Team:

See note below from our communications director, thanks for what you have done in last 24 hours, let’s keep it going.

From: Kevin McLaughlin
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 1:40 PM
To: Rob Jesmer
Subject: Nutroots

Rob-

2 things;

1) Our guys at the convention told us Noreiga and his out-of-state buddies spent the morning attacking Senator Cornyn

2) according to finance team, the fact that Dean and Pelosi came in to shill for Noreiga really fired up our supporters the last 24 hours. We have raised well over 10K and I think we could another 10k if we send out the email below again.

Talk soon,

Kevin

You know, it might be a good idea to hire someone (or two someone’s, since Rob Jessmer, Cornyn’s campaign manager didn’t even correct the misspelling in the e-mail) who can actually spell your opponent’s name. Especially your communications director.

As for the message . . . Noriega and the rest of the Netroots and Dem leadership who showed up bashed Cornyn!? STOP THE PRESSES! SOUND THE ALARM! TIP THE COW!

Anyway, I guess “Buck Smith”/David Beckwith must be earning his keep (and some Democratic schwag) by attending Netroots Nation.

Nonetheless, Kevin, you really need to learn how to (a) spell and (b) not make yourself look like an ass in the press (yes, I’m talking about that asinine comment about “Buck Smith” speaking for himself and all that other BS you pulled from somewhere near your nose that resembles an asshole when BOR outed Beckwith).

By the way, Kev: Since “Buck Smith” speaks for himself, why isn’t he posting on BOR any more?

In one post (referring to the “Big John” video), he commented:

“I personally believe Beckwith deserves a raise and/or a promotion for whatever role he had in that video . . .”

I want to see if recommending yourself for a raise on a blog works. So here goes:

Hey, TFN, I think I deserve a raise. How ’bout it?

Joe, same for you.

Pate got to get paid, son.

Boy, I hope it pans out well — or at least that I’m not forced to resign my positions in a few weeks when the media/blog heat has subsided.

(If this doesn’t work, I’ll try posting the request on a conservative Web site under a nom de plume.)

Saturday night, Tim Mahoney and [Speaker of the House Tom Craddick crony] Harrison Keller qualified for a runoff election in the race for Austin Community College Board of Trustees, with the former getting 48.5% of the vote and the latter taking 33%. Today, Keller decided to withdraw . . .

His explanation?

I have learned that the cost of the upcoming runoff for Place 1 on the Austin Community College Board of Trustees could cost the college up to $400,000. Given that I joined this race to expand educational opportunities for our community and to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible, I think this money would be better spent on ACC’s educational programs.

And:

. . . I have decided to withdraw from the runoff election and to donate the balance of my campaign funds to the Austin Community College Foundation.

For a Republican crony who stands by the side of wannabe-emperor Tom Craddick, that’s a pretty upstanding thing to do — acting on your principles. If only we could convince Hillary to do the same. [Chronic]

In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a “young woman who lost her husband in Iraq, a lovely young woman who had a daughter.”

“Here’s what happened to her,” Clinton said. “She was given $6,000. She was told to leave the [military] base within 90 days. She was told her daughter was no longer eligible for Army medical care. She was basically on her own. So I said, ‘That’s not right.’ So we began to work to change what was really cruel — you lose your husband, you lose your wife, you lose your mom or your dad, and you’re out, and nobody seemed to care.”

Nice story. Too bad it’s false.

In a 22 March 2008 story in The New York Times, death benefits given to military families are outlined:

Three years ago, advocates for military families succeeded in winning a significant expansion in survivor benefits, which include life insurance, a death gratuity, medical care and housing and education assistance.

. . .

In 2005, the so-called death gratuity — the sum given to survivors for an active-duty death — jumped to $100,000 from $12,420, and the military’s group life insurance maximum rose to $400,000 from $250,000. Both are retroactive to October 2001, covering the nearly 4,500 service members who have been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since.

There are myriad other survivor benefits, too, many determined by specific circumstances. Joyce Wessel Raezer, chief operating officer of the National Military Family Association, said that a hypothetical widow of an Army corporal based at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, with three years of service and two young children would likely receive payments totaling $5,335 a month for the first year. In addition, a spouse would get free medical care for three years — the children into adulthood — and all would receive education assistance.

Through private companies, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides insurance beneficiaries the service of a professional financial planner for a year, but a spokesman said that only one in 10 families uses it.

So, let’s see, Clinton said that:

1. The wife was given $6,000. Huh? Any other time I would assume that was the basic death gratuity to cover funeral expenses, but that was over $12,000 before being increased to $100,000 three years ago. So, false.
2. The wife was given 90 days to move off-base. Probably correct — for obvious reasons.
3. She said the daughter was no longer eligible for military health care. Completely and utterly false. Not only is her daughter eligible for military health care until she’s an adult, but the wife continues to receive it for three more years.

