October 28, 2012
— Dave in Texas Halloween themed cheerleaders are awesome.
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08:45 AM
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— Open Blogger
Good morning all. Yeah, I know I promised a Halloween thread, but it's been postponed for a week. Here is what happened: some of you may remember I missed a thread in late June when my father passed away and I had to go out of town to take care of business. Well, my mother's health has been slowly declining since then and late last Sunday, we received word from the hospice care that she too had passed away. So the next day I was (again) on a plane to take care of business and it was more complicated because with both parents now gone, the estate has to be settled. All my siblings (there are four of us) spent the week conferring with the mortuary people, banks, insurance companies, etc., and we also went through the house determining what we wanted, who would get it, and what we would donate to Goodwill. It was all completely amicable, but I sort of felt like a looter going through my parents closets and storage cabinets and drawers. Found some interesting stuff, though.
I got back from all of this just last night, so this thread is cobbled together with spare parts and duct tape.
Oh, and apparently in the last day or two before she died, Mom was quite talkative with the caregiver, probably because she knew her time was short. So afterwards we had a long meeting with her because we wanted to know what she said, some musty old closet doors were opened, and holy crap, a bunch of skeletons came dancing out, family secrets that had been hidden for decades. We're still reeling from what Mom said, some of which we can verify as true, but some we really don't have any corroborating evidence for, even though it would explain some of the dysfunctional stuff that has been going on in my family since the year 1. Is this normal? I wonder how often this happens, these time-delayed bombs being hurled from the grave? It almost sounds too soap opera-ish, like somebody just makes this stuff up, but this soap opera is now my life.
So I got nothing this week except for this:
Posted by: Open Blogger at
07:00 AM
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— andy Good morning, all. Best wishes for everyone in the path of Sandy.
A couple of good parodies of that "First Time" ad appear below the fold. more...
Posted by: andy at
03:59 AM
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October 27, 2012
— Open Blogger Good evening yet again, Morons and Moronettes, and hello from the tmi3rds at the AoSHQ Weather Desk. Let's get the headlines out of the way now:
1) If you're anywhere north of the North Carolina border east of the Appalachians, you need to be ready for one of the bigger rain events you've seen.
2) If you're along the coast or near any waterways, you need to be ready for the probability of serious flooding.
3) Any coastal hurricane preparation needs to be rushed to completion at this point.
4) This storm's going to linger, and that's where the problem is.
More below the fold... more...
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06:55 PM
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— CDR M
You know, you'd think someone with 43 Czars would actually have accomplished something over 4 years to run on. Well maybe not when you read some of the titles.
If you are wondering what a czar does, you are not alone. Rather than try to explain the elusive term, I will simply list the czars currently on the White House payroll. In alphabetical order President ObamaÂ’s czars as of this writing are: Afghanistan/Pakistan Czar, AIDS Czar, Bailout Czar, Border Czar, Car Czar, Cyber Security Czar, Copyright Czar, Climate Czar, Central Region Czar, Disinformation Czar, Domestic Violence Women Czar, Drug Czar, Education Czar, Economy Czar, Energy and Environmental Czar, Export Czar, Government Performance Czar, Faith-Based Czar, Health Czar, Health Insurance Czar, Homeland Security Czar, Great Lakes Czar, Green Jobs Czar, Guantanamo Closure Czar, Information Czar, Intelligence Czar, Labor Czar, Middle East Peace Czar, Pay Czar, Regulatory Czar, Safe Schools Czar, Science Czar, Stimulus Accountability Czar, Sudan Czar, TARP Czar, Technology Czar, Terrorism Czar, Tobacco Czar, Urban Czar, War Czar, Water Czar, Weapons Czar, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Czar. In addition to these existing positions, several new czars are under consideration including: Zoning Czar, Student Loan Czar, Voter List Czar, Radio-Internet Fairness Czar, Mortgage Czar, Land-Use Czar, and Income Redistribution Czar.
With Benghazi, sounds like the Disinformation Czar has been a little busy but WTF has the Guantanamo Closure Czar exactly been doin'? Did we ever hear from the Weapons Czar in regard to Fast & Furious? Did the Copyright Czar get permission from Putin for that recent ad they ran that ripped off a Putin ad? I'm surprised there isn't a Contraceptive Czar or Big Bird Czar.
Now you know what you're spending $2 billion a year on in support of the President besides his frequent flier miles. more...
Posted by: CDR M at
06:03 PM
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— DrewM And smacks Obama around in the process.
The presidentÂ’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House.The presidentÂ’s prescription upon entering office was a dose of government stimulus, which was the right call because it put cash in the pockets of consumers, made investments in vital infrastructure and kept millions of teachers and police officers on the job.
That stimulus was necessary to bridge the nation from recession to recovery, but the time is past for more government stimulus.
Consumers must feel more confident about their own economic futures to begin spending on the products and services that power the economy. A renewed sense of confidence will spark renewed investment by American companies. Industry will return to full production and hiring will begin again.
That should come with Mitt Romney in the White House.
