Big Muddy
09-22-2015, 09:28 PM
Got this in an email from an Army buddy, but he didn't mention the author's name, and I couldn't find out on Google.....maybe some of you dufes have read it, previously, and know who penned it.....good stuff from an "insider" military man.
"Down goes Frazier! , Down goes Frazier! , Down goes Frazier!", screamed Howard Cosell when undisputed world heavyweight champion Joe Frazier (29-0) was knocked down in the opening round of the championship fight against George Forman(37-0) in Jamaica in January 1973. It was great stuff. I heard it live over the Armed Forces Radio Network and never forgot it.
I was a senior in high school, in Clark Air Base, the Philippines. Chasing girls and playing hoops were my passions but I also devoted hundreds of hours playing cards after school and on weekends. It rains a lot in the PI, so we played lots of cards because whenever it rained the outdoor courts were closed. I was average at basketball, pretty good at chasing girls, but became a very good poker player.
You learn a lot about human nature in a poker game. Someone once said "a poker game is the world in miniature." You have sharks, pigeons, winners, losers, hard guys, softies, bullshitters, cool cats, bad apples, and a window into human psychology that's hard to beat.
Between my high school days and now, August 2015, I served 27 years as a naval officer: ten years of sea duty aboard 6 ships, assigned to the Pentagon (Joint Chiefs of Staff), naval attaché for Naval Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and assigned to four US embassies in Germany, Chile, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. Those embassy assignments allowed very close, daily contact with senior US military "flag" officers, many foreign diplomats, US State Department Foreign Service officers, four US ambassadors and their staffs. I was granted a TS clearance in 1996 after enduring multi-hour polygraph exams and exhaustive background investigations and I had "unlimited access" to lots of interesting information while I served abroad from 1996-2006.
I reveal a portion of my biography, dating back to high school, to establish my bona fides. I should also mention I was a bartender while attending college at the University of South Carolina, owned a limo service called Help Send a Boy Through School, Rent the Rolls Tonight, and managed a discotheque for one year after graduation and before receiving my officer's commission in 1979. I have been around the block.
So allow me, a still savvy, aging poker player to tell you why I'd bet the farm Hillary Clinton is going down harder than Smokin' Joe Frazier did in back in '73. And it's a lock.
Those recently revealed classified e-mails or data on Hillary's special home server is the tip of the iceberg. The e-mails which were (reportedly) marked with the TS, TK, SCI caveats are important but it's the trove of deleted e-mails that refer to Benghazi, Libya, solicitations to foreign governments for the Clinton Foundation, missing billions from State coffers, and other shady deals that she's sweating bullets over.
You see, every Vegas sharpie knows the old mantra, "Friends close, enemies closer". Valerie Jarrett, with Barack Obama's consent (and not the other way around) picked Hillary to be Secretary of State for the same reason they picked General David Petraeus to be CIA chief: Better to bring them into the inner circle where you're able to "manage" and can watch them, than allow them to strengthen their individual hands as future political adversaries. In casino operations lingo, Valerie Jarret is a whale: a very heavy, always silent, majority stakeholder partner. She has Secret Service protection and a seat at every policy meeting including NSC meetings. Obama is like a GM, an eloquent spokesman in charge of PR. Petraeus would be head of security. Obama and the Clinton's publicly tolerate each other but you can bet your bottom Benjamin he despises them both. I am certain both Clintons and General Petraeus really, truly despise Obama
General Petraeus' life was shattered and the timing of his demise was telling: as CIA chief he was in a singular position to credibly refute, and permanently damage the White House Benghazi narrative. Recall the Benghazi, 13 hour siege occurred September 11-12, 2012. General Petraeus resigned in November 2012. Unknown to Petraeus, U.S. Army reserve Lieutenant Colonel Paula Broadwell, his biographer and lover, was Obama's ace in the hole. The knowledge that she was his mistress was tucked away in one of those red aluminum "Break In Case Of Emergency" boxes. There were lots of people who suspected the general was banging Broadwell while he was still on active duty, but why deal that ace off the bottom until you need it? His eventual $ 100,000 fine and two years' probation for "improperly handling classified information" was to ensure he would never share with anyone what he knew about the Benghazi attack, the operations of the CIA compound there, the weapons flow to Syria via Turkey, etc. So they grabbed the little red hammer on the chain, broke the glass, revealed the affair, and then told the general: "Sing and you'll be going to Leavenworth." He was prosecuted to silence him pure and simple. Please also note that the judgement against him was announced less than 4 months ago: April 23, 2015. That's a classic case of "the process being the penalty". He was iced for 2 ½ years.
