Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Wyatt Rice, & Mark Schatz
There's just one facility in the world where scientists and emergency responders can run full-scale oil spill response tests and research. It's housed at US Naval Weapons Station Earle in Leonardo, New Jersey. But when Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) tried to arrange a visit to the facility earlier this week, he learned that the facility is presently inoperable. Why? The tank researchers use to simulate spills has sprung a leak.
By the time I was done covering Washington politicians I’d came to the rock-solid conclusion that they were only half the problem. The other half were the people paid to cover Washington for major media outlets.
Bagging a White House correspondent post is to admitted to the most exclusive club in the world. I don’t use the term “club” by accident. These media “watchdogs” breathe the same rarified air, fly on the same comfy 747 and speed through traffic-free streets in the same convoys of blacked out SUVs.
And. worse yet, when it’s time to party they attend the same parties. Hell, they even throw parties for one another where they make where they celebrate their relationship with the kind of biting self-deprecating humor only the closest of friends could accommodate.
I came to the conclusion long ago that major media outlets should treat posts in Washington the same way the military treats assignments to active war zones; rotated in for a year or two, then rotate out for a year or two. Because when it comes to uncovering stuff, there’s nothing like the eyes and ears of a fresh reporter eager to make a name for him or herself.
Also editors need to enforce an ironclad rule against their reporters fraternizing with the people they cover. Building relationships of trust is fine. I did that with my sources, as does any good reporter. Burn sources and pretty soon all you’ll be reporting on is who died this week. But there’s a helluva difference between building relationships of trust by treating sources fairly and honestly, and dropping by their house on weekends for a pool party and BBQ.
But that’s what the Washington press corps has become. Those reporters and those they cover have developed a co-dependent relationship that borders on a protection racket. Familiarity has bred a strange mixture of mutual contempt tempered by the reassuring warmth of familiarity.
Which is why we now have to rely for real “scoops” on underground sites like wikileaks.com. And why it was Rolling Stone not the New York Times, or Washington Post or CNN or MSNBC who got the scoop on how General McChrystal feels about his Commander in Chief. (“the real enemy -- those wimps in the White House.”)
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And instead of being shocked and saddened by the vulture culture in Washington -- or anywhere powerful people gather -- Mr. Brooks ought to remember that it's called "reporting" for a reason.
GRAND OLE OPRY LIVE February 17th 2006
Photos: Marines amphibious training
The Marine Corps has not stormed a hostile beach since the Korean War.
If God is in the details, then Wizarding World is the holiest place on Earth.
Afghanistan is more than the “graveyard of empires.” It’s the mother of vicious circles.
So the commander in chief can be bad-mouthed as weak by the military but then he can’t punish the military because that would make him weak? It’s the same sort of pass-the-Advil vicious circle reasoning the military always uses.
McChrystal painted a vicious circle around his commander in chief. As Stars and Stripes summed it up: “Fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal and risk looking like he’s lost control of the war in Afghanistan. Or keep him and risk looking like he’s lost control of his generals.”
But he has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great. The average Afghan fighter lives on grain, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water. How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan?
McChrystal never should have been hired for this job given the outrageous cover-up he participated in after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. He was lucky to keep the job after his “Seven Days in May” stunt in London last year when he openly lobbied and undercut the president on the surge.
So there you have it. Toxic rain and supersonic tsunamis, the end of North America as we know it. Done. Finished. Certainly, one of those two scenarios is guaranteed to come to pass, right? Maybe, if we're really lucky, even both?
All right, fine. In the off-off chance that invisible Russian scientists and nutball doomsayers are wrong (impossible!), well, there is one more glorious mega scenario to consider. There is a backup to the backup to the backup. Hey, we're Americans. When it comes to dorky apocalyptic visions, we got you covered.
Here is your grand finale: A new survey says that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans -- 40 percent, to be exact -- actually believe Jesus will return by 2050, likely riding on the back of a flaming asteroid (30 percent think one will hit us by then), waving a cowboy hat and yodeling as he careens toward our hapless blue dot of inequity, pain and lousy AT&T reception.
Jesus will then crash land in Texas, wink at Dubya and Sarah Palin, and then sweep up all the True Believers in their beige Dodge minivans just as the earth shudders and implodes, just like one of those swirling black holes in "Star Trek."
How cool will that be? Answer: It will be very cool indeed. It is so cool, in fact, it totally wipes out the need to care much about anything at all. See how easy? Now, who wants pie?
“Mr. President, I, uh, don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir.” These famous words of support were, of course, offered by Gen. Buck Turgidson, played by George C. Scott, in the classic black comedy, Dr. Strangelove, after a rogue U.S. Air Force general subverted America’s “fail-safe” system and sent a wing of nuclear-armed bombers to annihilate the Russians.
