Dumbass Presidential Candidate of the Week

[Davyjones]

Whatever you think about the Bible it is a tremendous history and guide for our livesI agree Dealey..just wish i could come up to scratch

[Bob]

Speaking of the Bible, Jesus lost his temper in front of the Temple because of the moneychangers that were trying to profit themselves at a place of worship. Jesus turned over their tables he was so pissed. Now...which political group today uses religion as a shield and also goes out of it's way to protect the rich and powerful and also make them even richer? At the expense of the poor and the middle class? Jesus also said this..."Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."So...which side do you think Jesus would endorse? The Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and people of their ilk? Or the poor and middle class?Also...in terms of Poppy Bush and his war service, a couple of books have been written about it. One book that I have read is the one by Webster Tarpley. Here is the book...http://tarpley.net/online-books/george- ... graphy/Now before anyone suggests that I am using an author with leanings towards the Democrats...Tarpley is also one of the first authors that went hard after Barack Obama and his background. Tarpley and Wayne Madsen both went after Obama LONG before he became President. They both saw a CIA background and other signs that might have predicted what Obama might do as President. I'm sad to say that they have both been pretty spot on.Anyway, please read this about Poppy and his "heroism" in WWII...What happened in the skies of Chichi Jima that day is a matter of lively controversy. Bush has presented several differing versions of his own story. In his campaign autobiography published in 1987 Bush gives the following account: The flak was the heaviest I’d ever flown into. The Japanese were ready and waiting: their antiaircraft guns were set up to nail us as we pushed into our dives. By the time VT-51 was ready to go in, the sky was thick with angry black clouds of exploding antiaircraft fire. Don Melvin led the way, scoring hits on a radio tower. I followed, going into a thirty-five degree dive, an angle of attack that sounds shallow but in an Avenger felt as if you were headed straight down. The target map was strapped to my knee, and as I started into my dive, I’d already spotted the target area. Coming in, I was aware of black splotches of gunfire all around. Suddenly there was a jolt, as if a massive fist had crunched into the belly of the plane. Smoke poured into the cockpit, and I could see flames rippling across the crease of the wing, edging towards the fuel tanks. I stayed with the dive, homed in on the target, unloaded our four 500-pound bombs, and pulled away, heading for the sea. Once over water, I leveled off and told Delaney and White to bail out, turning the plane to starboard to take the slipstream off the door near Delaney’s station. Up to that point, except for the sting of dense smoke blurring my vision, I was in fair shape. But when I went to make my jump, trouble came in pairs. [fn 2] In this account, there is no more mention of White and Delaney until Bush hit the water and began looking around for them. Bush says that it was only after having been rescued by the USS Finnback, a submarine, that he “learned that neither Jack Delaney nor Ted White had survived. One went down with the plane; the other was seen jumping, but his parachute failed to open.” The Hyams account of 1991 was written after an August 1988 interview with Chester Mierzejewski, another member of Bush’s squadron, had raised important questions about the haste with which Bush bailed out, rather than attempting a water landing. Mierzejewski’s account, which is summarized below, contradicted Bush’s own version of these events, and hinted that Bush might have abandoned his two crewmembers to a horrible and needless death. The Hyams account, which is partly intended to refute Mierzejewski, develops as follows: …Bush was piloting the third plane over the target, with Moore flying on his wing. He nosed over into a thirty-degree glide, heading straight for the radio tower. Determined to finally destroy the tower, he used no evasive tactics and held the plane directly on target. His vision ahead was occasionally cancelled by bursts of black smoke from the Japanese antiaircraft guns. The plane was descending through thickening clouds of flak pierced by the flaming arc of tracers. There was a sudden flash of light