Newspaper endorsements don't really matter too much (if at all). The only way they have any impact is if they are a surprise. Here's the DMR's record via Slublog.
• 1964: Lyndon B. Johnson (D) - won
• 1968: Hubert Humphrey (D) - lost
• 1972: Richard Nixon (R) - won
• 1976: Jimmy Carter (D) - won
• 1980: Jimmy Carter (D) - lost
• 1984: Walter Mondale (D) - lost
• 1988: Michael Dukakis (D) - lost
• 1992: Bill Clinton (D) - won
• 1996: Bill Clinton (D) - won
• 2000: Al Gore (D) - lost
• 2004: John Kerry (D) - lost
• 2008: Barack Obama (D) - won
This isn't the yawner that the NY Times endorsing Obama is. Plenty of free and paid media mileage to be wrung out of this one.
Bonus fun: About 5 minutes before the endorsement hit, Obama's Iowa comms director tweeted this.
Considering today's @DMRegister editorial on Akin, Mourdock, and Romney's extreme position on womens health, hard to imagine DMR endorsement
Posted by: DrewM at
04:19 PM
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— DrewM As the Mega Storm of Doom (Frankenstorm is a terrible name), closes in on the east coast, it's simply to terrifying to think up any more content.
One thing I will say, I've heard about the terrible leg injury South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore suffered today. My goal is to simply avoid seeing pictures or video of it.
Posted by: DrewM at
03:07 PM
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— DrewM This story is making the rounds and I'm seeing people trying to connect it to Benghazi somehow.
The Navy said Saturday it is replacing the admiral in command of an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, pending the outcome of an internal investigation into undisclosed allegations of inappropriate judgment.Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette is being sent back to the USS John C. Stennis' home port at Bremerton, Wash., in what the Navy called a temporary reassignment. The Navy said he is not formally relieved of his command of the Stennis strike group but will be replaced by Rear Adm. Troy M. Shoemaker, who will assume command until the investigation is completed.
It is highly unusual for the Navy to replace a carrier strike group commander during its deployment.
It is very unusual for the Navy to fire such a high ranking officer but it's not unusual for them to remove a commander who has done something to lose the trust of their superiors.
How do I know this isn't connected to Benghazi? He'd be the worst scape goat in all of history for several reasons.
1. The Stennis Carrier group is in the Persian Gulf area, which is the 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility. It's nowhere near Libya, which is in the 6th Fleet AoR
Most importantly is this little tidbit in the story.
The Stennis group deployed from Bremerton in late August and had entered the Navy 5th Fleet's area of operations in the Middle East on Oct. 17 after sailing across the Pacific.
I don't know exactly where Stennis was on SEPTEMBER 11th but it was nowhere near Libya.
Calendars....How do they work?
My prediction: Gaouette's "judgment" issues have more to do with the port calls in Thailand and Malaysia than nefarious politics.
There are also some rumblings about the General Ham's replacement as Commander of Africa Command being announced this week. If you look at the history of combatant command tours they are usually about 2-2.5 years and this announcement is well within that window. Ham's replacement was simply named, he still must be confirmed by the Senate and then there's usually a few months until the actual change of command.
There are a lot of unanswered questions but trying to fill them in with crazy speculation doesn't help anyone.
Added: There's also a story going around (sorry, no links for nutty conspiracy theories) that General Ham was about to disobey Obama's supposed "stand down" order and was removed from command by his second in command.
Apparently it was only double-secret probation or something.
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12:35 PM
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— DrewM Yesterday the CIA said they didn't say no to a rescue mission for Ambassador Stevens and other Americans under attack. Today the White House said it wasn't Obama. Hey DoD...the music is slowing down and you don't have a chair.
"Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi," National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News by email....
The "basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," [Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta] said during a joint question-and-answer session with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey.
"As a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, General Ham, General Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation," Panetta said. General Carter Ham commands the U.S. Africa Command.
Link via Stephen Hayes.
How realistic is that? It doesn't seem very. Every combatant commander has a dedicated special operations team dedicated to dealing with situations just like this.
A Special Forces commanderÂ’s in-extremis force, or CIF, company. A CIF is highly trained in direct action and available to conduct no-notice high-risk missions for the geographic combatant commander its parent SF group supports.
"No-notice", that's what they do. The call for help goes out and they go. These forces are designed for situations where intelligence is "sketchy" and you don't have the luxury of weeks or months of planning as in the bin Laden raid.
So, who said, "no don't send the force that is specifically designed to handle this type of mission".
Even if someone at DoD or in Germany (where Africa Command is headquartered) why didn't Obama say, "Go! That's an order"? That's what a gutsy call looks and sounds like.
Related: If you missed my interview with security expert Robert Caruso about the Benghazi attack and how the Department of State's culture and structure led to this failure, it's below the fold. more...
Posted by: DrewM at
11:17 AM
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— Ace Or really about how terrible Emmanuel Goldromney is.
Ross Douthat notes it's a merger of 2008's style -- viral video, children, outlandish claims -- with 2012's actual message -- "Kill Romney."
I promise you you will not enjoy this. more...
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10:41 AM
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