The Center for Public Integrity reports another factor in the Deepwater Horizon response:
At least three Coast Guard aircraft and one cutter suffered serious mechanical problems that delayed, cut short or aborted rescue missions during the Gulf incident, the logs reveal. The Coast Guard averaged one problem for every seven rescue sorties it operated during the first three days of the oil spill crisis in April, according to logs obtained by the Center.
Just three months earlier, 10 of the 12 Coast Guard cutters dispatched to help evacuate victims of the Haiti earthquake encountered serious mechanical problems that affected their ability to conduct rescue missions, officials confirm. Two cutters were so impacted that they had to return to port for repairs, and aircraft were diverted from search and rescue to fly parts in for others, according to officials.It’s a situation that has been in the making for years, according to documents and interviews. The Coast Guard’s multibillion-dollar effort to modernize its fleet was mismanaged by the Coast Guard and contractors during the Bush administration, leaving it without much of the new equipment it paid for.
…..
But the Coast Guard also has itself to blame for many of the problems, according to a Department of Homeland Security inspector general review and Government Accountability Office investigations.
Between 2002 and 2008, the Guard spent $1.8 billion on its Deepwater modernization project to build the next generation of its cutters, only to find many of the new ships were either unusable or required expensive repairs because of design defects.
For instance, it abandoned eight new 123-foot patrol cutters because of such problems as “deformation and cracks in the hull,” records show. That left the Guard to rely on boats that were decades old. It is now trying to recoup some of its money from Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a contractor that was formed by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. specifically for the Deepwater project.
In the meantime we’ll just award Northrop Grumman with more contracts for really important tasks:
Northrop Grumman Corp. will provide operational support for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s regional preparedness exercises under a 20-month, $5.5 million task order.
Under the terms of the task order, the company will support homeland security preparedness exercises in the 28 states and U.S. territories in FEMA regions VI through X, which includes the south central United States to the West Coast.
The company will design, develop, conduct, evaluate and provide operational support for the exercises.
Welcome to the year 1810: Teacher fired for “fornication” for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. On the plus side, I can add the tag “fornication” to the blog!
Just a peaceful patriot: Militiaman and Birther Darren Westly Huff has pleaded not guilty for vowing to seize control of Sweetwater, Georgia, and round up the traitors blocking the indictment of President Barack Obama for his treasonous turn as commander-in-chief. He was running around Sweetwater with a lot of guns, and told everyone who would listen. Then the FBI arrested him. Noted “American Grand Jury” nutball Walter Fitzpatrick is also charged over these shenanigans.
Three political activist groups are joining together Saturday to protest Gwinnett County’s new trash plan, which begins July 1.
The Four Corners Tea Party, FreedomWorks Gwinnett and Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government have organized the protest, which will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the gazebo next to the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse on the Lawrenceville square.
Now I can call them “trashbaggers” unironically.
Cato health policy expert Michael Cannon used Twitter to joke that illegal immigrants are very absorbent when told they might be being used to clean up the oil spill. He since deleted the tweet.
Suzuki won her doctors degree in history at one of the prestigious universities in her home country. Unlike other graduates, she focused on the Japanese invasion of China; writing the paper “The History of the Japanese Invasion into China.”
“We have to respect history and cannot obliterate it. I want to cure the wounds of Chinese with my body, and I am practicing this by having sex with Chinese students in Japan,” she said. “I think it is psychological compensation to them. Actually, Chinese students treat me more friendly and comfortably than Japanese.”
HM Rev. Dr. Orly Taitz TE’s election loss was because of voter fraud, so she’s suing!
I NEED ALL THE PATRIOTS OF THIS COUNTRY TO HELP ME FIGHT THIS ENORMOUS VOTER FRAUD, ASSOCIATED WITH VOTE COUNTING MACHINES RUN ON TRADE SECRET PROTECTED SOFTWARE, WHICH DOES NOT ALLOW PUBLIC OVERSIGHT. OUR ECONOMY AND OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS WERE BOUGHT FOR $16 MLN DOLLARS COMING FROM THE COMMUNIST TYRANNY OF VENEZUELA. IF YOU ARE A VOTER AND WANT TO BE PART OF A CLASS ACTION LEGAL ACTION, PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT [email protected]
that is just the title of her post.
The Israeli government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is promoting Glenn Beck on its “selected articles” page, specifically the Gaza Freedom Flotilla episode.
I don’t know what is up with Alvin Greene, surprise Democratic South Carolina Senate Primary winner, but it is hilarious and awesome whatever is going on. He now has a website where:
Alvin Greene is the Democratic candidate for candidate in the 2010 Senate contest.
