The Hemingway Report

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Gotta love this guy

America's oldest veteran to spend quiet Memorial Day at Texas home

World War II veteran Richard Overton, left, is seen in his Army uniform in an undated photograph provided by the City of Austin. Overton, 107, sits outside his Texas home earlier this month. (AP/Austin American Statesman)

Overton passes his time with up to 12 cigars a day and a little whiskey in his morning coffee. The hooch helps keep Overton spry, he said.

“I may drink a little in the evening too with some soda water, but that’s it,” he said. “Whiskey’s a good medicine. It keeps your muscles tender.”

Here's to you Mr. Overturn!

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published May 24, 2013

FoxNews.com

For his 107th Memorial Day, Richard Arvine Overton, who saw many of his fellow soldiers fall in the line of duty in World War II and even more die over the following decades, is planning a quiet day at the Texas home he built after returning home from World War II.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Overton, who is believed to be the nation's oldest veteran, told FoxNews.com he’ll likely spend the day on the porch of his East Austin home with a cigar nestled in his right hand, perhaps with a cup of whiskey-stiffened coffee nearby.

“I don’t know, some people might do something for me, but I’ll be glad just to sit down and rest,” the Army veteran said during a phone interview. “I’m no young man no more.”

“I’m no young man no more.”

- Richard Overton, 107

Overton, who was born on May, 11, 1906, in Texas’ Bastrop County, has gotten used to being the center of attention of late. In addition to being formally recognized by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell on May 9, Overton traveled to Washington, D.C., on May 17 as part of Honor Flight, a nonprofit group that transports veterans free of charge to memorials dedicated to their service. Despite serving in the South Pacific from 1942 through 1945, including stops in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima to name a few, it was Overton’s first time in the nation’s capital.

“I was really honored when I got there,” Overton said of his visit to the World War II Memorial. “There were so many people, it was up in the thousands. And we danced and we jumped … them people tickled me to death. It made me happy as can be.”

The entire experience gave Overton a “good thrill,” he said, and the significance of visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial at a time when an African-American holds the country’s highest elected office was not lost him.

“I was very, very happy,” Overton continued, adding that he wasn’t deterred by Washington’s expansive National Mall. “At my age and my strength, I’m able to stand up and do anything. My mind is good, so I’m able to do what I want.”

Overton credits his longevity to aspirin, which he takes daily, and the relatively stress-free life he’s enjoyed since getting out of the service in October 1945. He then worked at local furniture stores before taking a position with the Texas Treasury Department in Austin. He married twice but never fathered any children and still attends church every Sunday.

“I got good health and I don’t take any medicine,” he said. “I also stay busy around the yards, I trim trees, help with the horses. The driveways get dirty, so I clean them. I do something to keep myself moving. I don’t watch television.”

Overton also passes his time with up to 12 cigars a day and a little whiskey in his morning coffee. The hooch helps keep Overton spry, he said.

“I may drink a little in the evening too with some soda water, but that’s it,” he said. “Whiskey’s a good medicine. It keeps your muscles tender.”

Overton’s secrets may be unorthodox to some, but it’s hard to argue with someone approaching supercentenarian status — an individual aged 110 or older. There are believed to be just 57 people worldwide that meet that classification, including 114-year-old Jeralean Talley, of Inkster, Mich., who is the oldest person in the United States according to the Gerontology Research Group. (Talley, who was born in 1899, reportedly celebrated her birthday on Thursday and passes her time listening to baseball on the radio and watching television.)

Among U.S. veterans, it’s extremely difficult — if not impossible — to confirm Overton’s place as the oldest living former soldier since just roughly 9 million of the nation’s 22 million vets are registered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But that didn’t stop the city of Austin from recognizing him as the oldest veteran in Texas during his birthday proclamation at City Hall. Mayor Leffingwell, in a statement to FoxNews.com, said Austin is “honored” to call Overton one of its own.

“I’ve spoken with Mr. Overton on a few different occasions, and admire his spirit for life and his country,” the statement read. “He is truly one of our unsung heroes and we are privileged that he calls Austin his home.”

Overton, for his part, believes he’s the oldest veteran in the country, although he said he feels decades younger and doesn’t really embrace the part. He wishes he could spend a few hours this Memorial Day reliving war stories with fellow veterans, but he’s outlived most — if not all — of them.

“I know I had someone from my platoon until recently, but he passed so now I don’t have anyone that I know,” he said. “So I feel lonesome by myself sometimes. I would love to ask some of them some questions, but nobody is here. Everybody’s passed.”

Friday, May 24, 2013

UPDATE: Barry calls Smokey the Bear for advice

Well here we are. Barry and his team of thugs are so preoccupied with putting out fires Barry thought it's high time to launch a counterattack. The definition of counterattack... divert the spotlight elsewhere. Barry's mind... I'll go on a long rambling speech about terrorism.... remarkably ripe from what just took place in England...diverting the attention from me.

Sadly, although it was long and meandering, it accomplished nothing. Obama stated he "rejects boundless global war on terror" probably because Bush first used the term "war on terror". You have to ask yourself this. Muslims have senselessly killed people in America, England, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Afghanistan...well let me put it another way. Where haven't they killed anybody? But according to Barry its not global.

The recent atrocity in London a Muslim shouted Allahu Akbar while hacking a British soldier to death. Cameron immediately called it for what it was a terrorist attack. Juxtapose Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, shouted Allahu Akbar and shot dead 13 soldiers and Barry called it workplace violence. If the terror speech and the Ft. Hood incident isn't a tip off to "massaging the message" over Benghazi then maybe you should invest in one of these.

