Taxes, spending, and government regulations that is. As Jim Treacher noted on Twitter, “Van Jones’ resignation, the Obamacare boondoggle… Saturday at midnight is the new Friday at 5.”
And speaking of the latter item, Allahpundit writes:
It’s 10:45 ET and it looks like the final vote is coming within the next 15 minutes. I held out hope this morning that we might get a humpbot cameo tonight, but it looks like we’re in for an appearance by the melting bunny of death instead. Heart-ache.
Update: My prediction for the final vote, as of 10:52: 224-211.
Update: It was closer than I thought: 220-215, 39 Dems voting no and a solitary Republican — Joe Cao, who replaced “Dollar Bill” Jefferson in a blue district in Louisiana — voting yes. Take heart, righties: Reid is incompetent, which makes the likelihood of 60 votes in the Senate, especially after a vote this narrow, very slim indeed.
But for now, we grieve.
Click over for the uber-depressing polar opposite of Allah’s trademarked humping robot video.
Duane Patterson, Hugh Hewitt’s producer and “generalissimo” adds, “so nancy twisted arms, got 220 to pass bill that won’t see light of day in the senate? yawn. target’s always been killing reid’s bill.”
How do you cure high unemployment and sluggish growth?
Proven methods include reducing regulation and lowering taxes.
So it comes as no surprise that the House has just approved one of (if not the) biggest increases in taxes and regulation after virtually zero debate and in the middle of a weekend night when almost no one is paying attention.
They’re cowards. Shrewd cowards, but cowards still.
As Steve asks, “If no one has done the math on this one, I wish they would. Which is the greater number: Pages in the bill the House just passed, or the minutes spent debating it?”
Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”
(Via the Rhetorican, whose email noted “It’s Not Garofalo. It’s Obama”; though other than the lack of visible tats, quotes such as the above sometimes make it seem hard to tell the difference.)
A Boston TV station discovered that Barney Frank was present in 2007 when police raided his boyfriend’s home in Maine and confiscated marijuana, bongs and marijuana plants. Somehow this didn’t come out until now. In the TV interview below, Frank professes ignorance of the contents of his boyfriend’s house–he was on the porch when the police arrived!–and says he wouldn’t recognize a marijuana plant if he saw one. It’s a wonderful image, really: the boyfriend has these weird, spiky house plants scattered around the premises and Barney thinks they’re ferns or something. And he didn’t recognize the bags of marijuana, the marijuana smoke or the bongs because he “only smokes cigars.”
A caller to our radio show today wondered whether this revelation will imperil Frank politically. Given that he professed similar ignorance of the fact that a previous boyfriend was running a male prostitution ring out of Barney’s home, a fact which Massachusetts voters found entirely unexceptionable, I don’t think a little dishonesty about dope will hurt him any.
This TV interview does contain the most credible statement I’ve ever heard Frank make: “I’m not a great outdoorsman.”
Just as he earlier did for Robert Gibbs, Moe Lane proffers a helpful refresher course for the beleaguered senator.
Update: One of Moe’s commenters note that Frank gave a speech at NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, back in 2001. So something tells me that while he is indeed not a great outdoorsman, Frank could recognize the stickiest of the icky if need be.
“The Prometheus Device”; it’s Johnny Storm meets Peter Parker! As Jonathan Last writes, this might be the coolest — or perhaps hottest — device ever built in a garage.
Mark Steyn coined the above headline in response to this entirely predictable response from the BBC:
Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army
As Mark writes:
Really? Right now the body count stands at:
Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0
I was reading from some of this kind of coverage on the Rush Limbaugh show today. Even if you are concerned that it would be terribly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan’s brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what’s of most interest about an actual atrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims. I refer you yet again to this note-perfect parody:
British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing
This kind of media coverage is really a form of mental illness far more advanced than whatever Major Hasan’s lawyers eventually enter in mitigation, and apparently pandemic, at least among the Western media.
Meanwhile, here’s a choice quote from the Jawa Report; click over to hear the audio:
Thanks to DB in the comment section who directs us to this post, which features a BBC interview by Gavin Lee with a member of the Killeen, Texas mosque outside Ft Hood, the Islamic Community Center of Greater Killeen, where Malik Nidal Hasan was currently attending.
In the interview (the whole interview can be heard here), mosque member “Duane” not only refuses to condemn Hasan, but justifies their murder because “they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims”.
Here’s the relevant portion of the interview:
Duane : I’m not going to condemn him for what he did. I don’t know why he did it. I will not, absolutely not, condemn him for what he had done though. If he had done it for selfish reasons I still will not condemn him. He’s my brother in the end. I will never condemn him.
Gavin Lee : There might be a lot of people shocked to hear you say that.
Duane: Well, that’s the way it is. I don’t speak for the community here but me personally I will not condemn him.
Gavin Lee : What are your thoughts towards those that were victims in this?