followed by an explosion. “The plane was lifted forward, and we were enveloped in flames,” Bush recalls. “I saw the flames running along the wings where the fuel tanks were and where the wings fold. I thought, This is really bad! It’s hard to remember the details, but I looked at the instruments and couldn’t see them for the smoke.” Don Melvin, circling above the action while waiting for his pilots to drop their bombs and get out, thought the Japanese shell had hit an oil line on Bush’s Avenger. “You could have seen that smoke for a hundred miles.” Perhaps so, but it is difficult to understand why the smoke from Bush’s plane was so distinctly visible in such a smoke-filled environment. Hyams goes on to describe Bush’s completion of his bombing run. His account continues: By then the wings were covered in flames and smoke, and the engine was blazing. He considered making a water landing but realized it would not be possible. Bailing out was absolutely the last choice, but he had no other option. He got on the radio and notified squadron leader Melvin of his decision. Melvin radioed back, “Received your message. Got you in sight. Will follow.” [...] Milt Moore, flying directly behind Bush, saw the Avenger going down smoking. “I pulled up to him; then he lost power and I went sailing by him.” As soon as he was back over water, Bush shouted on the intercom for White and Delaney to “hit the silk!” [...] Dick Gorman, Moore’s radioman-gunner, remembers hearing someone on the intercom shout, “Hit the silk!” and asking Moore, “Is that you, Red?” “No,” Moore replied. “It’s Bush, he’s hit!” Other squadron members heard Bush repeating the command to bail out, over and over, on the radio. There was no response from either of Bush’s crewmen and no way he could see them; a shield of armor plate between him and Lt. White blocked his view behind. He was certain that White and Delaney had bailed out the moment they got the order. [fn 3] Hyams quotes a later entry by Melvin in the squadron log as to the fate of Bush’s two crewmen: “”At a point approximately nine miles bearing 045′T (degrees) from Minami Jima, Bush and one other person were seen to bail out from about 3,000 feet. Bush’s chute opened and he landed safely in the water, inflated his raft, and paddled farther away from Chi-Chi Jima. The chute of the other person who bailed out did not open. Bush has not yet been returned to the squadron…so this information is incomplete. While Lt. j.g. White and J.L. Delaney are reported missing in action, it is believed that both were killed as a result of the above described action.” [fn 4] But it is interesting to note that this report, contrary to usual standard navy practice, has no date. This should alert us to that tampering with public records, such as Bush’s filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission during the 1960′s, which appears to be a specialty of the Brown Brothers, Harriman/Skull and Bones network. For comparison, let us now cite the cursory account of this same incident provided by Bush’s authorized biographer in the candidate’s 1980 presidential campaign biography: On a run toward the island, Bush’s plane was struck by Japanese antiaircraft shells. One of his two crewmen was killed instantly and the aircraft was set on fire. Bush was able to score hits on the enemy installations with a couple of five-hundred pound bombs before he wriggled out of the smoking cockpit and floated towards the water. The other crewman also bailed out but died almost immediately thereafter because, as the fighter pilot behind Bush’s plane was later to report, his parachute failed to open properly. Bush’s own parachute became momentarily fouled on the tail of the plane after he hit the water. [fn 5] King’s account in interesting for its omission of any mention of Bush’s injury in bailing out, a gashed forehead he got when he struck the tail assembly of the plane. This had to have occurred long before Bush had hit the water, so this account is garbled indeed. Let us also cite parts of the account provided by Fitzhugh Green in his 1989 authorized biography. Green has Bush making his attack “at a 60-degree angle.” “For his two crew members,” notes Green, “life was about to end.” His version goes on: Halfway through Bush’s dive, the enemy found his range with one or more shells. Smoke filled his cabin; his plane controls weakened; the engine began coughing, and still he wasn’t close enough to the target. He presumed the TBM to be terminally