A couple of years ago, I wrote about Obama coming to Columbus and basically wrecking a full-scale, city-wide disaster exercise that major airports are required to perform every three years. For his ten minutes on the ground, workers at the site of his jobs speech were sent home without pay.
President Obama is above it all, our first post-American president. He certainly didn’t learn anything from his trip to Ohio, because on the heels of killing the Keystone pipeline project and associated jobs, he has struck again in Orlando. On short notice, he decided to show up in Disney World interrupting and disrupting the vacations of thousands of families to give a speech, ironically on tourism.
Normal folks save up years and years to afford a trip to the Magic Kingdom. Mom and Dad have to coordinate their time off from work between their own bosses and each other, the kids’ school, etc. They save and plan well in advance. Most people can’t just stay over an extra day to make up the time and aren’t likely to get a refund on their park admission.
This is our president. A man above the country, above the people who, never having held one, knows nothing about a real job and working long hours to be able to afford the extravagance of a trip to Orlando. Ever the community organizer, Obama’s hubris and disrespect for the individual he claims to champion knows no bounds. So far out of touch and out of step with flyover country, it would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating.
Are you ready? Once again, Iowa is about to decide the fate of the next presidential election. Every four years, among the corn fields and the county fair grounds Iowa voters come together to pick the candidate they want to run for president. Iowa is always first for no reason other than inertia. That is how we’ve always done it, that is how we’re going to keep doing it. That is among the worst rationale to continue an activity.
In A More Perfect Constitution, Virginia Law professor Larry Sabato makes an interesting proposal that we divide the country into regions and let a handful of states hold their primaries (or caucuses) on the same day. Every election cycle, a different group of states gets to go first.
I’ve heard the argument that who goes first doesn’t really matter. Then why not let someone else? The problem with “Iowa goes first, New Hampshire goes second” is that it sets the momentum. When all the polling is done, when all the straw polls are finished, this is the first official vote. With the momentum goes support – ground, financial, media, etc. Iowa gets a massive amount of attention from the candidates while states like Missouri and Ohio – whom Larry O’Connor correctly argues are much more representative of the nation as a whole – aren’t even an after thought by the time their primaries come around.
When the last poll comes out before the Iowa caucuses start and bat-crazy Ron Paul is a mere two points behind the much more polished, savvy, and reasonable poll leader Mitt Romney – something is wrong. I’m not necessarily a fan of Romney. However, quickly summarizing Ron Paul’s finer foreign policy positions:
If this guy wins Iowa, and that momentum carries him to the Republican nomination for the most powerful office in the world – the way we choose our nominees is completely broken.
By way of @meredithdake, great story of the solider responsible for training the horses of the 3d IR, the Old Guard.
ARLINGTON, Va. – Sgt. Ruben Troyer, senior horse trainer, Caisson platoon, 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), uses his Amish upbringing to help train horses in the Caisson platoon.
Within the area of Holmes County, Ohio, rests the world’s largest Amish community, a community which taught Sgt. Ruben Troyer, from an early age, the true value of horses.
“There were 20 to 30 horses specific to my family,” said Troyer. “Horses were our transportation and our means to farm. They were our livelihood.”
Thanksgiving 2006 changed one family’s life forever. The knock at the door that every military spouse dreads came a month before Christmas. Major Troy Gilbert was lost when his F-16 crashed during combat operations in Iraq.
29 November 2006: The whereabouts of a Texas Tech graduate remain unknown after the F-16 he was piloting crashed in Iraq. Military officials say Major Troy Gilbert was firing on targets at a low altitude when his jet went down near Falluja in Iraq Monday. The jet was based out of Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico, which is about 100 miles from Lubbock. DNA samples taken from the scene are being tested.
The 34-year-old has been stationed at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona since March 2004. That’s where family and friends made statements today. NewsChannel 11′s Jennifer Vogel shares the story.
Major Troy Gilbert is a well decorated soldier who was selected to become a Presidential Advance Agent. He would often travel to classified locations to meet Air Force One. But the one thing friends, family and colleagues tell NewsChannel 11 he is most proud of is his time as a father and a husband.
“Troy was first and foremost a wonderful husband and father.” That was the first message family members wanted the public to know about their own personal hero, Major Troy L. Gilbert.
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the sacrifices of Major Gilbert and his family, Captain Giglio, and the 30 soldiers lost one day not so long ago. We are the home of the brave and the land of the free because of people like these.