Duane : They were, in the end, they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims. I honestly have no pity for them. It’s just like the majority of the people that will hear this, after five or six minutes they’ll be shocked, after that they’ll forget about them and go on their day.
This man was being entrusted with the mental health of soldiers, and no one could be bothered to take the time to find out if he was mentally stable himself? After a poor review, remarks that make you wonder which side this guy was on, and possible writings on a web posting that are troubling, he was not investigated?
Was it political correctness and concern for his Muslim heritage that kept officials from looking further into his mental health? Was the army so desperate for a psychiatrist (there is always a shortage) they didn’t dare do anything?
The public deserves an explanation.
In wondering how Hasan functioned in the Army for so long, I can’t help but flashback to an earlier Steyn piece from 2005, referring back to, as he dubbed it, “the defining encounter of the age”:
WITH hindsight, the defining encounter of the age was not between Mohammed Atta’s jet and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but that between Mohammed Atta and Johnelle Bryant a year earlier. Bryant is an official with the US Department of Agriculture in Florida, and the late Atta had gone to see her about getting a $US650,000 government loan to convert a plane into the world’s largest crop-duster. A novel idea.
The meeting got off to a rocky start when Atta refused to deal with Bryant because she was but a woman. But, after this unpleasantness had been smoothed out, things went swimmingly. When it was explained to him that, alas, he wouldn’t get the 650 grand in cash that day, Atta threatened to cut Bryant’s throat. He then pointed to a picture behind her desk showing an aerial view of downtown Washington – the White House, the Pentagon et al – and asked: “How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it?”
Fortunately, Bryant’s been on the training course and knows an opportunity for multicultural outreach when she sees one. “I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from,” she recalled. “I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could.”
So a few weeks later, when fellow 9/11 terrorist Marwan al-Shehhi arrived to request another half-million dollar farm subsidy and Atta showed up cunningly disguised with a pair of glasses and claiming to be another person entirely – to whit, al-Shehhi’s accountant – Bryant sportingly pretended not to recognise him and went along with the wheeze. The fake specs, like the threat to slit her throat and blow up the Pentagon, were just another example of the multicultural diversity that so enriches our society.
For four years, much of the western world behaved like Bryant. Bomb us, and we agonise over the “root causes” (that is, what we did wrong). Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that “Islam is a religion of peace”. Issue bloodcurdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can’t wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush, Blair and Howard. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the “vast majority” of Muslims “jihad” is a harmless concept meaning “decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles”.
Thursday’s attack at Fort Hood is an enormous reminder of the consequences of reverting back to the mindset of September 10th, no matter how tempting the idea of collective retrograde amnesia might be.
Update: And of course:
“President Obama says ‘we cannot fully know’ what led Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to kill 13 people and wound 38 others at Fort Hood, Texas Thursday.” Guess it’s not a teachable moment, then.
As a reminder, political correctness is derived from the more intellectually respectable doctrine of cultural relativism (it’s sort of CR’s public “happy face”). In essence, cultural relativism holds that an individual’s beliefs and activities should only be understood in terms of his or her own culture. It’s the ultimate version of “who are we to the judge?” If Ayatollah Khomeini wishes to oppress all the women and homosexuals in Iran, it’s their way. If Mao seeks to knock off seventy million of his countrymen, so be it. Let the Chinese decide. We shouldn’t impose our values.
On our increasingly tiny globe, this theory – when spelled out – is nothing short of preposterous. It fairly invites a return to the mass murdering ideologies of the Twentieth Century – Nazism, communism, etc – and opens the door wide for Islamism.
Even so, its “happy face” partner political correctness continues to permeate our culture and our media. And, alas, as we are now painfully aware, it has infected our military – badly. How else to explain that Nidal Hassan was passed through the Army system for years despite making numerous public pronouncements that sounded as if they were ripped from the pages of an al Qaeda training manual?
This sad infection of our military is the most disturbing and self-destructive achievement of political correctness yet. Still, cable television spends hours trying to probe the “motivations” of Hasan, as if a Muslim bumper sticker torn from his car could explain his actions or even (oh, hope) exonerate him. That way we would not have to deal with the ideology behind him and, more importantly, not have to confront our own pathology.
But that pathology of political correctness has now been laid bare before us. More than the two handguns, it was the murder weapon in that room at Fort Hood. Those thirteen innocent people are indeed PC deaths because it was PC that allowed Hasan to be there. The question is, as it is with all emotionally loaded learning, what will we do with this new information?
To begin with, we must explore what attracted us to political correctness in the first place. Several explanations suggest themselves: political expediency, increased power in certain quarters, the desire to be left alone, the desire to be loved, even psychosexual masochism. There are more, I am sure. But they must be ventilated. Nothing can bring back the thirteen who were killed. But the most fitting memorial to them would be that their murders would signal the death knell of political correctness.
Indeed. But if 9/11 couldn’t do it, this disgusting but comparatively much smaller incident sadly won’t, either.
