Mornin’, BT

All I got is a vid touting the insurance industry’s solution to health care.

And there’s this piece from the NYT on Major Hasan.

The WAPO piece is a bit more detailed.

Yep. I’m tryin’ to find whether the female responder was Army or civilian. If not for her this could have been a lot worse. I can’t even find her name anywhere.

I heard she was civilian and despite being wounded managed to take Hasan down.

There have been no names released as of yet but my understanding is that she is a civilian. It is amazing to me that people think that troops are armed on military bases as a matter of course. I guess if you have never been to one you wouldn’t know.

“Base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said at a news conference Thursday evening that Hasan was shot multiple times by a female civilian Army police officer, who was also injured.”

Thanks. Hit him 4 times. Maybe they’ll go back to a weapon with some knock down power.

I knew this was coming

Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of “friendly fire,” that in the mayhem and confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.

Yep. I would have assumed that they have access to thier guns all the time. How could I have known it would be otherwise? Presumably they have access to guns all the time when they’re deployed? Or not when they’re on the overseas base?

A reporter asked that question at the presser this AM.

I sure wish the papers would stop using “injured” when “wounded” is more appropriate. You get injured when you fall down, you get wounded when somebody’s trying to kill you and doesn’t succeed.

Didn’t take long, did it?

Jobs report out. Unemployment at 10.2% – worse than expected.

Oh no, that is horrible.

I see Krugman is on top of it, as usual. Thanks, Summers and Geither. Assholes.

This also happened on the heels of the charges against the 23 CIA agents in Italy.

After reading some of those accounts from the Italian courts, I would not want to be deployed. And if my family came to a country as refugees in search of hope and freedom and all that one worked for suddenly opened the door to actions as cruel as those acts once committed against one’s own family, one’s hope would be destroyed.

Gonna get worse. For some reason the administration thinks throwing money at the banksters will lead to more jobs. More jobs doing what, flippin’ burgers? Even Mickey D’s laying people off.

I don’t see the administration trying to rebuild our manufacturing base.

Officer Munley

She is named in this video

Good Morning Everyone

Borders Group to close 200 of its Waldenbooks mall stores.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574518023648503540.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

Yet, according to the reports, he made a career out of the Army, and incurred educational obligations after the Gulf War, with full knowledge that he could be sent anywhere during the course of his career.

Yep. And doG forbid you ever lose your rifle card.

The military has to do a better job of weeding out disturbed individuals.

Righto. Still enamored with supply side economics.

IIRC, headline unemployment rate peaked in the post-WWII period at 10.8%. During Reagan. We’ll top that soon.

The broadest measure, so-called U-6, is at 17.5%. They only started measuring that in 1994, so that keeps setting new highs.

Yes and it is the reality when multiple individuals are snapping off rounds. It probably happens far more often than folks are aware of.

Reality is not a movie or TV show where the good guys only fire off a sufficient number of rounds and no bystanders are ever shot by mistake.

Call it a variant of “the fog of war”

The military can take a normal person and convert him/her into a disturbed person.

Cool. Thank you. She’s the hero of this tragedy. If she was talking on the phone she’s gonna be okay. Far out.

Toward the sound of gunfire.

Never get off the boat, unless you’re willing to go all the way.

Wayne LaPierre heard from yet? He will be.

And, according to reports he had offered to repay his education and get out.

That’s one part which is hard to understand. The military doesn’t just dole out expensive assignments to years of education without multiple close scrutingy of performance records, psychological test, references, etc. Such assignements are about as competitive as admission to an ivy league college. I can only surmise that his instability developed after all the screening and even stress of getting throubg medical school.

Nor does it make sense to me that he had bad officer efficiency ratings and was promoted to major. If there was some general knowledge that you couldn’t oust critical specialties, it would also have been common knowledge that you can’t give them bad ratings.

Jon Stewart… 11 out of 10.

Beck routine, Foley line…the man rules.

The military *creates* disturbed individuals by its very nature. Take it from somebody who watched her father play Russian Roulette a few years out of Vietnam.

He apparently treated PTSD sufferers and heard their stories. That could be stressful.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a doctor. Didn’t work out. Many years later I realized what a good thing that was. Docs work with sick people. How depressing to do that every day.

Yep.

I hope he’s still with us, or at least passed from natural causes.

Krugman is just following up on the point he made repeatedly late last fall — that the stimulus package was only about half of what was needed to keep unemployment from standing pat at 10 to 12 percent. The stimulus prevented absolute collapse, which would have taken us to 15 to 16 percent unemployment, but people’s memories are short, and they are going to remember than 1 out of 10 of them are out of work for a long time.

The insufficient stimulus package was — as always — a political decision. Figuring out what was needed wasn’t rocket science, just simple arithmetic that any second year student in macro-economics can carry out on the back of an envelope. The problem was (and is) that fearing Congress wouldn’t go for what was needed, Obama and Summers played it safe. As it is, they had to tone down the proposal to get it through Congress.

There’s plenty of places to spread the blame around on this one. Not all that much different, though, from FDR’s situation and policies in the 1930s.

The Foley line made me LOL. I just put the health care segment up in a diary: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/13324

(((WarOnWarOff)))

He had to have known that you can’t buy your way out of fulfilliing the obligation. He got a full salary to go to school, plus the educational expenses, all during that period. Anyone in the military knows that you can’t incur an increased obligation, like pilot training, and then decide to pay your way out of it (George Bush aside).

