This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • Emily Miller: the David Gregory saga continues

    Our favorite 2d Amendment journalist, Emily Miller, tells the tale of her journey through the jungle of getting a FOIA out of the DC government in regards to the David Gregory is better than the rest of us case. After she got the FOIA finally she found a couple of discrepancies between what Gregory’s lawyer told the prosecutor’s office and what really happened.

    It seems that Gregory’s lawyer told police that he had borrowed the magazine from a legal owner and it was returned immediately after the cute little TV show, however, police recovered the magazine from Gregory’s residence two days after he said he returned it the owner.

    Gregory’s attorney also told the prosecutor that they didn’t know that it was illegal to bring a 30-round magazine into the District if it wasn’t attached to a rifle. However the FOIA contains a conversation that proves otherwise;

    The police documents show there was no confusion. At 4 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 21, a NBC producer, whose name was redacted, emailed MPD this: “ ‘Meet the Press’ is interviewing a person on the show this Sunday in studio — Producers for the show would liek [sic] to have a clip (standard and high power), without ammunition in studio to use on the show. There will be no gun, no bullets, just clips. Is this legal?”

    At 9 p.m., someone at MPD — again, the name was blacked out — replied: “No, possession of high capacity magazines is a misdemeanor under Title #7 of the D.C. Code. We would suggest utilizing photographs for their presentation.”

    But, obviously Gregory is better than the rest of us and a photo of a magazine isn’t quite dramatic enough, so lacking it drama that only the real thing brought into the District illegally would suffice. So dramatic that a lawyer can lie to the prosecutor without any repercussion.

    While I think that DC’s gun laws are draconian, I still think they should be applied equally to everyone. That’s not what happened in this case. If I lied to a prosecutor, I would expect to be punished for that, but I guess if I had a theatrical reason for breaking the law, the prosecutor would let me slide especially if I had stationary hair and a smarmy smile that invited the application of a blunt object.

  • Sergeant First Class to be charged with “sex crimes”

    Yes, I know, it sounds like another Duffel Blog story, but yet another sexual assault prevention coordinator has been arrested for “sex crimes” according to Reuters;

    The Army said a sergeant first class at Fort Hood, whose name was not released, was under investigation for allegations of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates.

    The sergeant, a member of the Army’s III Corps, had been assigned as a sexual assault response and prevention program coordinator with a battalion in the Corps, the Pentagon said. The Army suspended the sergeant from all duties after the allegations surfaced, it said.

    No charges have been filed against the soldier at this time. The investigation of the allegations is being conducted by special agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, the Pentagon said.

    Of course, in order to avoid talking about the IRS scandal, the Benghazi failures and the seizures of Associated Press’ phone records, this is the story that leads most of the news programs this morning. The other day, a Lieutenant Colonel who led the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention program was arrested for assaulting a woman in a parking lot in Crystal City, and I’ll concede that’s news, but this is just a distraction to lead the morning shows with this story – it’s a sergeant first class at a single military base in remote Texas. I’m not trying to diminish the crime, if the charges are true, it’s serious and he should fry – but it’s not so important to distract from the White House’s current scandals.

  • Atlantic: Despite evidence to the contrary, vets are the greater threat

    The Atlantic publishes the words of completely vacuous David Sterman, of the New America Foundation, as he breathlessly warns “The Greater Danger: Military-Trained Right-Wing Extremists“. This idiot meanderings through the English language was more than likely lifted from the moronic mind of Mark Potok, the anti-American, anti-military hate monger at the Southern Poverty Law Center who inspired Floyd Corkins II to try to shoot up the Family Research Council in DC last year.

    But there’s meanwhile a more worrying danger: that right-wing extremists who have served in the U.S. military will use their training in carrying out terrorist violence.

    Right-wing extremists are more likely than violent Islamist extremists–or, as they are sometimes called, jihadists–to have military experience. They are also better armed, and are responsible for more incidents. The past two decades have seen multiple attacks from right-wing extremist veterans, from Wade Michael Page, who trained at Fort Bragg, to the group of former and active-duty soldiers in Georgia, who collected weapons to carry out a plan to assassinate President Obama. In 2011, Kevin Harpham, who had served in the army, placed a bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. During the 1990s, violent extremism in the militia movement and other right-wing movements relied heavily upon those who served in the military. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil before 9/11, was a military veteran whose libertarian views were also heavily influenced by a novel by a former American Nazi Party official. Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who bombed the 1996 Olympics, had also enlisted in the army.

