Daily Commentary – Thursday, May 28, 2015 – Bob Schieffer, Anchor of CBS Face the Nation Retireing

• After 46 years at CBS, 78 year old Bob Schieffer will retire this summer

Laura McComb and Her Two Children, 6 Year Old Andrew McComb & 4 Year Old Leighton McComb Missing Since Memorial Day Weekend in Wimberly, TX (Update: Body of Andrew McComb Recovered)

BEYOND TRAGIC … MOTHER AND TWO CHILDREN STILL MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD …

Laura McComb and her two children, 6 year old Andrew McComb and 4 year old Leighton McComb are still missing following the massive floods that hit Texas over the Memorial Day weekend. They were among 12 people who went missing as the vacation home in Wimberly, Texas, was ripped from its foundation in the rapid flood waters of the Blanco River (VIDEO). Jonathan McComb, was pulled from the floodwaters and taken to a San Antonio hospital for treatment. The McCombs were with Ralph and Sue Carey along with their daughter, Michelle Charba, her husband Randy and their 4-year-old son, Will. All are still missing. Say a prayer for the missing and their family.

Jonathan McComb was rescued on the bank of the Blanco River, but his wife, Laura McComb, and two children,
in addition to others who were in a house that was swept away, remain missing. (Image source: KVUE-TV)

UPDATE I: Laura McComb Salled Her Sister and said,  ‘I Love You, and Pray’ While Inside the House Floating Down the Blanco River Called Her Sister Before It Hit Bridge.

Missing mom’s sister Julie Shields says, “I think recognizing with what’s happening with the weather, we all know and we have accepted that they’re gone.”

Julie Shields said she was on the phone with her sister, Laura, when their cabin was swept away.

“We are floating in a house that is now floating down the river,” Laura told Shields on the phone. “Call mom and dad. I love you, and pray.”

Those were the last words Shields had with her sister.

“My sister will always be my sister,” Shields added.

The conversation ended when Laura thought she saw a light from a helicopter that was there to rescue them.

“And I just expected to go to Wimberley High School the next day and find her,” said Shields. “When she wasn’t there, I knew something was very, very wrong.”

UPDATE II: Body of 6-year-old Andrew McComb Recovered.

The body of Andrew McComb, 6, whose family was in a house washed away by floodwaters in Wimberley, Texas, has been found, a Hays County, Texas, official said Friday.

The body was found Thursday evening near the border of Hays and Blanco counties, according to Trey Hatt, spokesman for the Hays County Emergency Operations Center, The Associated Press reported.

Authorities earlier this week reported recovering the body of a child from the Blanco River in Hays County, but did not identify the child.

Andrew McComb’s identity was confirmed using dental records, an official said today.

The Body of Missing 43 Year Old Michelle Carey-Charba Found Following Texas Floods on Memorial Day Weekend

Sad new in the case of missing 43 year old Michelle Carey-Charba, who was one of 8 people swept away in Central Texas as a result if the raging flood waters over Memorial Day weekend. . A body was identified on Wednesday as Michelle Carey-Charba.

Michelle Carey-Charba and her son, William, went missing during flash flooding in Wimberley, Texas,
over the Memorial Day weekend. Carey-Charba’s body was found and identified Wednesday.

A body was identified Wednesday as one of the eight people swept away when their vacation home in Central Texas was lost amid raging floodwaters over the Memorial Day weekend.

The discovery of 43-year-old Michelle Carey-Charba came as her family told NBC News that they were still holding out hope for the safe recovery of all of the missing who had been inside the home.
A ninth person — family friend Jonathan McComb — was found alive Sunday after being carried several miles away from where the house once stood in the small tourist town of Wimberley. He was being treated in the hospital for a collapsed lung, a broken sternum and broken ribs, his family said.

McComb’s wife, Laura, and their two children, Andrew, 6, and Leighton, 4, were also in the home and are still missing, along with Carey-Charba’s husband, Randy Charba, their 4-year-old son, Will, and her parents, Ralph and Sue Carey.

Searchers made a grim discovery in the Blanco River Wednesday when thebody of a boy was found in the river in Hays County, the city of San Marcos said in a statement Wednesday evening.

The child’s age and identity have not been determined, and it is unknown whether he is on a list of those known missing, or another victim not previously reported missing, the city said.

Carey-Charba’s brother-in-law, Alan Daniel, said Wednesday that the search isn’t over: “We’re not going to stop looking until we’ve found them.”

Authorities said at least 23 people were killed and another 11 were missing after a series of storms pummeled Texas and Oklahoma,causing historic flooding in a region that had been crippled by severe drought.

The Careys own the home in Wimberley, where the Blanco River swelled 28 feet in an hour and a half. The McCombs are family friends, and they were all spending the Memorial Day weekend together.

Bill O’Reilly Talking Points Blasts Barack Obama, Pelosi and Reid For Their Failure in War on Terror

Bill O’Reilly blasted President Barack Obama for his weak foreign policy and the dire consequences it has created in the Middle East, Europe the Far East and across the world. O’Reilly called it a perfect storm of weakness. What happened to Obama’s promise to downgrade terrorism as he seems to make climate change a more important topic than terrorism? Obama’s lack of leadership, the most reluctant leader this country has ever seen, has been the focal point of why evil has been on the rise. Bill O’Reilly stated, “by withholding American power abroad, the president is plunging the world into a very dark place. When order collapses, so does civilized society.”