damaged. Fighting to stay on course, eyes smarting, Bush managed to launch his bombs at the last possible moment. He couldn’t discern the result through black fumes. But a companion pilot affirmed later that the installation blew up, along with two other buildings. The navy would decorate Bush for literally sticking to his guns until he completed his mission under ferocious enemy fire. Good! Now the trick was to keep the plane aloft long enough to accomplish two objectives: first, get far enough away from the island to allow rescue from the sea before capture or killing by the enemy; second, give his planemates time to parachute out of the burning aircraft. The TBM sputtered on its last few hundred yards. Unbeknownst to Bush, one man freed himself. Neither fellow squadron pilots nor Bush ever were sure which crewmember this was. As he jumped, however, his parachute snarled and failed to open. [fn 6] Green writes that when Bush was swimming in the water, he realized that “his crew had disappeared” and that “the loss of the two men numbed Bush.” For the 1992 presidential campaign, the Bushmen have readied yet another rehash of the adulatory “red Studebaker” printout in the form of a new biography by Richard Ben Cramer. This is distinguished as a literary effort above all by the artificial verbal pyrotechnics with which the author attempts to breathe new life into the dog-eared Bush canonical printout. For these, Cramer relies on a hyperkinetic style with non-verbal syntax which to some degree echoes Bush’s own disjointed manner of speaking. The resulting text may have found favor with Bush when he was gripped by his hyperthyroid rages during the buildup for the Gulf war. A part of this text has appeared in Esquire Magazine. [fn 7] Here is Cramer’s description of the critical phase of the incident: He felt a jarring lurch, a crunch, and his plane leaped forward, like a giant had struck it from below with a fist. Smoke started to fill the cockpit. He saw a tongue of flame streaming down the right wing toward the crease. Christ! The fuel tanks! He called to Delaney and White–We’ve been hit! He was diving. Melvin hit the tower dead-on–four five hundred pounders. West was on the same beam. Bush could have pulled out. Have to get rid of these bombs. Keep the dive….A few seconds… He dropped on the target and let ‘em fly. The bombs spun down, the plane shrugged with release, and Bush banked away hard to the east. No way he’d get to the rendezvous point with Melvin. The smoke was so bad he couldn’t see the gauges. Was he climbing? Have to get to the water. They were dead if they bailed out over land. The Japs killed pilots. Gonna have to bail out. Bush radioed the skipper, called his crew. No answer. Does White know how to get to his chute? Bush looked back for an instant. God, was White hit? He was yelling the order to bail out, turning right rudder to take the slipstream off their hatch…had to get himself out. He levelled off over water, only a few miles from the island…more, ought to get out farther….that’s it, got to be now…He flicked the red toggle switch on the dash–the IFF, Identification Friend or Foe –supposed to alert any US ship, send a special frequency back to his own carrier…no other way to communicate, had to get out now, had to be … NOW. It will be seen that these versions contain numerous internal contradictions, but that the hallmark of “red Studebaker” orthodoxy, especially after the appearance of the Mierzejewsky account, is that Bush’s plane was on fire, with visible smoke and flames. The Bush propaganda machine needs the fire on board the Avenger in order to justify Bush’s precipitous decision to bail out, leaving his two crew members to their fate, rather than attempting the water landing which might have saved them. The only person who has ever claimed to have seen Bush’s plane get hit, and to have seen it hit the water, is Chester Mierzejewksi, who was the rear turret gunner in the aircraft flown by Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin. During 1987-88, Mierzejewksi became increasingly indignant as he watched Bush repeat his canonical account of how he was shot down. Shortly before the Republican National Convention in 1988, Mierzekewski, by then a 68 year old retired aircraft foreman living in Cheshire, Connecticut, decided to tell his story to Allan Wolper and Al Ellenberg of the New York Post, which printed it as a copyrighted article. [fn 8] “That guy is not telling the truth,” Mierzejewski said of Bush.

