A Regional Problem

I don't usually write about Philadelphia problems...I try to write on a national scale...but I was personally about to have a major problem on my commute to work tomorrow or today as you are reading this if the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Regional Rail lines strike, which began Saturday at midnight had continued...

Additional Cars, less parking than there already is and additional riders on the already taxed city bus and trolley and subway trains..Thank Goodness that the strike has ended as quick as it began.

Philadelphia area Passengers expressed relief Sunday that Philadelphia-area commuter trains were back on track after a one-day strike threatened to disrupt work schedules for tens of thousands of commuters in the coming week.

Employees ended their walkout after President Barack Obama appointed an emergency board to mediate the contract dispute between the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and two of its unions.
An arrivals-and-departures board showed all regional rails running on time late Sunday morning at Suburban Station in downtown Philadelphia, where Steve Bessler and his dad got off to catch the subway for a Father's Day outing to the Phillies game.

Steve Bessler, who also takes the train to his job during the week, said thinking about the potential commuting chaos on Monday "really did stress me for a while." His backup plan was to drive to the subway, whose lines weren't affected by the strike.

"I was dreading that because everyone else would have been doing the same thing," Bessler said.

The strike began after SEPTA failed to reach a new contract deal Friday with its engineers and electricians unions. It shut down 13 rail lines that carry about 60,000 passengers each weekday between Philadelphia and its suburbs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

About 400 workers walked off the job Saturday but were required by law to return after the creation of the emergency board. (We can thank President Obama for that board) Buses, subways and trolleys continued operating.

All striking employees reported for work Sunday except for one, whose absence might not be strike-related, said SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams.


Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen vice president Stephen Bruno said Sunday that the strike could have been avoided if SEPTA had agreed to their proposal or accepted binding arbitration.
SEPTA has said its offer is on par with what its other transit unions have accepted.

Engineers, whose contract expired in 2010, are seeking raises of at least 14.5 percent over five years, about 3 percentage points more than SEPTA has offered. A group of engineers outside Suburban Station said they were not allowed to comment.

Terry Gallagher, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Obama's intervention was "what we were waiting for." Their contract expired in 2009.

President Obama created the three-member board at the request of Gov. Tom Corbett. Now, the parties will participate in hearings set for the week of June 23, and the board will issue its recommendation to the president by July 14, Williams said.

Steve Bessler said he hopes the stop-gap measure will provide enough time to find common ground and approve a new contract.

"Hopefully, the Band-Aid will be on long enough to allow this whole thing to heal," Bessler said.

Others agree. Marc Iwanowicz, 28, said his normal 45-minute train ride from Philadelphia to his job at a suburban sporting goods store took twice that long Saturday. He said he took a combination of subway and bus instead of the rails because a cab ride would have been too expensive.

Workers aren't allowed to strike while the emergency board is convened. If no resolution is reached, a second emergency board can be requested.

In March, President Obama appointed a second presidential emergency board to resolve a dispute between New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a union representing workers with the Long Island Rail Road.

The last SEPTA regional rail strike, in 1983, lasted more than three months. Thank God and President Obama we avoided a situation like that!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Happy Father's day to every Father, Step-Father, Godfather, Grandfather and man that is making a difference in a child's life...I salute you!

Weekend Humor

A man is out shopping and discovers a new brand of Olympic condoms. Clearly impressed, he buys a pack.

Upon getting home he announces to his wife the purchase he just made.

“Olympic condoms?”, she blurts, “What makes them so special?”

“There are three colors”, he replies, “Gold, Silver and Bronze.”

“What color are you going to wear tonight?”, she asks cheekily.

“Gold of course”, says the man proudly.

The wife responds wryly, “Why don’t you wear Silver? It would be nice if you came second for a change.”

Everybody have a super groovy weekend!

R.I.P. Ruby Dee

1922-2014

We lost another giant today....The great actress and civil rights activist...Ruby Dee...She was 91.

There Is No Middle Ground

Eric Cantor....Let me tell you something my mother used to tell me....After every disappointment, after every failure, after every set back...My mother used to ask me...''Now what did you learn?" There was always a lesson to be learned from something wrong I did...She seemed to think so...She had this saying that if one of my mistakes wound up costing me money...That was a "bought lesson" and bought lessons were the best kind because if it cost you money....You weren't likely to do that again....

If there is a lesson for you here....It's the same lesson President Obama has learned...There is no middle ground...You can't sit on the fence.....You either have to be for something or against something...You can't always take short cuts....My mother often told me that too!