Yes, he’s actually mellowed quite a bit over the years, and now loves his kitty cats.

Pilot training is like a eleven year commitment.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4359

US KIA Afghanistan: 912

US MBS 2009: 38,316

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Thanks, eCAHN!

Your absolutely right. I know it happens in war I just didnt think it would happen on a military base when the people doing the shooting have probably seen most of these soldiers before, perhaps on a day to day basis. I was also wondering how one guy could take out 12 professional soldiers and wound 33 other professional soldiers before anybody was able to get to him. But now it is all starting to make sense.

I’m glad to hear that. That he chose tigers is telling.

Heh. My email to cnbc was just read on air.

Did anyone else catch the bit yesterday afternoon when Wolf Blitzer was talking by phone with a lady who lived just off the base? She relayed a rumor that a suspect had been arrested “at Dollar General”. Wolf was dumbstruck. He clearly did not know that Dollar General is the name of a discount chain and that it likely would be found just outside a base. He seemed stuck on the “General” part and tried for a while to connect that to a person and then finally just moved on, clearly not understanding what she was talking about. I’d love to find a YouTube of that…

LOL = me, too.

Couldn’t bear to watch any more news last night, and fortunately I had a NetFlix movie to watch…Herzog’s “Little Dieter Needs to Fly.” Little German kid watches his village destroyed by American bombers, and becomes…an American pilot who bombs Viet Cong.

His kitties are named Biscuit and Tiger!

Yeah, I think that can be true. I’m just suggesting that the problem with “screening” was more likely related to annual performance ratings in recent years, rather than any earlier screening. Still, I don’t know how he could have gotten bad performance ratings and been promoted, even in a critical career field. It used to be that anything other than “walk on water” ratings ruined a career. The promotion from captain to major is one of the most significant in a career. Captain is automatic (provided good performance), but major is competitive for limited slots and two-passovers means one is released from the service.

Scarecrow is upstairs…

I don’t know anything about how that works in the military. However, as an outsider, it seems they might overlook a lot because of the doc shortage. Also I speculated last night that the poor ratings might have related to his “attitude problem” not necessarily his doctoring.

this may be one of the ft hood shooter’s web posts

Again, I agree. I have simply been pointing out what elements around this may have played a role in his depression and snapping. I sense you see something else. Which is fine. People have breaking points and what drives someone to a breaking point are real concerns.

I understand about the coc shortage, but now any superiors who chose promotion for someone with questionable ratings will that failure scrutinized and considered repeatedly when their ratings and career progression are at stake. Likely, it will be the end of the careers of those who made the promotion decision (or wrote glowing ratings).

I don’t disagree at all, with what you say regarding the indvidual. I do think that sometimes people feel that the military should be able act, based on a humanitarian considerations, which it can’t. No soldiers on patrol would ever take the “point” if they didn’t have to and few couldn’t find a rationale to avoid dangerous or distasteful assignments. There are thousands of families now who would like to avoid rassingment to Iraq of Afghanistan at almost all costs, but haven’t killed any innocent people.

I come from two personal perspectives. A family member who served five assignments (over five years) in Iraq and a family member who happens to be a refugee who is confused by how the country her family put hope in is now so very different and carrying out actions as oppressive as those her family fled when she was young.

I just have some personal perspectives which give a different angle.

People do snap Crosstimbers and they do horrible things when they snap. Some people do not snap and can endure.

Here is someone who reached a breaking point and no one saw the signs or failed to act responsibly regarding the signs.

(BIG SIGH) the msm continues its ongoing efforts to misinform the sheeple. The NYT “reporters” once more show their total lack of knowledge of (and fear of) guns. Esp. handguns. an “automatic” handgun, (please) WTF is it with reporters nowdays? fns is spouting BS at a fanststic rate, followed closely by all other cable news channels. They have been filling hours and hours with rumors and speculation, with brief reports from military “spokespeople”endlessly restated and repeated-(and WHY on earth were we having to listen to a military spokesperson from FT Carson?!?? Which is in freekin Colorado, NOT Texas. HELLO, mountains in the background should have been the first clue that we were not in Texas. IDIOTS, DUMMIES))what, they can’t rerun the video? the networks are paying millions to these idiots??? Insanity, total insanity. At least I have (yet) to read the brand new sparkling name that some of the new junior halfwit reporters have for GIs.(thank god, if I had it would have been time to throw the rubber bricks) I have been fighting hard against this new nickname, which of course would be-are you ready for this??- “Joes”. Yep. thats right. “Joes” is the new name decided by some new “reporters”, based on Kangaroos?That is the first thing that comes to mind, baby kangaroo=joey, or maybe on the old little boys dolls-excuse me, “action figures”-GI “Joe”, then of course you had the summer movie about the GI Joes. Please excuse me while I gag. Now, I dislike calling all military people “troops” because a “troop” is a Armored Cav unit.-equivalent to a regular Army Company or Artillery unit Battery, the Cav designation is “Troop”, I have been using the word generically as most people do to designate anyone in the military, under personal protest.
As it turns out, after the time needed to find out the real story, all of the speculation and fearmongering from fns and cnn and msnbc that we heard yesterday was wrong. bunch of mouth breathers. Smartest thing Ft. Hood did was lockdown then after the lockdown was eased, keep the frikin idiot “reporters” off the base. 99% of whom were not military beat reporters, but plastic people who can only ask inane really stupid questions. (Big sigh)