Congratulations Jim and Linda Giddens. Obama Too Smart and Too Ahead Of His Time. Palestinians Blow Smoke.

This morning Lynn and I attended  The Skidaway Island United Methodist Church to be present at the retirement service conducted by our friend  Reverend Jim Giddens and to honor Jim and his wife, LInda.

I met Jim 15 years ago when I went for my first piano lesson which my teacher, Ann Robertson, gave at the church.  As I walked in, Jim was standing outside his office and Ann said: "Jim this is Dick Berkowitz, a new resident.Jim welcomed me and said you must join our church. I responded, Jim I am Jewish and he said some of our best congregants are Jewish. I Laughed and said Jim we are going to be great friends and so it has been."

For 15 years Jim and I have lunched frequently, we have discussed everything under the sun and I have come to love/revere the man.

At one of our early lunches I said that I knew little about my own religion and nothing about others.  I knew Jim began his formal career in the paper industry and I asked what motivated him to enter the ministry and what religion meant to him and he responded "Love."

Jim served the Methodist Congregation at Skidaway for 30 years. That he has served it well was evident by today's service and the accolades, gifts, honors bestowed upon Jim and his wonderful wife.

I have lived a long and good life and have been blessed with many friends who have enriched my own. They have all impacted me in variety of ways. Jim is what I call the complete man.  He is good but also human and has foibles. He even does not like some of the views he admittedly holds and is conscious that he must mend his ways so that he will find himself more  acceptable in his own eyes.

His wife of, I believe, 48 years is Jim's equal and their congregation comparably and deservedly  honored her as well.

I look forward to more lunches and discussions and we wish them all the best in their retirement years and nothing but good health and many more opportunities to continue to serve humanity.

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This from a friend and fellow memo reader: "Sent  from a  highly  honored  classmate of mine at  McCallie  who flew  for  7 years   jet  fighter  planes  of an aircraft carrier  in Viet  Nam--Rank of Captain in the Navy.

Z----" (See 1 below.)

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Obama self-reflects, concludes he was ahead of his time and  too good for America's deplorables: Obama: https://tiny.iavian.net/n7he
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I was told yesterday that the Palestinians who burn tires to blind Israeli troops did not realize infra-red sights are not effected.
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Trading partners, who have enjoyed the benefits of a bad deal that disproportionately favors them ,are not likely to relinquish their advantages unless threatened.

In time, I believe, Trump will gain some benefits, not all he would like but at least we will eventually benefit from standing up for our rights and challenging that which has been operative: https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/if-this-is-a-trade-war-the-united-states-will-win/amp/
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Dick

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1)  Charles Faddis Senior Editor, Former CIA operative, Host of USCS Charles S. (Sam) Faddis, Senior Partner with Artemis, LLC is a former CIA operations officer with...

Dear Mr. Brennan,
I understand that you are a political opponent of the current President of the United States. I understand that you are an American citizen, and you have the right to freedom of speech. I encourage you to utilize that right. I encourage you to speak your mind. I encourage you, as I do all Americans, to be heard.

I implore you, however to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial critic concerned only with the fate of the republic. I beg you to stop attempting to portray yourself as some sort of wise, all-knowing intelligence professional with deep knowledge of national security issues and no political inclinations whatsoever. 

None of this is true.

You were never a spy. You were never a case officer. You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad. You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence. You have never been in harm's way. You have never heard a shot fired in anger.

You were for a short while an intelligence analyst. In that capacity, it was your job to produce finished intelligence based on information provided to you by others. The work of intelligence analysts is important, however in truth you never truly mastered this trade either. 
In your capacity as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, while still a junior officer, you were designated to brief the President of the United States who was at that time Bill Clinton. As the presidential briefer, it was your job to read to the president each morning finished intelligence written by others based on intelligence collected by yet other individuals. Period.
While serving as presidential briefer you established a personal relationship with then President Bill Clinton. End of story. 

Everything that has transpired in your professional career since has been based on your personal relationship with the former president, his wife Hillary and their key associates. Your connection to President Obama was, in fact, based on you having established yourself by the time he came to office as a reliable, highly political Democratic Party functionary.

All of your commentary in the public sphere is on behalf of your political patrons. It is no more impartial analysis then would be the comments of a paid press spokesman or attorney. You are speaking each and every time directly on behalf of political forces hostile to this president. You are, in fact, currently on the payroll of both NBC and MSNBC, two of the networks most vocally opposed to President Trump and his agenda.

There is no impartiality in your comments. Your assessments are not based on some sober judgment of what is best for this nation. They are based exclusively on what you believe to be in the best interests of the politicians with whom you long since allied yourself.

It should be noted that not only are you most decidedly not apolitical but that you have been associated during your career with some of the greatest foreign policy disasters in recent American history.

As CIA Director for Barack Obama you:

-Presided over the Iran nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to escape from decades of containment and set the Middle East on fire.

-Watched while Russia annexed Crimea and then reestablished itself as a hostile force in the Middle East.

-Dithered and tinkered with organizational wiring diagrams at Headquarters while China annexed and fortified the entire South China Sea.

The extent to which you are tied directly to the Clintons, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is clearly evident in the emotional nature of your recent commentary. Ever since this president was elected there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize him and destabilize him. This has been an unprecedented attempt to undermine the stability of the republic in order to achieve partisan political advantage. You and your patrons have been complicit in this effort and at its very heart. Now as the Mueller investigation collapses of its own weight and the extent of this conspiracy is beginning to become clear you are in evident panic. You should be.
You are free to do as you wish politically. Stop representing to the American people that there is anything else at play. You abandoned any hope of being a true intelligence professional decades ago and became a political hack. Say so.

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