Hillary will be the next mark. Does anyone seriously believe VJ or Obama really wants Hillary to succeed him? He offered her the Sec State job to keep her on a short leash and to be both beholden and accountable to him. If Obama was serious about his nomination for the critically important job as America's top diplomat there were more qualified, more experienced, more respected pros out there. She was a disaster. No foreign language skills, no credibility, no overseas experience, no talent and very little ambition.
Now, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Department of "Just Us" and VJ at the White Hut have to make sure that whatever Hillary has on Obama, especially regards Benghazi, never sees the light of day. So, they'll prosecute her on the mishandling national security "products" to prevent her from publicly revealing the e-mails and spilling what she knows with the same promise to her that Petraeus got: "Accept a fine and probation and you'll avoid jail time". Many underlings will, I guarantee you, walk the plank.
Alternate scenario is that she'll be merely threatened with prosecution, wise up, cease her presidential aspirations and walk away, with Obama providing appropriate "executive privilege" cover. Hillary actually has decent cards. Even though you can be sure Bill is coaching her on how to play this hand, never underestimate the predictability of a rigged game. The House never loses. Ever. The GM can just order his dealers to deal off the bottom, deal seconds, mark cards, and do whatever it takes to "win".
Like Joe Frazier, Hillary's proven she can take a punch and also defend against a flurry of jabs, uppercuts and hooks. It was a left cross he never saw coming that ended Joe Frazier's perfect record in 1973. And like Smokin' Joe, Hillary is going to drop like a bag of wet cement when the "Left cross" connects in 2015.
"Down goes Frazier! , Down goes Frazier! , Down goes Frazier!", screamed Howard Cosell when undisputed world heavyweight champion Joe Frazier (29-0) was knocked down in the opening round of the championship fight against George Forman(37-0) in Jamaica in January 1973. It was great stuff. I heard it live over the Armed Forces Radio Network and never forgot it.
I was a senior in high school, in Clark Air Base, the Philippines. Chasing girls and playing hoops were my passions but I also devoted hundreds of hours playing cards after school and on weekends. It rains a lot in the PI, so we played lots of cards because whenever it rained the outdoor courts were closed. I was average at basketball, pretty good at chasing girls, but became a very good poker player.
You learn a lot about human nature in a poker game. Someone once said "a poker game is the world in miniature." You have sharks, pigeons, winners, losers, hard guys, softies, bullshitters, cool cats, bad apples, and a window into human psychology that's hard to beat.
Between my high school days and now, August 2015, I served 27 years as a naval officer: ten years of sea duty aboard 6 ships, assigned to the Pentagon (Joint Chiefs of Staff), naval attaché for Naval Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and assigned to four US embassies in Germany, Chile, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. Those embassy assignments allowed very close, daily contact with senior US military "flag" officers, many foreign diplomats, US State Department Foreign Service officers, four US ambassadors and their staffs. I was granted a TS clearance in 1996 after enduring multi-hour polygraph exams and exhaustive background investigations and I had "unlimited access" to lots of interesting information while I served abroad from 1996-2006.
I reveal a portion of my biography, dating back to high school, to establish my bona fides. I should also mention I was a bartender while attending college at the University of South Carolina, owned a limo service called Help Send a Boy Through School, Rent the Rolls Tonight, and managed a discotheque for one year after graduation and before receiving my officer's commission in 1979. I have been around the block.