Campaign platform
Issues:
Unemployment – getting South Carolina back to work
Lower gas prices for working people
Foreign policy – A united, democratic Korea
Justice system – There are too many prisons and not enough schools
Labor – supporting the Charleston Five and the abolition of Taft-Hartley
He’s still 10000% better than Jim DeMint.
House Minority Leader John Boehner made statements that he thought taxpayers should help bail out BP’s cleanup effort, then quickly backpeddaled when he found out that was a damn stupid thing to say.
A video has surfaced of the shooting of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca that seems to contradict the story of the Border Patrol Agent who shot him. Eagerly awaiting the Agent to not be charged, but the guy who made the cell phone video to be thrown in jail.
California voted for Prop 14, which changes the primaries so either it is a dagger in the heart of special interest groups or it assures that only the milquetoastiest of moderates get elected to do anything. Awful Props 16 and 17 were voted down.
Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln won her runoff election against Bill Halter, after which a White House official blasted the unions (saying “Organized labor just flushed $10 million down the toilet.”) As Blanche Lincoln will get beat down heavily in November, good riddance to her, while the unnamed White House official should go suck a lemon after blasting the working class people who comprise the core of the Democratic Party like that.
Amazingly, I have some free time, so here is an actual article! You all know Jesus, right? Son of god, died for our sins, loves everyone, misused by conservatives to justify killing anyone they don’t like. Did you know Jesus somehow has something to do with Helen Thomas and The Stand? Because that’s what Sonny Craig, noted guy who writes dumb stuff, has to say.
We’ll start with this picture and caption:
Helen Thomas, the face of modern Liberalism
Sonny Craig’s starting attack is to go after the looks of an 89 year old woman, much like Jesus attacked old women for not looking hot.
If Jesus lived today, he’d be crucified again
Oh, snap! Hey, wait, isn’t it a good thing that Jesus got crucified??
The latest incident in Gaza, involving the Israeli seizure of a Palestinian “aid” vessel, and Helen Thomas’ pathological revelation of the deep hatred Liberals have for the Jewish state, shows that if Jesus Christ lived today, he’d be crucified again
So an old lady saying stuff and Israel shooting up an aid ship proves that Sonny can just repeat sentences.
The modern world would not tolerate a racist like Jesus Christ. If given a choice, the Mob would cry out for a terrorist and murderer like Barabas to live and have Liberty, while the fanatical religious bigot Jesus and His band of conservative Jews and Christians, must die. All of this would be done in the name of Social Justice, of course.
Ah, Social Justice, which we know is evil because it is almost Socialism. Why is Liberty capitalized?
Go back to Germany and Poland? You mean where Dachau and Buchenwald, and Auschwitz-Birkenau are, Helen? That Germany and Poland?
Yes, those still-operating camps. Maybe we should get around to defeating Hitler. What, isn’t this 1943?
The global hatred of Jews by the growing Liberal Terror in the world portends that very idea. In the 60 years since a Holocaust nearly destroyed worldwide Jewry, and was in my view indistinguishable from a Biblical Tribulation scenario (how could it get worse?), are we forgetting that we said we would “Never Forget?”
I forgot to forget.
Let’s face it, in today’s world, Jesus would be crucified again, and that right quickly.
Let me repeat my point yet again because it is my central thesis and it’s not like I’m giving real facts but just random crap.
Jesus didn’t say He knew the truth, or that He could lead the way to finding the truth, He said He was the Truth. (John 14:7). A more exclusivist version of religion I can’t imagine than that. Basically He was saying, “all six billion of you are wrong, and I’m Right.” Liberals today would plug their ears, screaming and rushing to throw him over a cliff with that one.
Liberals have never encountered someone saying they are right before! Our Achilles’s heel! BTW, who were the six billion people Jesus was talking about, as there was only like 200 million people then? I am guessing Jesus was also addressing dolphins, whales, and tigers.
Jesus called the Gentiles dogs (like saying the n-word today
It’s okay, Jesus was Black.
He said Israel came first in line for salvation and that the Gentile dogs were not worthy to even sit at the same table as their Masters, the Jews. (Mt. 15:21-31)
Wow, Jesus sounds like a jerk!
Jesus called sick people, like lepers, unclean.
So we should all shun lepers, AIDS victims, and even people with allergies!
Jesus called people all kinds of judgmental names like hypocrite, white washed tombs, dead men’s bones, snakes and vipers (well, John the Baptist used that one, but I’m sure Jesus was nearby maniacally nodding His approval).
Jesus: maniacal nodder!
Jesus said they could raze the Temple to the ground, and He’d raise a new Kingdom on top of the ruins in just three days, a clear Tea Party-ish threat to the ruling power that would have driven Janet Napolitano to issue a report on why Jesus should be on a government watch list, and Obama to run and bow to some Muslim leader somewhere in the world apologizing for American-Christian-Jewish arrogance.