[Dealey Joe]

Thanks Mr.Bushmaster, Nice post, good info.

[kenmurray]

http://www.rense.com/general47/hero.htm

[Bob]

kenmurray wrote:http://www.rense.com/general47/hero.htmGood link once again Mr. Murraydale. Now here is the story of a REAL hero...During the night of 1-2 February 1943, twenty Japanese destroyers steamed down the slot as part of Operation "KE," the evacuation of their remaining troops from Guadalcanal. Although attacked by two waves of fighters and bombers from Henderson Field at dusk, only one destroyer was damaged. The rest closed Cape Esperance, covered by half a dozen patrol planes. The Japanese were spotted by eleven PT boats in positions around Savo Island, but heavy defensive fire drove off the attacking PT boats. Accurate gunfire from Kawakaze sank PT-111 and PT-37, while a Japanese seaplane destroyed PT-123. During the battle, both PT-115 and PT-38 beached themselves on the western side of Savo Island and were pulled off by PT-109. This was the most violent action the PTs participated in off Guadalcanal, and it was their last, as the Japanese completed their evacuation of that island on 7-8 February.Over the next few months, while the MTB flotilla regrouped on Tulagi, the Japanese devoted most of their efforts to strengthening their garrisons in the upper Solomons. There were few offensive operations by either side, a respite sorely needed by PT-109 and her sister boats. The flotilla was short on manpower, with barely enough men to man the motor torpedo boats, let alone repair those damaged in combat and maintain adequate base facilities. Indeed, the crews were exhausted and easy prey to malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases. During this trying period, Lt. Westholm left PT-109 to become operations officer for the flotilla, leaving Ensign Bryant L. Larson in command of the boat.On 21 February, the MTBs escorted transports for the invasion of the Russell Islands, with PT-109 personally delivering Col. E. J. Farrel and his staff to the beach in Renard Sound. After the transports landed the remaining Marine and Army troops, the PTs began nightly offshore security patrols to protect the beach head. Additional patrols covered the familiar channels off Savo Island in case the Japanese returned to the Solomons. These operations became more difficult on 5 March, when a single plane dropped four bombs on Senapi, destroying the operations office and riddling the hull of PT-118. Then, on 7 April, the last major Japanese air strike in the Solomons managed to sink three Allied ships in Tulagi harbor and damage two others, temporarily disrupting MTB base operations.In between regular security patrols, PT-109 underwent several short maintenance periods, which included the installation of a surface search radar set. As radar sets were not issued with this class of PT-boats, the device was undoubtedly a "scrounged" item and it is unclear how long it lasted. Ensign Larson left the boat on 20 April 1943 and Ensign Leonard J. Thom, USNR, the executive officer, took charge until relieved by Lieutenant (jg) John Fitzgerald Kennedy, USNR, on the 24th. Starting in late April, the motor torpedo boat increasingly conducted patrols in the Russell Islands area and on 16 June, PT-109 shifted with other boats to a "bush" berth on Rendova Island in support of these forward operations.On 1 August, an air strike by 18 Japanese bombers struck this temporary base, wrecking PT-117 and sinking PT-164. Two torpedoes were blown off the latter boat and ran erratically around the bay until they fetched upon [ran ashore on] the beach without exploding. Intelligence reports indicated five enemy destroyers were scheduled to run that night from Bougainville Island through Blackett Strait to Vila, on the southern tip of Kolombangara Island. Despite the loss of two boats, the flotilla sent out fifteen motor torpedo boats out in four sections to meet the Japanese destroyers.Lieutenant Brantingham in PT-159 made radar contact at midnight with ships approaching from the north, close to Kolombangara. Soon after this he sighted what he believed to be large landing craft and closed range for a strafing run only to run into heavy shellfire that revealed the "landing craft" to be destroyers. He got off four torpedoes, and PT-157 launched two as well, before the two boats withdrew.Lieutenant Kennedy in PT-109 patrolled without incident until gunfire and searchlights were seen in the direction of the southern shore of Kolombangara. The location was undetermined, however, and the boat rendezvoused with PT-162 to determine the source of firing. PT-109 then intercepted a terse radio message [probably from PT-159] "I am being chased through Ferguson Passage! Have fired fish." At this time, PT-169 came alongside and reported an engine out of order. She lay to with PT-109 and PT-162 to await developments while instructions were requested from base. Orders were received to resume normal patrol station, and PT-162 being uncertain as to its position, requested Lieutenant Kennedy to lead the way back to patrol station.Lieutenant Kennedy started his patrol on one engine ahead at idling speed. The three boats were due east of Gizo Island and headed south with PT-109 leading a right echelon formation. Unknown to them, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri was returning north after completing a supply mission to Kolobangara and had spotted the torpedo boats at a range