    Wade Michael Page was the guy who shot up a Sikh temple. He was booted out of the Army in the late 90s. Kevin Harpham did fail at bombing a parade. Harpham, was also booted in 1999 from his Army job as a Red Leg cannon cocker at Fort Lewis, which is in no way related to anything that has to do with making and emplacing bombs. The Fort Stewart murderers had a plot to assassinate the President, but they were a bunch of headquarters wienies who had no skills related to the task that they planned. They murdered two people who they thought might expose their plot, but people who haven’t been trained by the military do that everyday. McVeigh was a Bradley gunner in the first Gulf War, nothing in the 11MB20 Skills Manual is remotely related to anything he did that day in Oklahoma, just like the others, including Eric Rudolph.

    I have no idea why the media is so preoccupied with waving this warning flag about veterans when there are millions of veterans who don’t hurt a soul every day. I think it’s very telling that they’re so preoccupied with warning about veterans in the days after an attack by real terrorists who are violent jihadists with no relationship to the military. They have to go back to the fricken 90s to find military veteran terrorists, for Pete’s sake. Yes, they all had military training, but nothing about their training had anything to do with their deeds.

    The only person Sterman interviews is our old friend Daryl Johnson, who wrote the now-famed Homeland Security Department report which warned of veterans as the greatest threat to our security. Johnson was fired soon after and his sole mission in life is to get morons like Sterman to vindicate his idiot report. The problem is that there are too many people in the media who don’t know what the military actually trains people to do, so since it sounds scary to them, it must be scary to everyone else.

    Oh, yeah, wait until you read the part about scary, nutty veterans accumulate weapons, unlike jihadists, who only accumulate pressure cookers, I suppose. I guess they’re coming for our guns.

  • Obama Press Secretary unsure if U.S. troops in Afghanistan are terrorists

    At a press briefing at the White House today a member of the press corps asked Jay Carney, in light of the Boston bombings, whether a U.S. airstrike earlier this month resulting in the unintended deaths of eleven people claimed to be civilians could be called an act of terrorism. In what seems to be been an unprecedented response the official public representative of the President of the United States declined to defend the American service members involved or draw conclusions as to whether or not they were committing acts of terrorism.

  • Jeremi Suri, NY Times; Bomb North Korea before it’s too late

    That’s the title of a New York Times op/ed piece today, in which Jeremi Suri, University of Texas history professor, advocates for attacking North Korea;

    President Obama should state clearly and forthrightly that this is an act of self-defense in response to explicit threats from North Korea and clear evidence of a prepared weapon. He should give the leaders of South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan advance notice before acting. And he should explain that this is a limited defensive strike on a military target — an operation that poses no threat to civilians — and that America does not intend to bring about regime change. The purpose is to neutralize a clear and present danger. That is all.

    Yeah, it sounds like a hippie/peacenik version of the Bush Doctrine, you know that doctrine that was trashed repeatedly though the Iraq War days by hippies and peaceniks. Personally, I have no problem with pre-emptive war with a country that is a threat to the United States and our citizens, but North Korea is no such threat. They’ve gotten very good at saber-rattling in service to begging for hand-outs from the US, especially during Democrat Administrations.

    If anyone needs a cruise missile up their tailpipe, it’s Iran and plenty of evidence exists that would justify that. But I don’t see the New York Times or Professor Suri advocating for that particular course of action. I would guess because that war wouldn’t be so easy to predict the eventual outcome, while one with North Korea would be relatively easy to predict – after some public outrage from ND;tBF, he’s acquiesce to some free fuel oil and bags of money, all personally delivered by Jimmy Carter, Dennis Rodman, or Jesse Jackson, Sr.

    It’s blather like this that only reinforces me belief that the situation with North Korea is just media-driven over blown blather to distract us from what is going on in Congress. There’s nothing the media would like more than to set up Obama as a real war time President, since he’s confounded their attempts to portray him as such in the war against terror.