See,it wasn't enough for Republican primary voters in Virginia’s 7th District that their congressman, That's you, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, helped the GOP regroup after President Barack Obama took office; that you often played bad cop to House Speaker John Boehner’s good cop during the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff; or that over your career, you voted with your party close to 96 percent of the time.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

People have short memories and attention spans Eric...

What mattered,  was that you were starting to appear—at least to the nuts in the Tea Party hard core—ever so slightly more conciliatory after President Obama’s 2012 re-election, You “failed to realize that the nut cases in the Tea Party were still demanding total opposition, whether it worked or not, however it polled.”

And the takeaway for You Eric, after losing on Tuesday to Randolph-Macon College economics professor Dave Brat, (WHO???) is that the GOP’s Obama treatment—rebuffing any attempts at compromise—can be turned on anyone. Including the GOP’s No. 2 man in the House....Uh That would be You Eric!

Yeah, there were lots of reasons for your loss: Brat’s campaign charge that you were pushing “amnesty” for illegal immigrants; a failure to spot the populist wave coming at him; spending too much time on leadership duties, as opposed to your home district; and reports that hardly anyone—on either side of the aisle—liked you personally. Yeah, for real...

Right now, there’s no zero lower bound in movement conservatism, so no matter how far right a Republican goes, there’s always someone out there willing to holler “RINO” and take it one step further to the right—even if they’re running against someone like you, who is no one’s definition of liberal.

It’s about rejecting compromise or even the appearance of compromise. Look at President Obama.

When he was trying to get bipartisan support on health care reform in 2009, he threw over the public option for the individual mandate—a Republican plan—and still got no GOP votes for Obamacare.

After getting shellacked in the 2010 midterms, he agreed to extend the Bush-era cuts on top marginal income tax rates in exchange for repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and extended unemployment benefits.

 In 2011 he acquiesced to sequestration to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. President Obama gradually disenchanted many of his fellow Democrats, and for his trouble, Republicans labeled him a socialist.

Aint that a bitch?? You can't win sitting on the fence...There are no short cuts...There is no Middle Ground...You either be about something or be against it...My mother also told me...''Everybody is not going to like you and if they do...Then you're doing something wrong.."

Wisdom well shared!

The Enemy of My Enemy...

Make no mistake...I have never been a fan of Eric Cantor....I'm still not...and when I heard that he suffered a stunning primary loss...I was ecstatic with glee until I found out WHO he lost too..A Tea party supported candidate...

If I didn't like Eric Cantor...I certainly dislike the Tea Party and anybody that stands with them even less...In this case...Eric Cantor is not the better of two evils...He's evil, but yet another evil taking his place...

In the most stunning upset so far of this midterm season, the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives lost his party’s primary on Tuesday. Eric Cantor, the man seen as next-in-line to become House Speaker, was handily defeated by college professor Dave Brat. WHO???

It's extraordinary and damn near unheard of for an incumbant congressional leader to lose his or her primary race and, in this case, one of the big reasons for the upset was the highly charged issue of immigration.

Eric Cantor had previously supported a "Dream Act"-like proposal to provide a path to citizenship for children who were brought to the United States illegally. "One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents," Cantor said in a speech a year ago. "It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home."

      

In his long-shot campaign,Dave  Brat attacked Cantor on that stance. "Eric Cantor is saying we should bring more folks into the country, increase the labor supply - and by doing so, lower wage rates for the working person," Dave Brat charged.

       

To protect his right flank on immigration, Eric Cantor sent out mailers saying he led the fight against President Obama's “amnesty” -- that is, comprehensive immigration reform that had passed the Senate a year ago.

 

I don't think the attack Obama card got him the knee jerk support he was hoping for this time. And as Tuesday's Virginia primary proved, that ultimately wasn't enough.

      

Before tonight's Tea Party victory, establishment Republicans had cruised to victory in many contests. In North Carolina, the Chamber of Commerce-backed Thom Tillis won the state's Senate GOP primary.

 

In Idaho, an establishment incumbent congressman defended his seat. And in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell easily defeated his Tea Party challenger.

      

But in Mississippi last week, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., was forced into a June 24 runoff. And now the No.2-ranking House Republican goes down to defeat.

 

What is the world coming to huh?  There is a saying...The enemy of my enemy is my friend....Not in this case!