Got to give the devil is due. I bet Barry could tell you how to make Marinara sauce without using the word tomato.

Wonder what Romney is thinking right about now?

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Obamaism

Is Carney told what to say?

Or does he just ad-lib as he goes along.

Barry and his thugs have created a government in which there is now no reality. Nobody is in charge of anything and senior people don't manage anyone. Nobody remembers anything. Nobody is accountable for anything. Nobody talks to anybody. Somebody unnamed somewhere is responsible for a plethora of scandals but nobody knows who they are. In short, the federal government, according to them, has no clue as to what is going on. A country governed so corruptly cannot possibly last. This is nothing but lie piled upon lie piled upon lie. We are now the government of North Korea on a larger scale. To avoid their corruption being outed, these crooks plead the "Idiot's Defense." We have no idea what the hell we are doing. We are poorly managed and therefore cannot possibly get a handle on anything. Nobody here has seen or heard anything. We wait to hear about what we have actually done throughout the work day when it is reported on the nightly news.

The arrogance of these bastards is truly astounding. I checked Wikipedia. Ken Starr is still sucking air. Better get him off the bench. BTW...Anyone see the backlash if this happened under Bush?

Thomas Jefferson words ring more true today then when he first spoke them almost 200 years ago.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

FBI spied on Fox News reporter, accused him of crime

What is this? The Gestapo? I guess the despicable Joe Soptic ads and watching Paul Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair were just the tip of the iceberg. Now we are getting a better feel for the depth of their... shall we say "improprieties". This administration is inundated with corruption from top to bottom and is lying through its teeth? In the manner of testimony they're all in concert. When asked a question the go to response is..."I don't know".

Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Voter intimidation, MF Global, Benghazi, IRS, AP Wiretapping, etc.

How many additional scandals must occur before Congress appoints a Special Prosecutor?

BTW...they ought to try "Stedman" for terrorism. He's gotten more people killed then Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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WASHINGTON — The FBI obtained a sealed search warrant to read a Fox News reporter's personal emails from two days in 2010 after arguing there was probable cause he had violated espionage laws by soliciting classified information from a government official, court papers show.

In an affidavit, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate that the reporter had committed a crime when he asked a State Department security contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, to share secret material about North Korea in June 2009.

The affidavit did not name the reporter, but Fox News identified him as its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen. He was not charged, but Kim was indicted on espionage charges in August 2010 and is awaiting trial. He has denied leaking classified information.

The case marks the first time the government has gone to court to portray news gathering as espionage, and Fox News officials and 1st Amendment advocates reacted angrily Monday after the secret warrant was reported by the Washington Post.

"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter," said Michael Clemente, Fox News executive vice president of news. "In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

The development emerged days after the Justice Department notified the Associated Press that the agency used a subpoena last year to obtain phone company records for 20 telephone lines used by more than 100 reporters and editors in three cities. The subpoena was pursuant to a grand jury investigation of an alleged leak of classified information about an Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S. aircraft.

Neither Fox News nor the Associated Press was told in advance about the government actions or had a chance to challenge them in court, the usual practice. The government ordered Google not to disclose that it had given the FBI access to Rosen's Gmail account, and Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirmed in a September 2010 ruling that the government did not have to notify Rosen.

A federal statute, the Privacy Protection Act, normally bars the government from using a search warrant to seize a reporter's notes or communications as part of a broader criminal investigation. But the law allows an exception if the reporter is specifically accused of committing a crime.

"There is probable cause to believe that the reporter has committed or is committing a violation of [the Espionage Act] as an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator," FBI Agent Reginald B. Reyes wrote in a May 28, 2010, application for a search warrant. "Because of the reporter's own potential criminal liability in this matter, we believe that requesting the voluntary production of the materials from reporter would be futile and would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation and of the evidence we seek to obtain by the warrant."

Alan Kay, the magistrate judge in Washington who signed the search warrant, was not available for comment, his office said Monday. The warrant and application were unsealed in November 2011, but they escaped public notice until now.

"It's hardly clear cut that it violates the 1st Amendment," said Geoffrey R. Stone, professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a 1st Amendment expert. "If in private discourse you try to persuade someone to commit a crime, you can be punished for doing so. The question here is whether the motive for doing it changes things."

No reporter has ever been charged under the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that criminalizes unauthorized disclosure of "national defense information" with intent or reason to believe the information "is to be used to the injury of the United States."

Rosen's role stems from his Fox News story on June 11, 2009, that "U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test."

The story said the CIA had learned the information "through sources inside North Korea."

FBI agents subsequently determined that 95 people had authorized access to the highly classified intelligence that Rosen had cited. The FBI alleged that phone records, emails and other records showed Kim was in direct contact with Rosen.

"From the beginning of their relationship, the reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information … by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego," Reyes wrote in his affidavit.

He said the reporter "instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan ... to facilitate communication." The affidavit said they used nicknames in subsequent emails and asterisks as signals if Kim wanted to talk by phone.

"What makes this alarming is that 'soliciting' and 'encouraging' the disclosure of classified information are routine, daily activities in national security reporting," researcher Steven Aftergood wrote Monday on his Secrecy News blog. "The use of pseudonyms and discreet forms of communication are also commonplace. But for today's FBI, these everyday reporting techniques are taken as evidence of criminal activity and grounds for search and seizure of confidential email."