    But, an well-timed, well-coordinated attack on Iran would actually prevent a rogue from joining the nuclear club. Iran is sponsoring and supporting terrorism worldwide as well as actively fighting against American troops and is a destabilizing influence in the Middle East where an actual attack would provide long term results, so which makes more sense – North Korea or Iran – as a target?

  • Virginian-Pilot is on to us

    Mad Jack sends a link to the Virginian-Pilot which reports on a serial arsonist who has been setting scores of fires along the Chesapeake Eastern Shore. The police haven’t released a profile of suspects, but that doesn’t stop the crime fiction fans at the Virginian-Pilot from speculating based on their viewing diet of CSI and Criminal Minds;

    Could it be someone ex-military, possibly trained in special operations? An inside job by someone in law enforcement or the volunteer fire stations? Maybe the arsonist thinks he’s doing the county a favor by burning down blighted buildings?

    Experts say serial arsonists often fall into several categories, including those who are excited by fires, those who pose as heroes and those who want revenge on society or an institution.

    The vast majority are dealing with mental health issues, said Edward Nordskog, a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arson and bomb squad who wrote a book on notorious serial arsonists.

    You know because special forces operatives are well-known for their arsonist operations – and they’re all dealing with mental health issues. A pre-teen child could set a building on fire, but it’s probably a special forces soldier out doing it. Keep it classy, V-P.

  • “How Dare You Photograph the VP Without Permission!”

    No, that remark wasn’t actually made.  But based on what happened it might as well have been.

    It seems the VP attended a domestic violence event recently.  A student from the University of Maryland, Jeremy Barr – who is also an accredited journalist for the Capital News Service – attended.  He was covering the event.

    Barr took pictures.  So did some of the other people around him.

    After the event, Barr was approached by a member of the VPs staff.  That staffer demanded to see his camera – and deleted his photos.  He also demanded to see Barr’s iPhone to ensure Barr had not downloaded any of the photos to that device.

    Barr was further detained another 10 minutes because the staffer needed to “talk to a supervisor”.  Then he was permitted to go.

    The VP’s press office later apologized, saying that the incident had been “a mistake”.  Of course, they only did so after the dean of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Lucy A. Daglish, called them with a complaint.

    “A mistake.”  Certainly.  Everybody knows you can’t take photos at a public event held in a public place.  How dare he!

    Why, Barr should just be glad he wasn’t sent to a closet to cool his heels.  Or prevented from talking to members of the public at the event.  Oh wait – sorry, those were “mistakes” by the VP’s staffers, too.

    Daglish had a rather dim view of the incident, calling it “intimidation”.  Barr’s editor thinks that Barr has a good case if he wants to sue.

    I have to agree with both.  Although I’d personally probably use a somewhat earthier term than “intimidation” to describe what happened here.

  • Another “Sterling” Example of “Unbiased Reporting”

    Bloomberg.com reports that the number of Federal employees delinquent on their taxes has “gone up 11.5%”.  Gee, that means Federal employees are nothing but lazy drones and sacks of excrement taking unfair advantage, right?

    Well, not exactly.  It’s true that more Federal employees were delinquent on their Federal taxes at the end of fiscal 2011 than at the end of the previous fiscal year.  At the end of fiscal 2010, 2.9% of Federal employees – less than 1 in 35 – were delinquent.  At the end of fiscal 2011, the rate had risen to 3.2% – less than 1 in 31.

    While that fact seems bad, it’s actually essentially meaningless until you know how it compares with the rest of the US taxpayers.  And it turns out that when you do that comparison, you get a very different story from that implied by the headline.

    At the end of fiscal 2010, 7.8% of US taxpayers were delinquent on their Federal taxes – just less than  1 in 13.  By the end of fiscal 2011, that percentage had risen to 8.2% – just less than 1 out of 12.

    In other words, Federal employees are less than 40% as likely to be delinquent on their taxes as other US taxpayers, and have been for years.  But unless you read the article in detail and did the math yourself, you’d never know that.  The story implies the opposite with its sensational headline, and doesn’t bother to make the relevant comparison for the reader.

    Shame on you, Bloomberg.com.  You’re usually a damn good source of financial info, and are generally fair.  But you blew this one bigtime.