Let's Make A Deal

You probably don't know who this gentleman is in this photo do you? I can tell you one thing...He's not Eric Snowden....The reason why I mention Eric Snowden is because the man in that photo and Eric Snowden are both in the same predicament....Both are fugitives from the United States.....Both are presently granted asylum in a foreign country...Both want to come home.  Guess which one will probably come home one day to no charges?? Possibly Fanfare!!!  It Aint Pete O'Neal, the black man in the above photo...

Pete O'Neal was once the Chairman of the Black Panther Party in St. Louis ,Missouri....He was convicted in 1969 of transporting a shotgun over state lines...Rather than go to prison...He did what Eldridge Cleaver and a lot of Black Panthers did...He fled to Cuba , then Algiers and eventually Tanzania...Where he presently resides......

It's been 45 years...He wants to come home....He has a cousin....a cousin in the House of Represenatives...
And though his cousin, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), has exhausted all channels for a plea or clemency deal, you won’t be hearing about that coming to pass anytime soon.

In contrast...Let's look at Eric Snowden...

He is wanted for far more serious offenses....Can you say TREASON???

He is  a keyboard-tapping, suburban-raised white guy who gave away national secrets... The Washington Post's David Ignatius has said “If he came back and told everything he knows, then perhaps some accommodation could be reached.” It’s something that Snowden himself alluded to in his recent interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams, and it’s a “discussion” that National Security Agency Deputy Director Rick Ledgett suggested might be entertained when he was backed into it by zealous techies looking to shield Snowden from the clutches of embarrassed federal agents.

And if that plea deal ever happens, it'll be a little bit like the 15-month slap on the wrist that was handed out to Piper Kerman—the real-life memoirist on whose experiences the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black is based—especially when compared with the 24 years that a similarly situated black woman, Kemba Smith, got for pretty much the same crime. Piper Kerman got a TV show, and Oliver Stone just announced plans for a biopic about Eric  Snowden.

Hell, Kemba Smith can’t even get a Lifetime movie.  And nobody will be giving Pete O'Neal anything but a quick arrest and a quick stint to the penitentary if he ever sets foot on U.S. soil again...

No deals or statutes of limitations for former Black revolutionaires...or poor misguided Black women who unknowingly transport drugs over state lines for their no good boyfriends....But the man who gave away sensitive government secrets to a foreign power just might get a plea arrangement deal , a movie and who knows ...a television show based on his crime...

Tell me..What am I missing here, huh?

And Now A Message From Our Sponser.....

Weekend Humor

Have a Groovy Weekend Everyone!

Bowe, We Don't Know!

In what should be the feel good moment for all Americans...The release of a POW.....We now have a national firestorm brewing on the horizon....Not just whether President Obama violated the law by doing an end run around congress...but concerning the prisoner of war himself...Staff sergeant, Bowe Bergdahl...
Rumored to be a desserter..

Just who is he and what happened back in 2009?

Let's go back to June 30, 2009....I remember that day well...I bought my second car that day...I was helping the economy..but half a world away in Afghanistan...Bowe Bergdahl went missing..

Staff Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was reported missing at 9 a.m. Afghan time on June 30, 2009, after he failed to show up for the morning roll call. Less than nine hours later, just after 5:30 p.m., U.S. forces received intelligence that a soldier had been captured, the logs show. 

In the hours between, American forces mounted a furious search operation.

About half an hour after Bergdahl was reported missing, commanders ordered that “all vehicles, latrines, bunkers” be searched at his outpost. Predator drones and a team of tracking dogs were on the scene within hours. 

U.S. forces raided what were believed to be militant hideouts. F-15 fighter jets were called in for air cover.

“It’s a frantic search all day,” said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an NBC News military analyst. 

“Everything stopped, basically, and they focused on this mission. They yanked every asset that was someplace else and brought it in.” 

“It would have rung every bell,” he said. “I’ll bet you within three hours the (Defense Secretary) knew all about it and so did the White House war room.”

 Just after 2:30 p.m., communications traffic showed that “an American soldier with a camera is looking for someone who speaks English.”

A soldier who was a team leader in Bergdahl’s platoon, Sgt. Evan Buetow, told reporters that Sgt.Bergdahl, at some point in the days after he left his platoon, “was looking for someone who spoke English so he could talk to the Taliban.” 

Buetow said that the platoon was “incredibly worried” that Bergdahl was giving information to the enemy.