So she’s either out-right lying or just doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about — which she should because I’m certain the increase in death benefits had to be approved by the Senate.

This is what we want in a president?

Duck and cover! It’s a sniper!

UPDATE: Hillary’s campaign site notes that:

She cosponsored the Military Death Benefit Improvement Act to raise the military survivor benefit from $12,000 to $100,000.

So that’s something.

The first is Bill Moyers’ interview with The Yes Men, a group that gives the most absurd presentations at official functions — and get taken seriously — proving the gullibility and out-right stupidity of major government and industry leaders.

The second is a YouTube video from the Texas College Democrats about Senator John Cornyn, Texas’ own Grinch.

It reminds me of that quote from Kurt von Hammerstein:

I divide officers into four classes — the clever, the lazy, the stupid and the industrious. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest command. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately.

I once thought Bush fit in the clever and lazy category which is good for a President. After a while it became clear that stupid and lazy was closer to the mark which is a bad thing but not the worst. But it’s clear that around him are serried ranks of the stupid and industrious and the sooner the whole lot are gone the better. Is this the worst, most willfully blind wartime leadership in American history? I think it is.

[Hotel Tango: Kings of War]

In an interview on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Cheney said that in the course of researching her husband’s genealogy for her new book, “Blue Skies, No Fences,” she discovered that [Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama] share an ancestor eight generations ago.

. . .

Obama’s family ties to the Bush administration don’t stop with Cheney. According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times last September, Obama is also an 11th cousin of the president himself. The two share a 17th century Massachusetts relative.

There goes Obama’s campaign. No matter how many generations separate he may be from Dick and Bush, there must be some green, reptilian blood still flowing through his veins.

[On a sidenote: It's too bad we didn't know Bush and Dick had a black man in their family in 2000 and 2004. Would've made for some great Republican-style hateful direct-mail pieces and phone-banking.]

Mrs. Cheney won’t be supporting Obama in his presidential run, though. So much for keeping it all in the family.

The Obama campaign had the best reaction:

Obama’s campaign spokesman Bill Burton told CNN’s Dana Bash with tongue in cheek, “Obviously, Dick Cheney is sort of the black sheep of the family.”

Get it? Black? Sheep?

Whereas President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 on July 26, 1947, to realign and reorganize the Armed Forces and to create a separate Department of the Air… (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)

HCON 207 EH

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 207

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Whereas President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 on July 26, 1947, to realign and reorganize the Armed Forces and to create a separate Department of the Air Force from the existing military services;

Whereas the National Security Act of 1947 was enacted on September 18, 1947;

Whereas the Aeronautical Division of the United States Army Signal Corps, consisting of one officer and two enlisted men, began operation under the command of Captain Charles DeForest Chandler on August 1, 1907, with the responsibility for `all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines, and all kindred subjects’;

Whereas in 1908, the Department of War contracted with the Wright brothers to build one heavier-than-air flying machine for the United States Army, and accepted the Wright Military Flyer, the world’s first military airplane, in 1909;

Whereas United States pilots, flying with both allied air forces and with the Army Air Service, performed admirably in the course of World War I, participating in pursuit, observation, and day and night bombing missions;

Whereas pioneering aviators of the United States, including Mason M. Patrick, William `Billy’ Mitchell, Benjamin D. Foulois, Frank M. Andrews, Henry `Hap’ Arnold, James `Jimmy’ H. Doolittle, and Edward `Eddie’ Rickenbacker, were among the first to recognize the military potential of air power and courageously forged the foundations for the creation of an independent arm for air forces in the United States in the decades following World War I;

Whereas on June 20, 1941, the Department of War created the Army Air Forces (AAF) as its aviation element and shortly thereafter the Department of War made the AAF co-equal to the Army Ground Forces;

Whereas General Henry H. `Hap’ Arnold drew upon the industrial prowess and human resources of the United States to transform the Army Air Corps from a force of 22,400 men and 2,402 aircraft in 1939 to a peak wartime strength of 2.4 million personnel and 79,908 aircraft;

Whereas the standard for courage, flexibility, and intrepidity in combat was established for all Airmen during the first aerial raid in the Pacific Theater on April 18, 1942, when Lieutenant Colonel James `Jimmy’ H. Doolittle led 16 North American B-25 Mitchell bombers in a joint operation from the deck of the naval carrier USS Hornet to strike the Japanese mainland in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor;

Whereas President Harry S. Truman supported organizing air power as an equal arm of the military forces of the United States, writing on December 19, 1945, that air power had developed so that the responsibilities and contributions to military strategic planning of air power equaled those of land and sea power;