This seemed an appropriate intro to General McChrystal’s meeting today with President Obama, where the general’s attempt to explain numerous slip-ups to his Commander-In-Chief predictably resulted in dismissal. Scott’s line is also the lead-in to my reaction to a piece sent to me by Bob Kincaid, host of our favorite nightly progressive radio show on the HORN, describing our pay-offs to Afghan travel agents–otherwise known as insurgents and warlords–to safeguard passage for our military convoys. In a campaign fraught with mistakes and distorted vision, buying into protection rackets which invariably end up funding our enemy seems like another in a series of tragic slip-ups.
We might as well be fighting space aliens on one of the moons of Saturn. Imagine the weekly briefing sometime in 2410: “Well General, how’s the mission on Titan coming along? What’s your assessment after 14 years of bloody warfare?”
“Well, we’re still taking it to them, although it would be easier if there was anything like a legitimate government or legal system up here. But we’re pressing on, and securing as much crazillium-7 as we can.”
“Sir, we understand United Crazillium is poised to make a fortune with the exclusive rights to sell this amusing and revolutionary energy source. Is that still our goal?”
“God willing. Their contractors have been working with us from the outset. Lord knows, they’ve written enough checks to right people.”
Four hundred years from now, those choosing to review the failed campaign on Titan will no doubt reflect on the history we ignored centuries before–and were thus doomed to repeat – of the conflict on a similarly hostile and formidable world known as Afghanistan.
Gulf Coast law firms Levin Papantonio, Eastland Law and others have begun filing a series of civil RICO actions in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama to hold BP accountable for the false assurances it gave the American people that it could handle a worst-case scenario deepwater oil spill. The suits allege that BP committed mail fraud, wire fraud and potentially other RICO predicate act violations when the company sought permits from the federal government for deepwater offshore drilling, knowing that it did not possess the technical expertise or equipment necessary to respond to an emergency such as the ongoing Deepwater disaster.
Do corporations actually get taken to court these days or can BP just ask to have it kicked upstairs to Attorney Generals and higher courts that they've paid off?
Whatever happens in lower courts the Supreme Court can be counted on to "fix" everything, cf: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/business/25norris.html?hp
Everybody's talking about Senator Debbie Stabenow's aggressive words today accusing the Republicans of tanking the economy and throwing millions out of work for political gain. I don't see why this is even slightly controversial. The GOP is a party whose mouthpieces said from the very beginning that they wanted the president to fail and that they were planning his "Waterloo." And anyone who understood how our government works (or even understands simple logic) knew that saying that in the midst of an economic crisis translates to making people suffer. There was no other way to interpret that so it makes sense.
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In this age of sophisticated, cheap anti-ship missiles, I understand why one might question the need to assemble hundreds of ships for an Inchon-style beach assault or thousands of ships for another D-Day. As The Times reported in its June 21 article, "U.S. rethinks a Marine Corps specialty: storming beaches," assaulting a defended beach is seen as a thing of the past. If that is the only perceived mission for the Marine Corps, then why do we even need a Corps?
Our nation — a maritime nation — will always need to be involved with populations and crises across seas. What kind of crises and what kind of crisis response force (CRF, for the purposes of this article) will be required to carry out our nation's interests?
So we have done it. We have created a new crisis response force that economically transports itself over the sea, can provide humanitarian assistance and security, can provide for its own transportation and resupply until more help arrives, and can connect the lowest levels of command in the field with national goals and objectives.
Institute for Creation Research laughed out of court in Texas
See The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes' two cartoons this week (one a republished classic from 2003) for her view about all of this.
The White House press corps, ready for the next party invitation
Many of those in the mainstream media were appalled this week when Rolling Stone magazine published a story entitled "The Runaway General" that ultimately dethroned Gen. Stanley McChrystal from his position as commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The typical mainstream media reaction included snide references to the publication, saying that it appeared "in Rolling Stone, of all places." John Amato on the Crooks and Liars blog chuckled about Fox News contributor Brit Hume's reaction, saying in jest, "How dare (McChrystal) use a hippie rag instead of coming to a Villager?"
Go after the truth, wherever it may lie and regardless of whom it will taint. When comedians and high school students and a hippie magazine outperform you, then the journalists should take a long hard look at their profession.
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As we've already explored in great depth over the years, the purpose of journalism is not to tell the truth or even straightforwardly give people the information they need to reach their own conclusions. It's to maintain the established order and obscure rather than reveal what's really going on ...
ROME -- Italian politician Umberto Bossi apologized Wednesday for his much-criticized remarks that Italy would "buy" a victory in a crucial World Cup group match against Slovakia.
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Bossi reportedly said "they [Italy] will buy it," responding to a question about which team would win. He said he expected two to three Slovak players to surface in the Italian league next season -- apparently as compensation to the Slovakian team.
The Italian federation immediately described Bossi's remarks as "disconcerting and offensive." It said that Bossi, a maverick politician known for his anti-establishment rhetoric, had gone "overboard."