“I heard it straight from the interpreter’s lips as he heard it over the radio,” Buetow said. “And at that point it was like, this is, this kind of snowballing out of control a little bit, there’s a lot more to this story than just a soldier walking away.” 

Pentagon officials have said they cannot confirm that Sgt.Bergdahl was looking for the Taliban. Buetow did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday from media. 

 McCaffrey, the general, said that he was “99.999 percent” certain that the missing private sought out the Taliban, perhaps in an altered state of mind or with an altruistic thought toward helping Afghan children.

 “I think he was out there looking to contact the Taliban, figuring they’d help him, and got the shock of this life,” McCaffrey said. “You can see from this traffic. They almost killed him.”he said.

Indeed, on the following day, July 1, U.S. forces intercepted communications traffic in which an unidentified fighter says, “Cut the head off.”

That day, there was still no sign of the missing private. (Ironically,Bergdahl was promoted twice in captivity in later years, to sergeant.) But the war logs describe an American intercept of a conversation between two apparent militants, talking about the captive. 

“They know where he is, but they keep going to wrong area,” one says. The same apparent militant says later in the conversation: “I think he is big shot that [sic] why they are looking for him.”

On July 2, members of the American military met with Afghan elders who claimed to have been asked by the Taliban to negotiate a trade with Bowe Bergdahl.

“The Taliban terms are 15 of their Taliban brothers in U.S. jail and some money in exchange for Pvt. Bergdahl,” the logs say. “The elders assured me that Pvt. Bergdahl is alive and that he in [sic] not being harmed.”

After that exchange, the elders offer to connect the U.S. military with Bergdahl to demonstrate that he is unharmed, but the logs show that an American soldier “tried to get comms with no luck.”

Two days after that, on July 4, came the first reported sighting of a missing soldier in a nearby village: Bergdahl was reported to be wearing dark khaki, with a bag over his head, traveling in a black Toyota Corolla escorted by three to five motorcycles.

The tip failed to lead American forces to Bergdahl.

So Who is this guy really? Clearly turning out to be not quite what one would have hoped....A bonifide hero or even a sympathetic victim!

Obama's New Donnybrook

Republicans had just began to slow down their rhetoric about Benghazi and a imagined (in their minds only) cover up when this latest rallying cry for the right wing became available...The freeing of an American Prisoner of War held for five years in exchange for five Al Queda members...

I have to admit ...That doesn't sound like a fair trade to me...Five for one...But he was the only American POW in captivity...

Congress is angry because the President used Executive Priveledge and kind of did an end run around them and brokered the young man's freedom....They say he may have broken the law...

Can you imagine how long it would have taken him to be freed...If he ever would have ,had the President have waited for Congress to come to a decision?

I'm not saying I agree with The President going around Congress...but from the imprisoned man's standpoint...I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted to spend another day in captivity...

This soldier ,Bergdahl though does not come without his own baggage and controversy...

Robert Andrews believes his own son might still be alive if U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl had not gone missing from his Afghan guard post on June 30, 2009.

As Bergdahl emerges from five years of Taliban captivity, former comrades are accusing him of walking away from his unit and prompting a massive manhunt they say cost the lives of at least six fellow soldiers, including Andrews' 34-year-old son, Darryn, a second lieutenant.

“Basically, my son died unnecessarily, hunting for a guy that we shouldn’t even have been hunting for,” Andrews told Reuters.

The sense of pride expressed by Obama administration officials over Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners on Saturday is not shared by many of those who served alongside this guy in Afghanistan or the families of those said to have died trying to bring him back.

The U.S. military has not said how Bergdahl fell into the insurgents’ hands, but several of those from his unit say he became disillusioned with the war and abandoned his post during a nighttime guard shift, an act of desertion that would normally incur severe punishment.

"I think he wanted to get away from our side of the war," commented Greg Leatherman, who says he was in charge of Bergdahl’s unit the night he disappeared.

By contrast, Bergdahl's home town is treating him like a hero, planning a June 28 rally in support of him. Balloons, symbolic yellow ribbons and celebratory signs sprouted up in Hailey, Idaho, after the news of his release over the weekend.

Bob Bergdahl, fighting back tears as he appeared to address his son directly in a public appearance in Boise, Idaho, on Sunday, said he was proud of "your desire and your action to serve this country in a very difficult, long war."


Colonel Tim Marsano, of the Idaho National Guard, who acts as the Bergdahl family's media liaison, said they would have no comment on the accusations made by former soldiers and relatives of those who may have been killed in the hunt for him.