So allow me, a still savvy, aging poker player to tell you why I'd bet the farm Hillary Clinton is going down harder than Smokin' Joe Frazier did in back in '73. And it's a lock.
Those recently revealed classified e-mails or data on Hillary's special home server is the tip of the iceberg. The e-mails which were (reportedly) marked with the TS, TK, SCI caveats are important but it's the trove of deleted e-mails that refer to Benghazi, Libya, solicitations to foreign governments for the Clinton Foundation, missing billions from State coffers, and other shady deals that she's sweating bullets over.
You see, every Vegas sharpie knows the old mantra, "Friends close, enemies closer". Valerie Jarrett, with Barack Obama's consent (and not the other way around) picked Hillary to be Secretary of State for the same reason they picked General David Petraeus to be CIA chief: Better to bring them into the inner circle where you're able to "manage" and can watch them, than allow them to strengthen their individual hands as future political adversaries. In casino operations lingo, Valerie Jarret is a whale: a very heavy, always silent, majority stakeholder partner. She has Secret Service protection and a seat at every policy meeting including NSC meetings. Obama is like a GM, an eloquent spokesman in charge of PR. Petraeus would be head of security. Obama and the Clinton's publicly tolerate each other but you can bet your bottom Benjamin he despises them both. I am certain both Clintons and General Petraeus really, truly despise Obama
General Petraeus' life was shattered and the timing of his demise was telling: as CIA chief he was in a singular position to credibly refute, and permanently damage the White House Benghazi narrative. Recall the Benghazi, 13 hour siege occurred September 11-12, 2012. General Petraeus resigned in November 2012. Unknown to Petraeus, U.S. Army reserve Lieutenant Colonel Paula Broadwell, his biographer and lover, was Obama's ace in the hole. The knowledge that she was his mistress was tucked away in one of those red aluminum "Break In Case Of Emergency" boxes. There were lots of people who suspected the general was banging Broadwell while he was still on active duty, but why deal that ace off the bottom until you need it? His eventual $ 100,000 fine and two years' probation for "improperly handling classified information" was to ensure he would never share with anyone what he knew about the Benghazi attack, the operations of the CIA compound there, the weapons flow to Syria via Turkey, etc. So they grabbed the little red hammer on the chain, broke the glass, revealed the affair, and then told the general: "Sing and you'll be going to Leavenworth." He was prosecuted to silence him pure and simple. Please also note that the judgement against him was announced less than 4 months ago: April 23, 2015. That's a classic case of "the process being the penalty". He was iced for 2 ½ years.
Hillary will be the next mark. Does anyone seriously believe VJ or Obama really wants Hillary to succeed him? He offered her the Sec State job to keep her on a short leash and to be both beholden and accountable to him. If Obama was serious about his nomination for the critically important job as America's top diplomat there were more qualified, more experienced, more respected pros out there. She was a disaster. No foreign language skills, no credibility, no overseas experience, no talent and very little ambition.
Now, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Department of "Just Us" and VJ at the White Hut have to make sure that whatever Hillary has on Obama, especially regards Benghazi, never sees the light of day. So, they'll prosecute her on the mishandling national security "products" to prevent her from publicly revealing the e-mails and spilling what she knows with the same promise to her that Petraeus got: "Accept a fine and probation and you'll avoid jail time". Many underlings will, I guarantee you, walk the plank.
Alternate scenario is that she'll be merely threatened with prosecution, wise up, cease her presidential aspirations and walk away, with Obama providing appropriate "executive privilege" cover. Hillary actually has decent cards. Even though you can be sure Bill is coaching her on how to play this hand, never underestimate the predictability of a rigged game. The House never loses. Ever. The GM can just order his dealers to deal off the bottom, deal seconds, mark cards, and do whatever it takes to "win".
Like Joe Frazier, Hillary's proven she can take a punch and also defend against a flurry of jabs, uppercuts and hooks. It was a left cross he never saw coming that ended Joe Frazier's perfect record in 1973. And like Smokin' Joe, Hillary is going to drop like a bag of wet cement when the "Left cross" connects in 2015.