of about 1,000 yards. Rather than open fire--and give away their position--the destroyer captain, Lieutenant Comander Kohei Hanami, turned to intercept and closed in the darkness at 30-knots. Initially spotted by PT-109 at 200 to 300 yards, Kennedy ordered the boat turned to starboard, preparatory to firing torpedoes. The turn was too slow, however, and the destroyer rammed, neither slowing or firing her guns as she split the boat apart. While the Japanese destroyer was slightly damaged in the collision, smashing in part of her bow and bending her screws, the warship still made 24-knots on the run home to Rabaul and arrived safely the following morning.Meanwhile, the crew of PT-109 were thrown in the water as the Japanese destroyer knifed through their boat. Fire ignited spilled gasoline on the water some twenty yards around the wreckage, driving the crew in all directions. It quickly became clear that the forward half of the boat was still floating after the flames died down and Lieutenant Kennedy, Ensign Thom, Ensign George Ross, QM3 [Quarter Master Third Class] Edman Mauer, RM2 [Radioman Second Class] John Maguire and S1 [Seaman First Class] Raymond Albert all crawled back on board the hull. Shouting soon revealed three men were in the water some 100 yards to the southwest, while two others were an equal distance to the southeast. These were GM3 Charles Harris, MoMM2 [Motor Machinist Mate Second Class] William Johnston, MoMM1 [Motor Machinist Mate First Class] Patrick McMahon, TM2 [Torpedoman Second Class] Ray Starkey and MoMM1 [Motor Machinist Mate First Class] Gerald Zinser.Lieutenant Kennedy swam to the group of three where he found one man helpless because of serious burns and another struggling to stay afloat owing to a water-logged kapok life jacket. Trading his life belt to the latter sailor, he towed the injured man back to the wreckage of PT-109. Returning to the scene, he helped tow the exhausted crew member back to the boat. Meanwhile Ensigns Thom and Ross towed the other two survivors back to the floating section. Two sailors, TM2 Andrew Kirksey and MoMM2 Harold Marney, were never seen and presumed killed in the collision with Amagiri.Daylight on 2 August found all eleven survivors clinging to the wreckage of PT-109 about four miles north and slightly east of Gizo anchorage. When it became obvious the boat remnants would sink, Kennedy decided to abandon ship to a small island some four miles southeast of Gizo, hoping to avoid any Japanese garrisons that way. At 1400, the crew pushed off for land, towing the badly burned engineer and two non-swimmers on a float rigged from a wooden post which had been a part of the 37mm gun mount. Arriving on shore, the group took cover and set up a temporary camp.That night, Kennedy grabbed a salvaged battle lantern, donned a lifejacket, and swam to a small island a half-mile to the southeast, then along the reef stretching into Ferguson Passage where he tried unsuccessfully to intercept patrolling motor torpedo boats. Returning in the morning, he turned the lantern over to Ensign Ross who swam the same route into Ferguson Passage that evening. He too had no luck and returned the next morning.When the remaining rations, and all the local coconuts, had been consumed, the survivors investigated a small islet west of Cross Island and took cover in the heavy brush the next day. Undaunted by the sight of a New Zealand P-40 strafing Cross Island itself, Kennedy and Ross swam to that island in search of food, boats or anything which might prove useful to their party. At one point, the two men found a Japanese box with 30-40 bags of crackers and candy and, a little farther up the beach, a native lean-to with a one-man canoe and a barrel of water alongside. About this time a canoe with two natives was sighted but they paddled swiftly off despite all efforts to attract their attention.During the night of 5 August, Kennedy took the canoe into Ferguson Passage but found no PT boats. Returning home by way of Cross Island, where he picked up the food, he found the two natives there with the rest of the group. Ensign Thom, after telling them in as many ways as possible that he was an American and not a Japanese, had finally convinced the natives to help the Americans. The natives were then sent with messages to the coast watchers on Wana Wana, one was a pencilled note written the day before by Ensign Thom and the other a message written on a green coconut husk by Kennedy.The next day, eight natives arrived with instructions from the coast watcher for the senior naval officer to go with the natives to Wana Wana. After the natives dropped off food and other supplies, including a cook stove, they hid Kennedy under ferns in a large war canoe and paddled him to Wana Wana. The war canoe reached its destination about 1600 [4 p.m.] and later that night Kennedy made rendezvous in Ferguson Passage with PT-157, piloted by Lieutenant (jg) W. F. Liebenow. In company with PT-171, and guided by natives who knew passages through the reefs, the survivors were picked up by small boats later that evening. Everything went off smoothly and PT-157 returned the survivors to Rendova by morning.Lieutenant Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal "for extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Area on August 1-2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, junior grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."