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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (357381)	4/3/2010 5:43:28 AM
From: unclewest	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

Concur! Great speech by Paul Ryan. I hope his predictions are right. Like Ryan, many of us here think there are openings looking for replacements in the demo party. That is fine, but the repubs need to replace a bunch too and at all levels.

To: LindyBill who wrote (357381)	4/3/2010 5:58:19 AM
From: unclewest	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

I howled reading these because they are so true. Then I thought these are as true for all the other government bureaucracies as they are for the military. Staff Officers "The typical staff officer is a man past middle life, spare, wrinkled, intelligent, cold, noncommittal, with eyes like a codfish, polite in contact, but at the same time unresponsive, cool, calm and as damnably composed as a concrete post or plaster of Paris cast; a human petrification with a heart of feldspar and without charm or the friendly germ; minus bowels, passions or a sense of humor. Happily they never reproduce and all of them finally go to hell."...Gen George Patton..... "At this Command, we have written in large, black letters: DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) on the back of our security badges." Maj (CENTCOM) "'Leaning forward' is really just the first phase of 'falling on your ass.'" Marine Col (MARFOREUR) "I am so far down the food chain that I've got plankton bites on my butt." LTC (ARCENT) "None of us is as dumb as all of us." Excerpted from a brief (EUCOM) "We're from the nuke shop, sir. We're the crazy aunt in the closet that nobody likes to talk about ..." Lt Col (EUCOM) in briefings "Things are looking up for us here. In fact, Papua-New Guinea is thinking of offering two platoons: one of Infantry (headhunters) and one of engineers (hut builders). They want to eat any Iraqis they kill. We've got no issues with that, but State is being anal about it." LTC (JS) on OIF coalition-building. "The chance of success in these talks is the same as the number of "R's" in 'fat chance...'" GS-15 (SHAPE) "His knowledge on that topic is only power point deep..." MAJ (JS) "Ya'll know, in this Command, if the world were supposed to end tomorrow, the sh** would still happen behind schedule." CWO4 (EUCOM) "We are condemned men who are chained and will row in place until we rot." LtCol (CENTCOM) on life at his Command "Right now we're pretty much the ham in a bad ham sandwich..." GO/FO (EUCOM) "If we wait until the last minute to do it, it'll only take a minute." MAJ(EUCOM) "The only reason that anything ever gets done is because there are pockets of competence in every command. The key is to find them ... and then exploit the hell out of 'em." CDR (CENTCOM) "I may be slow, but I do poor work..." MAJ (USAREUR) "Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burned out dreams." Maj(CENTCOM) on the daily thrashings delivered to AOs at his Command. "WE are the reason that Rumsfeld hates us..." LTC (EUCOM) doing some standard, Army self-flagellation "Working with Hungary is like watching a bad comedy set on auto repeat..." LCDR (EUCOM) "I finally figured out that when a Turkish officer tells you, "It's no problem," he means, for him." Maj (EUCOM) "Never in the history of the US Armed Forces have so many done so much for so few..." MAJ (Task Force Warrior) on the "success" of the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) Training Program, where 1100 Army troops trained 77 Iraqi exiles at the cost of, well, ...way too much... "Our days are spent trying to get some poor, unsuspecting third world country to pony up to spending a year in a sweltering desert, full of pissed off Arabs who would rather shave the back of their legs with a cheese grater than submit to foreign occupation by a country for whom they have nothing but contempt." LTC (JS) on the joys of coalition building "I guess the next thing they'll ask for is 300 US citizens with Hungarian last names to send to Iraq..." MAJ (JS) on the often- frustrating process of building the Iraqi coalition for Phase IV "Between us girls, would it help to clarify the issue if you knew that Hungary is land-locked? " CDR to MAJ (EUCOM) on why a deployment from Hungary is likely to proceed by air vice sea "So, what do you wanna do?"..."I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?"..."I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?," etc. -- COL (DIA) describing the way OUSD (P) develops and implements their strategies. "I'll be right back. I have to go pound my nuts flat..." Lt Col (EUCOM) after being assigned a difficult tasker "I guess this is the wrong power cord for the computer, huh?" LtCol USMC (EUCOM) after the smoke cleared from plugging his 110V computer into a 220V outlet "OK, this is too stupid for words." LTC (JS) "When you get right up to the line that you're not supposed to cross, the only person in front of you will be me!" CDR (CENTCOM) on his view of the value of being politically correct in today's military "There's nothing wrong with crossing that line a little bit, it's jumping over it buck naked that will probably get you in trouble..." Lt Col (EUCOM) responding to the above "Never pet a burning dog." LTC (Tennessee National Guard) "Ah, the joys of Paris: a unique chance to swill warm wine and be mesmerized by the dank ambrosia of unkempt armpits..." LCDR (NAVEUR) [obviously this guy has been to the wrong parts of Paris...] "'Status quo,' as you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in...'" Attributed to former President Ronald Reagan "We are now past the good idea cutoff point..." MAJ (JS) on the fact that somebody always tries to "fine tune" a COA with more "good ideas" "Nobody ever said you had to be smart to make 0-6." Col (EUCOM) "I haven't complied with a darn thing and nothing bad has happened to me yet." "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned military leadership? Just task the first two people you see." "Accuracy and attention to detail take a certain amount of time." "I seem to be rapidly approaching the apex of my mediocre career." MAJ (JS) "Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress." "It's not a lot of work unless you have to do it." LTC (EUCOM) "Creating smoking holes (with bombs) gives our lives meaning and enhances our manliness." LTC (EUCOM) at a CT conference "Eventually, we have to 'make nice' with the French, although, since I'm new in my job, I have every expectation that I'll be contradicted. " DOS rep at a Counter Terrorism Conference "Everyone should have an equal chance, but not everyone is equal." "You can get drunk enough to do most anything, but you have to realize going in that there are some things that, once you sober up and realize what you have done, will lead you to either grab a 12-gauge or stay drunk for the rest of your life." "Once you accept that a dog is a dog, you can't get upset when it barks." Lt Col (USSOCOM) "That guy just won't take 'yes' for an answer." MAJ (EUCOM) "Let's just call Lessons Learned what they really are: institutionalized scab picking." Lt.Gen (9th AF) "I can describe what it feels like being a Staff Officer in two words: distilled pain." CDR (NAVEUR) "When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all." LCDR (CENTCOM) "Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)

To: LindyBill who wrote (357381)	4/4/2010 10:39:59 AM
From: Brumar89	8 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

These are the words of a man who should be President Posted by Bill S (Profile) Saturday, April 3rd at 1:18PM EDT 78 Comments Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t worry about 2012 right now. So sue me. Rep. Paul Ryan is one of the most articulate, intelligent conservative voices in Washington, DC. His voting record is impeccable. His performance in the so-called “Health Care Summit” was superb. And this past week, Congressman Ryan delivered an absolutely stunning speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. This is not your normal, run-of-the-mill talk. This address made Barack Obama sound like a seventh-grade speech student. I’d have to republish the entire thing to capture the highlights. So here are some choice snippets, starting with this: It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” The next chapter is the rule of “crony capitalism,” where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism. At this point, I’m not sure I would have used the adjective “soft”. But the point is well-made. A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it’s regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life. “keeping the earnings of your work” - The Democrats are all for that, only it’s them who wish to keep our earnings. But wait - there is much, much more… The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people … no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won’t survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.” We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted. Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says “more of the same,” or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom. Paul Ryan obviously understands what is wrong with the current regime. These two paragraphs encapsulate my feelings about the Democrats in power better than just about anything I’ve read in the past year. Read those paragraphs again. And again. Furthermore, Ryan understands the REAL issue behind the financial crisis we are faced with: The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress’ spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning. Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family’s share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt. Social Security’s surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan. Amen, brother. And Ryan finishes with a flourish: My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country’s future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time. Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high. I pray that the price of their infidelity will be an overwhelming GOP victory in 2010. That is indeed where we must be placing our emphasis for the rest of 2010. But beyond 2010, we must think about how to re-take the White House from the primary culprit in this governmental hijacking of the Constitution: Barack Hussein Obama. Congressman Ryan clearly understands the problem and the solution. A speech like this is not the typical fare we hear from Congressional representatives. Be sure to read the whole thing. Words like this are seldom heard today, in DC or anywhere else. These are the kinds of words we hear from a statesman…the kind of words that come from a President. Now I’ve heard the case from some of my friends and colleagues that we must elect someone with executive experience, or we’ll wind up with another disaster like Barack Obama. But the problem with Obama has nothing to do with a lack of experience; it has everything to do with a neo-Communist ideology that has lurched this nation’s policy-making far, far to the left. I am much more interested in a President who has the ideas that can move this country in the right direction. And Congressman Ryan possesses these ideas. But, you say, Ryan says he doesn’t want to run for President. Well, maybe after another year or so of Barack Obama, he’ll be convinced. I know I am. redstate.com