The problem with Sonny’s piece is the logic moves at the speed of crazy. but i think he just told us to burn down the White House in the name of Jesus, which means it is tips.fbi.gov time again!
Jesus said (through His apocalyptic secretary John the Revelator) that He would return one day as a cosmic-divine Messianic warrior riding on a white horse, and slay all the unbelievers in the world with a sword protruding from His mouth.
How much you want to bet Sonny gets a tingling feeling in his thighs when he reads these passages from Revelations?
In other words, Jesus was a racist bloodthirsty war-mongering exclusivist, and deserved to be crucified (gassed, shot, imprisoned, starved to death, marginalized, and burned in an oven would be the modern equivalent). He would not be welcome in our world, and would not represent Social Justice.
Marginalized?
Like the Pharisees of His time, in league with the Roman oppressor, they would call Jesus Beelzebub (Satan, see Mt. 12:22-37) for His political and religious views, even if He did heal the lame and the blind and the demon-possessed miraculously.
Yes, let’s see who everyone is calling biblical names right now…
Have you ever been called Satan, before?
Every night!
I have (by a Christian pastor no less), and it‘s quite liberating. It convinces you that there is nothing wrong with God or yourself (if you happen to be one of the Few, the Proud, the Prophets), but something fundamentally wrong with the modern reprobate human mind that can reverse everything and call good evil, and evil, good.
Someone calling me names just proves I am right! Black is white, round is square, dogs and cats, living together…
H.G. Wells, the author of War of the Worlds, was an infamous adherent of Fascism and Progressivism. Visions of aliens descending and harvesting the earth were metaphors for Nazi-type eugenics programs as New World forces cleaning up the rabble of humanity in order to lead us out of the darkness of the Old World.
Wow, H.G. Wells is amazing describing the Nazis way back in 1898!
In The Time Machine, the Morlocks were the hybrid Jewish-Christian-Capitalist monsters of the underworld who cannibalized the rest of enlightened humanity on the sunlit surface, the peaceful people of the future who lived in communal harmony with nature.
I don’t remember the Morlocks saying what religion they were. I am surprised Sonny didn’t lump Islam in there as well.
Modern Liberalism and Progressivism (Marxism rebranded) are quickly turning the world around us into “enlightened Nazis.” And they have plenty of help in the form of radical Islam and Palestinian terrorists whose tactics are indistinguishable from Nazi-ism, Stalinism and Marxism
Here comes the Islam, and the lumping of all the -isms together like all uneducated reactionaries do.
For most of the latter half of the 20th century, we believed we had defeated that enemy. Boy were we wrong (well, I wasn’t…..you’ll have to account for yourself). They were just hiding like cockroaches in the wall, reformulating their message to begin their “Great Delusion” false gospel all over again.
Sonny Craig knew Hitler was still alive! He saw it in Castle Wolfenstein! Then Sonny Craig drank too much beer and watched the movie Joe’s Apartment and now thinks singing cockroaches brought Hitler back.
Now, in the first decade of the 21st century, we are seeing the return of the Nazis in such a rapid fashion that the prophets walking about in Times Square carrying signs that say, “The End is Near,” is starting to get too eerily close to the truth to just lightly pass off as the mere ramblings of religious nuts.
And now, to give us the final emotional impact that proves his point:
But that’s not all! There are comments! Commenters who seem to think Sonny Craig is a bit nuts. Luckily, Sonny Craig shows us the true meaning of Christianity in the comments:
Yes, numnuts, love Jesus!
Your Name Here is missing the point…..Part 2 is coming where all his points explain how it is that Liberals reverse everything…..and call good evil and evil good. The question isn’t whether i know Jesus, numnuts….it’s whether you have any reading comprehension skills.
Clearly Helen Thomas is Satan Hitler Stalin Ronald Reagan Godzilla Dracula!
And to God Bless America,
Yes, she’s free to say what she likes…..and what she said was CLEARLY she’d like to see the Jews in OVENS (back in Germany and Poland where they were MASS MURDERED…..you liberals are OUTRAGEOUSLY deluded in what words actually mean and what they SAY…..
Sonny reacts in disbelief when someone says he doesn’t know what he is talking about
Your Name Here:
Just like a Dispensationalist to take everything literally and miss the point entirely……sure, dude, Sonny didn’t know any of that theology he just spent an article writing about….LOL! What a moron…..
