Cats and Dogs

First,  the Kitteh who climbed the policeman 

Too funny!

H/T: those wonderful LOLcat folks at Icanhascheezburger.com
 



Second,  the Doggie doing the Welcome Home Dance 

 
Too sweet!

 
H/T to Robbie at UrbanGrounds.com

Friday Moto Photo: Pie Charts

Clint-O-Bama-Rama

Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama want an accountable, transparent government in Afghanistan -- as far as that can happen -- and a strong stand against corruption.

Okay, let's first consider the CO-presidency of which Hillary was a part.

If you google: 'Clinton presidency corruption', you get 2,740,000 returns.

Remember Whitewater? Cattlegate? Travelgate? Filegate? Vandalgate? Chinagate? Lippogate? Zippergate? Fostergate?  ad nauseum


Neither of the Clintons has ever accepted accountability for anything.

Now google 'Obama corruption'.  103,000,000 returns.


Google 'Obama transparency'.  4,400,000 returns.

Guess what?  The Barack Hussein Obama administration has argued in a recent court filing that the Privacy Act does not apply to the Executive Office of the President. So much for the most transparent administration ever.
Judicial Watch

ACORN. SEIU. Czars. Suspected document fraud (birth certificate -and- Selective Service Registration). Blagogate. TARP.

And it's not even a year yet.

Hamid Karzai has nothing on these two.

And as far as government corruption goes, perhaps we should clean out our House (and Senate)  -  John Murtha. Charley Rangel. Maxine Waters, etal  -  before criticizing theirs.

Fallen Heroes: Spcs Gary Gooch and Aaron Aamot

 
Army Spc. Gary L. Gooch Jr., 22, of Ocala, FL and Spc. Aaron S. Aamot, 22, of Custer, WA, died Nov. 5 in Jelewar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. 

The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, WA.

Requietum en Pacem, Soldiers

The Undecider President.Still.

Barack Hussein Obama has been thinking about making a decision on General McChrystal's additional troop request to bolster troops already in the field (i.e. Afghanistan War) since August. 3 months.

During these three months Barack Hussein Obama has:  flown to NYC to offer a tribute to Walter Cronkite (but not to NYC on 9-11),  flown to Copenhagen to lobby the IOC for the 2016 Olympics (even though Oprah and Michelle were already there).

Then he revved up AF One to attend the memorial service at Fort Hood. (Can we say major photo ops?)  

Wouldn't that have been an absolutely appropriate time and place to announce his re-re-thought Afghan War strategy? 

 But no.  He doesn't like any of his options and wants more.

Is Barack Hussein Obama reluctant to send more American troops to war because he's concerned for them? 

I doubt that's the reason.

Or is it because he just does not want to spend the money on the war?


MAYBE!

This guy has NO problem spending money.

During the first 100 days as POTUS, Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill into law, proposed a $3.6 trillion budget for the next fiscal year, took over a massive $700 billion Wall Street bailout program and created other billion-dollar programs.

It did not take 3 months for him to make those decisions.

Some Leadership

From The GOOD LT at the JAWA Report:

Some "Leadership," Obama: Troop Morale Dropping in Afghanistan

Boy. The selfishness of our troops in Afghanistan. Thinking of only themselves and not the incredible burden and sacrifice that our Dear Leader Barack Obama is making for them by taking his time enacting the strategy he laid out in...March. It's November.

WASHINGTON – Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence, the Army said Friday.

Oh, so it's OK to admit that Iraq's stable now. After Bush made the decision to increase troop levels. Per his general's requests. In the face of criticism from everyone, including Obama himself. He's been given a model and told what he needs to do.

And yet, there's so much more to think about here. Like the 2012 election news cycle and the focus groups of Democrats next year.

The Fort Hood Outrage

  We have a Pentagon full of political Generals with Politically Correct Rules of Engagement.

Real Clear Politics:

An Officer's Outrage Over Fort Hood

by Major Shawn Keller

As an officer in the United States Army, I'm angry for so many reasons over what happened at Ft. Hood. I'm angry that twelve of my fellow soldiers and a contractor were murdered. I'm angry that over thirty people have suffered life altering injuries from which they will never fully recover. I'm angry that the lives of so many families have been forever ruined. I'm angry that this happened on an Army post on American soil where soldiers should be safe. And I'm angry that the murderer was a terrorist who masqueraded as an Army officer for half a dozen years.

But as angry as I am at what happened, I'm even angrier that it was allowed to happen. Apparently, there was no shortage of warning signs that Hasan identified more with Islamic Jihadists than he did with the US Army. From speeches, writings, conversations, affiliations and postings on Jihadist websites, there were more than enough dots to connect that should have exposed Hasan as someone inclined to attack innocent people in the furtherance of a political, religious and ideological agenda. There were more than enough red flags raised that, at a minimum, should have gotten Hasan kicked out of the Army.

But just like September 11, those agencies and individuals charged with keeping America and Americans safe failed to connect the dots that would have saved lives. Jihadist rhetoric espoused by Hasan was categorically dismissed out of submissiveness to the concepts of tolerance and diversity. The Army as an institution has been neutered by decades of political correctness and the leaders in Hasan's chain-of-command failed to act accordingly out of fear of being labeled anti-Muslim and receiving a negative evaluation report. The counter-terrorism agencies knew Hasan was communicating with Al-Qaeda and dismissed it as academic research instead of delving deeper into the probability that a terrorist had infiltrated the ranks.

Even four hours after Hasan stood on a desk yelling Allahu Akbar! and opened fire, the FBI stated that they were not investigating the attack as an act of terrorism even as there were still reports of other gunmen on the loose. Meanwhile, the Army continues to dismiss it as a "tragedy" and an "isolated incident by a lone gunman" while the media has invented the psychological condition of post-traumatic stress disorder by proxy. There is more concern for promoting the appropriate information operation campaign and maintaining the illusion of safety than there is for actually exposing the weaknesses and faults in the system that allowed this to happen. We're even being told that damage to the Army's efforts at diversity would be a greater tragedy than the murder of the twelve soldiers -- how ironic the week of Veterans' Day.

This has nothing to do with being anti-Islamic. After numerous tours to Iraq and working with countless cultural advisors on Ft. Bragg, I know dozens of Muslims who I respect and admire greatly. This has everything to do with force protection and security being trumped by the concepts of political correctness and diversity. This has everything to do with a hypocritical system and culture that breeds timidity and dismissiveness in the interest of career advancement. If I preached a white-supremacist ideology or described Timothy McVeigh as a hero to the cause of freedom and liberty, how long do you think I would still be in the military drawing a salary, receiving educational benefits and getting promoted like Hasan did?

Hasan's radical ideology grew to the point that he committed mass murder because too many leaders were too afraid to lead out of fear of harming their career or the image of the Army. If those leaders don't have the intestinal fortitude, moral conviction or personal courage to stand up, speak up and protect soldiers, then retire, resign or get out of the way and let somebody else do it for you.

Shawn Keller is a Major in the United States Army stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.