Bill O’Reilly ended his rant by saying, “God help the next president of the United States.” I would go one further and say, God help the citizens of the United States.

War and Peace in the United States

Click HERE or on PIC to Watch VIDEO

Mediaite:

He ripped Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi for “saying various thing that make absolutely no sense at all” while ISIS is growing in power in the Middle East.

O’Reilly went through all the unintended consequences of Obama’s weak foreign policy, which includes China’s expansion and Vladimir Putin feeling he can just walk all over the United States. O’Reilly said he’s “simply aghast that American foreign policy is so bad.”

“By withholding American power abroad,” he concluded, “the president is plunging the world into a very dark place. When order collapses, so does civilized society, and we are seeing that all over this planet.”

7 FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption & Bribery Charges (Update: 14 People Indicted)

WHAT A SHOCK, FIFA IS CORRUPT …

Seven top FIFA officials were arrested overnight in a posh Zurich hotel. The raid was conducted as a part of a corruption probe allegations of bribery totaling more than £100m over past 25 years.

The most significant arrest was that of Jeffrey Webb, the vice president of the executive committee, who has previously been hailed by Blatter as a potential successor.

Other officials held by Swiss police include Eduardio Li, President of the Costa Rica Football Association, and Rafael Esquivel, President of the Venezuelan Football Federation, Jose Maria Marin, vice-president of the Brazil Football Federation, Costas Takkas, a former general secretary of the Cayman Islands Football Association, and Jose Maria Marin, vice-president of the Brazil Football Federation.

VIDEO – CNN

New York Times:

Swiss authorities conducted an extraordinary early-morning operation here Wednesday to arrest several top soccer officials and extradite them to the United States on federal corruption charges.

As leaders of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, gathered for their annual meeting, more than a dozen plain-clothed Swiss law enforcement officials arrived unannounced at the Baur au Lac hotel, an elegant five-star property with views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. They went to the front desk to get room numbers and then proceeded upstairs.

The arrests were carried out peacefully. One FIFA official, Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, was led by the authorities from his room to a side-door exit of the hotel. He was allowed to bring his luggage, which was adorned with FIFA logos.

The arrests were carried out peacefully. One FIFA official, Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, was led by the authorities from his room to a side-door exit of the hotel. He was allowed to bring his luggage, which was adorned with FIFA logos.

The charges, backed by an F.B.I. investigation, allege widespread corruption in FIFA over the past two decades, involving bids for World Cups as well as marketing and broadcast deals.

CNN – U.S. arrests officials, Switzerland opens separate investigation.

Department of Justice announced the unsealing of a 47-count indictment in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, that detailed charges against 14 people of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. They include FIFA officials accused of taking bribes totaling more than $150 million and in return provided “lucrative media and marketing rights” to soccer tournaments as kickbacks over the past 24 years.

“The defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world,” FBI Director James Comey said in a news release. “Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA.”

UPDATE I: Fifa corruption live: David Cameron calls for Sepp Blatter to stand down.

UPDATE II: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Reign of Shame.

It is not true that everything has gotten worse in global soccer under Blatter. Safety has improved and, yes, the World Cup has been held in Africa. But just about everything has. To conclude that Blatter should quit rather than embark on a fifth term as FIFA president (assuming his seemingly inevitable election to a fifth term on Friday) feels so blindingly obvious that it’s not worth saying. But then the FIFA president is so thick-skinned it’s actually worth saying twice: Mr. Blatter, your time is up.

Why? Because the corruption charges against current and former FIFA vice presidents and others reflect an organization rotten to its core, operating in the absence of any meaningful oversight, without term limits for a president whose salary is of course unknown (but estimated by Bloomberg to be “in the low double-digit” millions), overseeing $5.72 billion in partially unaccounted revenue for the four years to December 2014, governing a sport in which matches and World Cup venues and in fact just about everything appears to have been up for sale, burying a report it commissioned by a former United States attorney into the bidding process for the next two World Cups, and generally operating in a culture of cavalier disdain personified by Blatter, whose big cash awards to soccer federations in poorer countries have turned the delegates from many of FIFA’s 209 member associations into his fawning acolytes.

UPDATE III: FIFA Arrests: Meet the 14 People Indicted by the Department of Justice.

The 14 people indicted in the global crackdown of FIFA corruption covers a dozen nationalities, although authorities allege the crimes and payments were carried out in the U.S. via American banks.

Seven were arrested in Zurich by Swiss authorities at the request of the U.S. Four other individuals and corporate defendants Traffic Sports USA Inc., Traffic Sports International Inc. and Brazilian sports marketing conglomerate the Traffic Group have already pleaded guilty, according to an indictment unsealed today.

1. Jeffrey Webb, 50, Cayman Islands:
2. Jack Warner, 72, Trinidad and Tobago:
3. Aaron Davidson, 44, USA:
4. Nicholas Leoz, 86, Paraguay:
5. Eduardo Li, 56, Costa Rica:
6. Alejandro Burzaco, 50, Argentina:
7. Eugenio Figueredo, 83, USA and Uruguay:
8. Jose Maria Marin, 83, Brazil:
9. Julio Rocha, 64, Nicaragua:
10. Rafael Esquivel, 68, Venezuela:
11. Costas Takkas, 58, United Kingdom:
12. Hugo Jinkis, 70, Argentina:
13. Mariano Jinkis, 40, Argentina:
14. José Margulies, 75, Brazil: