FUBAR

NPR this morning, reporting on Major Hasan, the Army psychiatrist and shooter at Ft. Hood, interviewed his fellow psychiatrists and teachers in D.C. The teachers said his work was below standard, and included so much jihadist-type writing, that they worried about whether he was psychotic.

His fellow psychiatrists said they talked to each other about him. One said he asked the others if they thought he would ever commit fratricide. Another said he asked if they thought he might pass information to the jihadists if he were sent to combat zones.

They said that he was assigned to Ft. Hood because Ft. Hood has the most psychiatrists of any post and the Army figured if he didn't do his job, there would be plenty of others to pick up the slack, and in addition, there would be plenty of other psychiatrists to keep an eye on him!

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Raw Story picked it up:

Psychiatrists and medical officials who oversaw Major Nidal Hasan, accused of opening fire on fellow soldiers at the Fort Hood base in Texas last week, held a series of meetings between the spring of 2008 and the spring of this year to discuss serious concerns about his work and his behavior, NPR reported.

"Put it this way. Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your fox hole," one official was quoted as saying.

And yet, he was indeed being sent.

The officials who discussed Hasan's status were not aware -- as some top Walter Reed hospital officials were -- that intelligence agencies had been tracking Hasan's e-mails to a radical Islamic cleric since December 2008, NPR said.

[...]

Officials considered kicking Hasan out of the program but chose not to partly because sacking a doctor is a "cumbersome and lengthy" process that involves hearings and potential legal conflict, sources told NPR.

Officials also believed they lacked solid evidence that Hasan was unstable and were concerned they could be accused of discriminating against him because of his Islamic identity or views.

Incredible.

Here's the NPR report.

What George Hath Wrought

Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.

That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

  Tampa Bay

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Sarah Palin: Campaigning Against Rim Job

Sarah Palin's public pronouncements have now reached an amazing point -- where even Fox News is fact-checking her.

As Fox News anchor Bret Baier noted this evening, picking up on a Politico report, Palin said this past Friday that there had been a lot of "change" of late, and talked about the dollar coin -- how the phrase "In God We Trust" had been moved to the rim of the coin, rather than on the face. "Who makes a decision like that?" said Palin, seemingly pointing to the Obama administration, adding: "It's a disturbing trend."

However, the coins were in fact commissioned in 2005 by the Republican-led government of the time. And as Baier adds, Congress acted specifically to change this in 2007, and Fox displayed a James K. Polk presidential coin with the phrase on the coin's face.

  TPM

Really, I’ve been pretending this woman isn’t still out there, but this bit was too fun to pass up.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Ignore This Post

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

[...]

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

[...]

In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.

[...]

[A]s far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: "If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets … in the end that would suit no one."

[...]

A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

  UK Guardian

Stop the Presses!

"Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false," James Jones, US national security adviser, said in a statement.

  Raw Story

That will happen just before Thanksgiving when he returns from China.

Good Luck With That

Last Friday, the House Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 18-12, approved a bill entitled The State Secret Protection Act of 2009, which, if enacted, would be the first law ever to regulate and limit the President's ability to use the "state secrets privilege" to compel the dismissal of lawsuits that allege lawbreaking by executive branch officials. The bill was first introduced in 2007 in response to the Bush administration's radical abuse and expansion of the privilege, and was re-introduced earlier this year in response to the Obama administration's identical abuses.

[...]

NADLER: [The Bush Administration] invented the use of saying, you can't have a lawsuit [...] the very consideration of the lawsuit, the very consideration of the case, will endanger state secrets.

[...]

GREENWALD: the [And you’re saying the] Obama administration has been using this privilege in exactly the same way, meaning in this way that's reinvented, by saying not just these specific documents are subject to the state secrets privilege, but the subject matter itself is.

[...]

NADLER: One of the basic problems is that I have to think that the administration is not going to support the bill, and it's going to be very difficult to pass it.

[...]

If nothing else, it's refreshing to see Democratic members of the House fulfilling their duty to act independently of the executive branch and try to impose limits to curb presidential abuses of power, even when the President is a member of their political party.

  Glenn Greenwald

Oooh, Surprise, Surprise

Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

  CBS

Didn’t see that coming, didya? No, me either.

Seriously, do you think people actually believed he might not? I mean, people other than rabid right-wing nuts?

"He's got to take concrete steps to eliminate corruption," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week. "That means you have to rid yourself of those who are corrupt. You have to actually arrest and prosecute them."

Like that’s gonna happen. He blessed the corrupt election already.

The president is not expected to announce his decision until after he returns from China the week before Thanksgiving.

Because?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE!

Islamo-realism

You knew this was coming:

American Family Association has called for a ban on Muslims in the military. Mother Jones reports that the conservative Christian group has posted an article on its website by the group's Director of Issues Analysis, Bryan Fischer, who argues that the tragedy at Ft. Hood is the sign to start the ban.

[...]

FISCHER: Of course, most U.S. Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it's used, and we'll welcome you back with open arms.

This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism.

  TPM

And the perfect response is from a commenter on this article, Don S:

Of course, most conservatives don't shoot up fellow Americans. Fine. As soon as right-wingers give us a foolproof way to identify their wacko element from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to be armed. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right, & conservatives can once again own weapons. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a nutcase-detector that works every time it's used, and we'll gladly allow you to own weapons.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Fuel to the Fire

The man accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29 at Fort Hood is able to talk, a hospital spokesman said Monday, but it's unknown when investigators might take advantage of his improving health to press forward with their probe into the shooting spree.

[...]

The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers praised Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the Fort Hood attack are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."

[...]

Hasan's family attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki was preaching in 2001.

[...]

The Falls Church mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week.

[...]

Awlaki is a native-born U.S. citizen who left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He was released from a Yemeni jail last year and has since gone missing.

[...]

Classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master's program at a military college told The Associated Press that they complained to faculty during the program about what they considered to be Hasan's anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

[...]

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack and whether warning signs that Hasan was embracing an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology were missed.

  Yahoo

Ft. Hood Killings

Whether he was or not, Maj. Hassan is going to be connected to the terrorists before we're through. And he could well be. There sure was some strangeness in the whole deal.

Perhaps more likely is that the connection is there, but it will be covered up in an attempt to pretend that the government and the military are not still unable to "keep American safe".

In 2001, before his transfer to Ft. Hood, Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., where Anwar al-Awlaki – recently banned from Britain due to his open advocacy of attacks on British troops in Afghanistan and his support for organizations deemed terrorist – preached and held sway. Two of Hasan’s fellow congregants were Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour, both among the 9/11 hijackers.

[...]

The nut-job known as "Azzam the American," a Muslim convert from a Southern California Jewish family, issued a statement not long ago calling on Muslim Americans – specifically Muslim members of the armed services, of which there are thousands – to rise up and strike the infidels on the home front.

  Justin Raimondo

Kamran Pasha, the author of Mother of the Believers, a new novel relating the story of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, Prophet Mohammed's wife, was told of the al-Awlaki connection from a Muslim friend who is also an officer at Fort Hood. Using the name Richard, the recent convert to Islam described how he frequently prayed with Hasan at the town mosque after Hasan was deployed to Fort Hood in July. They last worshipped together at predawn prayers on the day of the massacre when Hasan "appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous".

But Richard had previously argued with Hasan when he said that he felt the "war on terror" was really a war against Islam, expressed anti-Jewish sentiments and defended suicide bombings.

"I asked Richard whether he believed that Hasan was motivated by religious radicalism in his murderous actions," Mr Pasha said.

"Richard, with great sadness, said that he believed this was true.

  UK Telegraph

Sadly, I may have been inadvertently on the money when I said in my first post on this subject that "I thought we were supposed to be fighting them over there so we didn't have to fight them over here."

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Three of the largest Wall Street firms -- which together received $45,000,000,000 in taxpayer bailouts -- are on track to hand out $29,700,000,000 in bonuses this year.

That's only the three largest firms. JP Morgan Chase took $25 billion in government aid; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, $10 billion each. All three have paid back the government bailout money they've received, but the liquidity and "cheap money" offered by the Fed have kindled record profits at their investment and trading arms.

[...]

If divided equally among the firms' collective 119,000 employees, the sum total per worker comes to $250,400 each (which Bloomberg notes is almost five times the median US household income of $50,000).

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Now We're Talkin'

Decrying Barack Obama as "white power in black face," hundreds of African-Americans marched on the White House Saturday to protest policies of the first black US president, and demand that he bring US troops home.

[...]

"We're not satisfied with him, and... this hope and change rap has not been a reality for black people," [Charles] Baron told AFP during the demonstration.

[...]

"We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies," he added.

[...]

Protesters also called for Obama to order troops out of Iraq and to scrap Africom, the controversial year-old United States Africa Command, and demanded "hands off" Venezuela and ends to the Cuba embargo and the Zimbabwe blockade.

  Raw Story