Sonny’s final shot:
People see what they want to see…
1) saying that the Jews should go back to Germany and Poland is the same as saying they should go crawl back to Auschwitz…..anyone who says otherwise is a MORON
2) The guy who says my article is not “biblical” is twice the Moron, because he missed the point altogether so nothing he has said to this point is even relevant….but that’s how that Dispy was taught to interpret the Bible, so he interprets the news the same way, LOL
Drop the N-bomb and call people numnuts! It’s the Jesus way!
At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.
“Go home,” several shouted from the crowd.
“Get out,” others shouted.
In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.
But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
“I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here,” a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.
Just imagine what would have happened had they been racist!
Russell Hesch, 73, and David Hesch, 50, were charged with conspiracy to threaten to assault, kidnap or murder a U.S. official. They face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In the most explicit threat from the letter, the author threatens to “paint the Mackinaw [sic] Bridge with the blood of you and your family members. … Maybe you will be the main character of a story that parents tell their children as they cross the bridge decades from know [sic]. The red paint of Bart Stupak!”
Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.
Let’s see the questions:
The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
I guess to be Enlightened means to be a Libertarian douchebag that is against regulation of industries to have standards, spiraling rent costs, worker exploitation, against regulations of markets that cause things like the Great Recession, and against anyone having a living wage. Daniel Klein is the King of Enlightenment.
The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army.
It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.
In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.
Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Commanders are developing plans for increasing the use of such forces in Somalia, where a Special Operations raid last year killed the alleged head of al-Qaeda in East Africa. Plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group.
This has been making me feel borderline insane for a while now. I’ve been able to find government documents acknowledging the existence of these forces under various special programs such as Section 1206, but I haven’t had a way of finding all of them. Congress is so awful about executive oversight that I’m not sure the extent to which they’re even aware for that matter. The authorization for operations in Pakistan for example are covered by one sentence about a “Pakistan counterinsurgency fund” in the annual defense authorization bill.
The report continues:
Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush’s administration, when most briefings on potential future operations were run through the Pentagon chain of command and were conducted by the defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We have a lot more access,” a second military official said. “They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly.”
The White House, he said, is “asking for ideas and plans . . . calling us in and saying, ‘Tell me what you can do. Tell me how you do these things.’ ”
The Special Operations capabilities requested by the White House go beyond unilateral strikes and include the training of local counterterrorism forces and joint operations with them. In Yemen, for example, “we are doing all three,” the official said. Officials who spoke about the increased operations were not authorized to discuss them on the record.
At least some of this is likely run by contractors, particularly the “counterinsurgency” training like they’re doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The expansion of special forces includes both traditional special forces, often used in training missions, and those known for carrying out covert and lethal, “direct actions.” The Nation has learned from well-placed special operations sources that among the countries where elite special forces teams working for the Joint Special Operations Command have been deployed under the Obama administration are: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in Balochistan) and the Philippines. These teams have also at times deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC has also supported US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico. The frontline for these forces at the moment, sources say, are Yemen and Somalia. “In both those places, there are ongoing unilateral actions,” said a special operations source. “JSOC does a lot in Pakistan too.” Additionally, these US special forces at times work alongside other nations’ special operations forces in conducting missions in their home countries. A US special operations source described one such action where US forces teamed up with Georgian forces hunting Chechen rebels.
….
Sources say that much of the most sensitive and lethal operations conducted by JSOC are carried out by Task Force 714, which was once commanded by Gen. McChrystal, the current commander of the war in Afghanistan. Under the Obama administration, according to sources, TF-714 has expanded and recently changed its classified name. The Task Force’s budge has reportedly expanded 40% on the request of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and has added additional forces. “It was at Mullen’s request and they can do more now,” according to a special forces source. “You don’t have to work out of the embassies, you don’t have to play nice with [the State Department], you can just set up anywhere really.”
Anna Mayo was working at KBR’s facility in Balad in November 2009 when she was assaulted by an unnamed rapist who worked for KBR. She charges that she was choked unconscious with a rope, beaten and raped.
Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
So Resistnet started a thread about the Israel raid on the Gaza-bound aid ship, which was started by our old friend Dee Admin II. The thread became a giant clusterfrak, and has gone on for pages and pages (41 so far) and the posters are divided into three camps: 1- People who support Israel because that means we get to shoot more dark people/Muslims/terrorists. 2- People who support Israel because that means Jesus will return and kill everyone who isn’t keen on Jesus. 3- People who think there is a giant Zionist Conspiracy and Jews and Rothschilds and the NWO control everything. Naturally, the people in group 3 have a huge fight with the people in groups 1 and 2. If you are wondering if there is any sane discussion, there is only one guy who has an opinion that isn’t dumb. He is quickly attacked by groups 1 and 2 for not blindly supporting Israel.
Torpedo all boats that even get near the middle east!
But wait! It is Jewish Conspiracy Time!
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