"The Bergdahls are aware of the current controversy, they have been for years, and they don't have anything to say about it," Marsano told Reuters on Monday.

Military officials have investigated Bergdahl’s disappearance but have never publicly offered an explanation, in part, they say, because they have not had a chance to question the man.
“We do not know the circumstances under which he left his base," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said. "What we're focused on now is getting him the care he needs.”

Another Defense Department spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, declined to confirm reports from former soldiers that at least six of their comrades were lost in the long hunt for Bergdahl.
CHARGES UNLIKELY!

Neighbors in rural Idaho said Bergdahl was a bookish loner known as a good athlete with a penchant for long mountain hikes.

When he disappeared in Afghanistan, he did so quietly and left behind his flak jacket and heavy fighting equipment, according to online accounts by soldiers who served with him.

After Bergdahl failed to show up for roll call, U.S. officials picked up radio communication between Taliban insurgents who said “an American soldier with a camera is looking for someone who speaks English,” according to U.S. diplomatic cables.

Military officials have indicated that Bergdahl, who was flown to a military hospital in Germany over the weekend to undergo a full physical and mental assessment, is unlikely to face charges, whatever the army finds about his capture, because they believe he has suffered enough.

Others say he should be held accountable.

While Leatherman says he is glad to see Bergdahl home safe, he is blunt about the need for an investigation. “If a military court finds him guilty, then he should be punished accordingly.”

The terms of Bergdahl’s freedom also irk parents and soldiers, who question whether the release of five senior Taliban commanders accused in deadly attacks on U.S. forces is too high a price to pay.


“How many guys were killed capturing these Taliban, and then we just throw them loose? What are we doing negotiating with terrorists in the first place?” Andrews asked.
INTENSE MANHUNT

Bergdahl’s disappearance unleashed a massive air and ground search that lasted for weeks, exposing U.S. forces to Taliban attack and disrupting other operations, his former comrades say.
The attention showered on Bergdahl since his release has compounded their resentment over those who died during the lengthy search.

On September 4, 2009, a little over two months after Bergdahl went missing, Darryn Andrews was part of a patrol searching for him when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb and a rocket-propelled grenade in a district of Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province, near the Pakistan border, according to accounts of soldiers and their families.

Private First Class Matthew Martinek, 20, died in the same attack.

“This opens up the wounds again,” said Kenneth Luccioni, Martinek’s stepfather. “There were a lot of people who risked their lives for this young man, and we want the truth.”

He said he learned that his stepson had died hunting for Bergdahl not from the Pentagon but by word of mouth from fellow soldiers months afterwards.

The Pentagon's spokesman Warren said: "It’s impossible for me to confirm those reports.” He added: "From Washington D.C. to discuss specific casualties a half a decade ago in Afghanistan, we’re just not in a position to do that right now. And as you know, every mission has its own parameters. So I know there’s some names out there. We’ll look into them. But at this point we can’t confirm anything."

The army encouraged soldiers in Bergdahl’s unit to sign a non-disclosure agreement on the grounds that it could endanger his safety while in captivity, several soldiers said, but now that he is free some have begun to speak out.

“He walked away from his guard post while on duty,” said former Private First Class Jose Baggett, who served in Bergdahl’s company. “Then we lost men looking for him. I’m not saying he should not be back in America but he has done nothing heroic. The people who died looking for his dumb ass – they are the heroes.’'

I'm ex-Military...I tend to believe these guys who were with this man....You've got Benghazi....You've got the Vet Hospital scandal and now this...Just when you thought the President might take a deep breath...This one might not go away for a long time!

What I've Learned (About Marriage)

Today makes 25 years....25 years since that photo above was taken...25 years that I have been married...and here's what I've learned...

1.Marriage is not for the immature..

2.Marriage is not for selfish or self absorbed people...

3.Though there is only one "I" in marriage....It's not about "I" but Us...

4.You won't find Love and fullfillment in marriage...You both have to have that in yourselves before you say your vows...

5.Marriage is deep...Way more deep than just "seeing" somebody!

6. No matter how long or short a time you've been married...No one is an expert, We are all still learning..

7. No two marriages are alike.

8.Like the song says- It takes two!

9.Marriage is not for the weak

10...In the words of my grandmother Rebecca...."It's better to be Happy than to be right."

I learned all of these things in 25 years...I pray for 25 more years and more learning experiences!

PEACE!