, 2014, 7:47 PM

Officials Now Searching INDIAN OCEAN, India, China, Australia for Missing Flight #MH370

The new search map includes Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Singapore and Australia.

U.S. officials believe the missing plane could have come down in the Indian Ocean (left), rather than the South China Sea (right), while speculation that the plane could have kept flying for four hours after losing contact were described as 'inaccurate'.

Business Insider reported:
Two U.S. officials believe the shutdown of two separate communications systems from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 happened at different times, indicating the disappearance was less likely the result of a catastrophic failure and more the result of a "deliberate act," according to a new report from ABC News.

Sources speaking with ABC believe the data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m., while the transponder — sending out location and altitude data — was shut down at 1:21 a.m.

Further, investigators suspect the missing flight stayed in the air for about four hours after it reached its last confirmed location, according to Andy Pasztor of The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal originally reported that they obtained data from the aircraft's engines, but then issued a correction saying that U.S. investigators based their position on "an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of some onboard systems."

Satellites picked up 'electronic pings' from the flight after it lost contact, Reuters reports.

Malaysian authorities immediately rebutted the initial report, but have not provided any new information about the fate of the flight. Today, the country's minister of defense and acting minister of transport said the plane simply "vanished."