Whereas on September 18, 1947, W. Stuart Symington became the first Secretary of the newly formed and independent United States Air Force (USAF), and on September 26, 1947, General Carl A. Spaatz became the first Chief of Staff of the USAF;

Whereas the Air National Guard was also created by the National Security Act of 1947 and has played a vital role in guarding the United States and defending freedom in nearly every major conflict and contingency since its inception;

Whereas on October 14, 1947, the USAF demonstrated its historic and ongoing commitment to technological innovation when Captain Charles `Chuck’ Yeager piloted the X-1 developmental rocket plane to a speed of Mach 1.07, becoming the first flyer to break the sound barrier in a powered aircraft in level flight;

Whereas the USAF Reserve, created April 14, 1948, is comprised of Citizen Airmen who steadfastly sacrifice personal fortune and family comfort in order to serve as unrivaled wingmen of the active duty USAF in every deployment, mission, and battlefield around the globe;

Whereas the USAF operated the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and 1949 to provide humanitarian relief to post-war Germany and has established a tradition of humanitarian assistance in responding to natural disasters and needs across the world;

Whereas the USAF announced a policy of racial integration in the ranks of the USAF on April 26, 1948, 3 months prior to a Presidential mandate to integrate all military services;

Whereas in the early years of the Cold War, the USAF’s arsenal of bombers, such as the long-range Convair B-58 Hustler and B-36 Peacemaker, and the Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress, under the command of General Curtis LeMay served as the United States’ preeminent deterrent against Soviet Union forces and were later augmented by the development and deployment of medium range and intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as the Titan and Minuteman developed by General Bernard A. Schriever;

Whereas the USAF, employing the first large-scale combat use of jet aircraft, helped to establish air superiority over the Korean peninsula, protected ground forces of the United Nations with close air support, and interdicted enemy reinforcements and supplies during the conflict in Korea;

Whereas after the development of launch vehicles and orbital satellites, the mission of the USAF expanded into space and today provides exceptional real-time global communications, environmental monitoring, navigation, precision timing, missile warning, nuclear deterrence, and space surveillance;

Whereas USAF Airmen have contributed to the manned space program of the United States since the program’s inception and throughout the program’s development at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by dedicating themselves wholly to space exploration despite the risks of exploration;

Whereas the USAF engaged in a limited campaign of air power to assist the South Vietnamese government in countering the communist Viet Cong guerillas during the Vietnam War and fought to disrupt supply lines, halt enemy ground offensives, and protect United States and Allied forces;

Whereas Airmen were imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam War and, in the valiant tradition of Airmen held captive in previous conflicts, continued serving the United States with honor and dignity under the most inhumane circumstances;

Whereas, in recent decades, the USAF and coalition partners of the United States have supported successful actions in Panama, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other locations around the globe;

Whereas Pacific Air Forces, along with Asia-Pacific partners of the United States, ensure peace and advance freedom from the west coast of the United States to the east coast of Africa and from the Arctic to the Antarctic, covering more than 100 million square miles and the homes of 2 billion people in 44 countries;

Whereas the United States Air Forces in Europe, along with European partners of the United States, have shaped the history of Europe from World War II, the Cold War, Operation Deliberate Force, and Operation Allied Force to today’s operations, and secured stability and ensured freedom’s future in Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia;

Whereas, for 17 consecutive years beginning with 1990, Airmen have been engaged in full-time combat operations ranging from Desert Shield to Iraqi Freedom, and have shown themselves to be an expeditionary air and space force of outstanding capability ready to fight and win wars of the United States when and where Airmen are called upon to do so;

Whereas the USAF is steadfast in its commitment to field a world-class, expeditionary air force by recruiting, training, and educating its Total Force of active duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and civilian personnel;

Whereas the USAF is a trustworthy steward of resources, developing and applying technology, managing professional acquisition programs, and maintaining exacting test, evaluation, and sustainment criteria for all USAF weapon systems throughout such weapon systems’ life cycles;

Whereas, when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, USAF fighter and air refueling aircraft took to the skies to fly combat air patrols over major United States cities and protect families, friends, and neighbors of people of the United States from further attack;

Whereas, on December 7, 2005, the USAF modified its mission statement to include flying and fighting in cyberspace and prioritized the development, maintenance, and sustainment of war fighting capabilities to deliver unrestricted access to cyberspace and defend the United States and its global interests;

Whereas Airmen around the world are committed to fighting and winning the Global War on Terror and have flown more than 430,000 sorties to precisely target and engage insurgents who attempt to violently disrupt rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan;

Whereas talented and dedicated Airmen will meet the future challenges of an ever-changing world with strength and resolve;

Whereas the USAF, together with its joint partners, will continue to be the United States’ leading edge in the ongoing fight to ensure the safety and security of the United States; and

Whereas during the past 60 years, the USAF has repeatedly proved its value to the Nation, fulfilling its critical role in national defense, and protecting peace, liberty, and freedom throughout the world: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress remembers, honors, and commends the achievements of the United States Air Force in serving and defending the United States on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the United States Air Force as an independent military service.

