Life is good...
Saw Frank Sinatra Jr. and his band at the Bergen PAC last night. Good show!
TAILGATED...!!!
Yep. Got there early. We'd decided to have dinner after the show so we didn't wanna go into a bar and be tempted to "snack" as we drank... so... we just walked down the block to ShopRite Liquors and picked up a couple "oil cans" of Foster's Bitter and drank in the car while listening to XM.
(*WINK*)
I've gotta say... I'm a FUN "old" guy!
2 comments:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/us/politics/dismissed-pentagon-general-held-wide-influence-behind-the-scenes.html
Lt. Gen. Ronald F. Lewis held a job that is little known beyond Washington. But his abrupt and public firing on Thursday called attention not only to a senior officer’s potentially career-ending scandal but also to the huge influence over military policy that his position, senior military assistant to the defense secretary, wields.
In a brief statement on Thursday, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said that he had dismissed General Lewis over allegations of personal misconduct. The statement provided no details about the allegations, but military officials suggested that the firing involved an improper relationship. Extramarital affairs are a crime under the military’s legal code.
* SO... EITHER ANOTHER TOP MILITARY OFFICER IS A SCUMBAG... OR... THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS RAILROADING LEWIS FOR SOME AS OF YET UNKNOWN REASON.
The senior military assistant is in essence the defense secretary’s right-hand man. The assistant sees almost every piece of paper that crosses the boss’s desk, including some of the most highly classified intelligence reports produced by the government. The assistant also weighs in on everything from routine personnel matters to the planning of military operations around the world.
The position also involves serving as a guide, of sorts, for a civilian political appointee who must navigate and control one of the world’s most regimented bureaucracies, and certainly its most heavily armed. The assistant translates the acronym-filled lexicon of the military, tells the secretary who served with whom, and conveys which senior officer is seen by the rank and file as a real soldier (or sailor or Marine) and who is seen as a careerist with talent for managing up.
Before Donald H. Rumsfeld became defense secretary in 2001, the senior military assistant was a job for a brigadier general or a rear admiral, each of whom wears one star. But Mr. Rumsfeld felt that the job needed to be filled by an officer with more clout, turning it into a position for a three-star lieutenant general or vice admiral.
In the years since, the role has become a steppingstone to some of the highest jobs in the military.
Between his tours in Afghanistan, General Lewis developed a strong relationship with Mr. Carter. He served as a military aide when Mr. Carter was under secretary for defense acquisition, technology and logistics, and again when Mr. Carter became deputy defense secretary.
When Mr. Carter was nominated to the Pentagon’s top job late last year, General Lewis was again at his side. He was rewarded with a promotion to lieutenant general, becoming one of a few African-Americans serving in the upper ranks of the military.
On Thursday, Mr. Carter said that General Lewis would remain in the Army pending an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
* IT'S TOUGH. OBVIOUSLY ASH CAN'T BE TRUSTED. THE PROBLEM IS... NEITHER CAN SOMEONE WHO ROSE TO PROMINENCE ON ASH'S COATTAILS.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/14/isil-recruits-in-us-worry-officials/75774094/
The Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the attacks in Paris has potentially dramatic implications in the U.S., where federal counter-terrorism officials are investigating hundreds of suspected Islamic State recruits who they fear have been urged to take their fight to American streets, authorities have said.
Last month, FBI Director James Comey acknowledged an estimated 900 active investigations pending against suspected Islamic State-inspired operatives and other homegrown violent extremists across the country.
The majority of those inquiries involve suspected Islamic State recruits, officials said, who have either been radicalized through the terror group's aggressive social media campaign or have returned to the U.S. after being trained on battlefields in Syria and Iraq.
* I'M CONFUSED. IF THE AUTHORITIES KNOW WHO THE PEOPLE ARE WHO HAVE "RETURNED TO THE U.S. AFTER BEING TRAINED ON BATTLEFIELDS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ," SHOULDN'T THESE PEOPLE BE IN CUSTODY...???
Islamic State is also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS.
Comey has said that the number of inquiries has slowly climbed, largely due to the group's successful outreach to young, disaffected Americans.
* YOUNG... JEWISH KIDS? YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF... OH... I DON'T KNOW... IRISH OR ITALIAN HERITAGE?
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... POLITICAL CORRECTNESS MAY VERY WELL ONE DAY GET YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE KILLED.
"(Islamic State) is fueling an unprecedented tempo for law enforcement authorities combating the homegrown Islamist extremist threat," a House Homeland Security Committee threat assessment stated earlier this month, adding that almost 60 people have been arrested so far this year in ISIL-related cases.
* ARRESTED AND...??? (MEANING... ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH...???)
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the Homeland Committee's Republican chairman, last week called the Islamist threat a "menace'' that is increasingly challenging the capacity of counter-terrorism authorities.
"As this month's terror threat snapshot illustrates, our counter-terrorism and law enforcement efforts continue to be strained by these threats,'' McCaul said. "With Europe accepting possibly up to 1 million (Syrian) refugees by year's end and ISIL vowing to exploit the refugee process, our nation's law enforcement and intelligence communities may soon be stretched as we deal with that crisis and our own Syrian refugee vetting for resettlement in the United States.'"
* HEY! I'VE GOT A "CRAZY" IDEA: LET'S NOT TAKE IN ANY SYRIAN "REFUGEES!"
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson acknowledged McCaul's concerns.
"It is true that we're not going to know a whole lot about the Syrians that come forth in this (refugee) process," Johnson said last month. "That definitely is a challenge."
* FOLKS.... YOU JUST READ WHAT I JUST READ - RIGHT?
* FOLKS - THIS... IS... INSANITY...!!!
Terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said that while there has been a rash of ISIL-related arrests across the country, the continuing threat in France is "many, many times greater than the U.S."
* THAT'S BECAUSE THE FRENCH ARE EVEN NUTTIER THAN WE ARE!
* BUT STILL:
U.S. law enforcement officials have sounded more ominous warnings over the growing numbers of suspected homegrown ISIL recruits.
Comey has been particularly vocal about the potential danger, indicating that earlier this year the bureau redirected "hundreds" of investigators from criminal cases to deal with the growing national security threat.
"ISIL has used the used ubiquitous social media to break the model and push into the United States on the mobile devices of troubled souls in all 50 states a twin message: come or kill," Comey told a House panel last month. "Come to the so-called 'caliphate' ... and if you can't come, kill where you are."
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