Passed the House of Representatives September 18, 2007.

Attest:

Clerk.

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 207

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the United States Air Force as an independent military service.

[Hotel Tango: Air Force Association]

Abu Muqawama has always been a big fan of the late French intellectual Raymond Aron. Aron, writing in his newspaper column for Le Figaro, believed it was the responsibility of the public intellectual to make a careful study of the issues at hand — economics, military strategy, etc. — before putting pen to paper and presuming anyone should read what you have written.

Then he takes Maureen Dowd to task for her latest column on the Petraeus/Crocker reports:

Shut up. Shut up now. There is nothing in your cleverer-than-thou repertoire of pop culture references and mildly amusing 8th-grade literary devices that prepares you to even open your mouth to say anything about the war in Iraq. Just be quiet. Transport yourself back to the 1990s when the biggest issue facing the country was the president’s extramarital sex life, because for those times you were perfect. Now, you’re worthless. As a matter of fact, you’re worse than worthless. Because you, writing on the allegedly-serious op-ed page of the New York Times, give everyone else an excuse to treat this war and the debate surrounding it as flippantly as you do. If you want to be taken seriously, take the issue seriously. Study it. Learn about it. Talk to people who might know something.

And if you still don’t have anything of substance to say, keep quiet. This is why you don’t see Abu Muqawama writing anything about Manolo Blahniks. That’s your territory.

This goes for MoveOn and any number of other op-ed writers and bloggers.

Inform yourselves before you start talking shit. Otherwise, you’re no different from the ideology-driven folks marching in lock-step behind Bush.

The problem with breaking up, of course, is envisioning all the things that we would have/could have done together in the future — plans we’d already discussed that won’t come to fruition now, at least not together. I’ll discuss the “potential” trap in more detail in a later post.

Good News: I’m unofficially accepted to Kansas State’s Security Studies program, according to an e-mail I received from Mark P. Parillo, Director of Security Studies at Kansas State University’s Institute for Military History & 20th Century Studies.

The Security Studies faculty admissions committee has reviewed
your application materials and recommended that you be admitted to
the M.A. program. I have studied the materials as well and concur
with their assessment. Accordingly, your file is being forwarded to
the Graduate School with our recommendation that you be admitted into
the M.A. program. You should understand that the Graduate School
holds final authority in matters of admission, and their acceptance
of our recommendation is by no means a foregone conclusion.But you
should also know that typically the Graduate School accepts the
recommendations of the relevant academic department or program unless
there are exceptional circumstances that have not been satisfactorily
addressed in the notice of recommendation put forward by the
department. In your case, we do not believe such circumstances exist,
and we expect the Graduate School to accept our recommendation.

In further good news passed onto me by my former mother-in-law (but good friend, nonetheless), Lindsay’s mom:

Metaphorically, at least, the nomination of Manhattan among five cities to host a new national biodefense site means war.

The city and Kansas State University are bidding against four other cities in the United States to host the facility, which will replace the government’s aging Plum Island, N.Y., facility. The site is the federal government’s premier and most secure laboratory for high-consequence animal disease research.

University President Jon Wefald yesterday likened the battle to one of the most important events in U.S. history. Winning the bid for the new defense/research center would be “the greatest thing to happen to Kansas since the Civil War.”

Consciously or not, Wefald may be on to something. Of the five sites under consideration, Manhattan is the only one in what was a Union state. The other four, all parts of the Confederacy, are in North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas.

. . .

The odds, at least on the surface, seem to be stacked in favor of the South. But state and university officials think otherwise.

Kent Glasscock, president of the National Institute for Strategic Technology Acquisition and Commercialization (NISTAC), said one of the criteria for the site was a large federal presence and “the comfort level” that goes with it. Manhattan should be fine, he said, because of the presence of Fts. Riley and Leavenworth nearby.

Officials downplayed the role politics might play in the decision — there has been speculation about the site in Texas getting preferential treatment because the President is from there. “This one will be on merit,” Tom Thornton, president of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, an entity formed at the Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’s request whose main focus is to attract and develop agricultural and biological research and industries in the state, said.

If merit and technological advancement alone are the sole determing factors in the decision as the Department of Homeland Security has promised, Thornton said, K-State would win hands down.

Wefald went one step further, calling the facility “so high-tech you could launch an ICBM (nuclear missile) from it.”