Update: Don Surber adds up his daily Good/Evil scorecard, including this item:
President Obama in his weekly address continued to deny that Army Major Nidal Hasan attacked and killed 12 fellow soldiers and civilians because Hasan is a jihadist. Obama: “They are Americans of every race, faith, and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendants of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. But what they share is a patriotism like no other. What they share is a commitment to country that has been tested and proved worthy. What they share is the same unflinching courage, unblinking compassion, and uncommon camaraderie that the soldiers and civilians of Ft. Hood showed America and showed the world.”
That is true. I totally agree with that. More Muslims have taken a bullet for our country than have fired them.
But a few people in every religion are zealots. Rather than acknowledge the obvious, the president went all PC: “We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing.”
Suffering a president in denial, alas, is…
EVIL.
Well, it’s the Diet Coke of evil. Or perhaps the Billy Beer of evil, given Obama’s pitch-perfect resemblance to Billy’s more famous, if equally feckless brother.
James Taranto has a great capsule summary of, to paraphrase Budd Schulberg, What Makes Nancy Run:
The voters be damned: That seems to be Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attitude in the wake of big Democratic losses on Tuesday. “House Democratic leaders, undeterred by delays in the Senate or this week’s Republican electoral triumphs, plan to call a vote Saturday on the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. health-care policy in four decades,” Bloomberg reports:
The House will move on the $1.05 trillion legislation that would cover 36 million uninsured people and create a government plan to compete with private insurers even after the election of Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia. President Barack Obama will go to Capitol Hill tomorrow to meet with House Democrats, as they seek the 218 votes they need to pass the bill, a Democratic leadership aide said.
Politico reports that “leaders expect a close vote, with a one-or two-vote margin, and no Rs.” They plan to pass this monstrosity without bipartisan support and with the bare minimum of support from their own party. “Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Is she mad?
No, not really. Or we should say only ideologically, in that she loves the monstrous idea of socialized medicine. Given that, though, her actions make perfect sense in terms of practical politics. After all, this is likely to be the high-water mark for liberal Democrats. They’re likely to lose House seats next year anyway, and there’s no guarantee President Obama will be re-elected. At 69, Pelosi stands a good chance of facing a death panel before she leads a majority of this size again.
Besides, her seat is in no jeopardy. She comes from a safe ultraliberal district. The same is true of the Democratic committee chairmen, who had to be able to win re-election even in lean years like 1994. According to Wikipedia, no member of the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus has lost re-election in a general election (Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia lost a primary to another CPC member).
So Pelosi will probably still be speaker a year from now, even if her caucus is diminished. In the worst-case scenario, she’ll be minority leader, with hopes of returning to the speakership on the strength of President Obama’s re-election coattails. This is a small price to pay for the privilege of seizing control of Americans’ health care.
When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded: “Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life.”
His, her — in Pelosi’s home district of San Francisco, they’re pretty flexible about that stuff.
Meanwhile, on the floor of Congress today, Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has video of a haggard looking Charlie Rangel (D-NY) saying “he won’t answer Rep. John Boehner’s question because he doesn’t want to violate House Ethics laws.”
While Washington DC retreats to its failed Big Government ways of the 1930s through the 1970s, the business world continues to demassify how it attracts and services customers. In the mail today: No Size Fits All: From Mass Marketing to Mass Handselling, the new book co-written by Tom Hayes, and Michael Malone. The latter should be familiar to Pajamas readers because of the “Edgelings” tech blog he co-writes for, and his awesome roundup of another mass industry’s Epic Fail in the fall of 2008.
Shortly after I moved to Silicon Valley in 1997, I remember seeing billboards encouraging high-tech workers to move from warm sunny Northern California…to cold, blustery Minnesota. As HR Magazine noted in 1999, it was one of several state-run campaigns at the time:
Nebraska, for example, discovered that its former residents were fleeing to warmer climates in Texas, Florida and Arizona, with the greatest percentage settling in California. It made sense, then, for Nebraska Works, a workforce development initiative created by the department of economic development (nebworks.ded.state.ne.us), to hold a career fair in California.
However, campaign creators didn’t think it made sense for them to compete with California’s high-tech Silicon Valley image. Instead, they played up the lifestyle available to workers if they moved to Nebraska.
“Californians are amazed at our state’s housing costs,” says Patty Wood, workforce development supervisor for Nebraska in Lincoln. “We also have the best student-to-teacher ratio in the country, a low crime rate, less traffic, small communities and a slower pace.” She says the state hopes these attributes will attract former Nebraskans and workers looking for a lifestyle change.
It seems to be working. Last fall, Nebraska Works ran stadium ads during an important college football game that draws a lot of out-of-state fans. Approximately 14,000 users visited the web site set up for the campaign and nearly 800 people requested job applications and Nebraska living packets.
Wood’s department also piggybacked onto Nebraska’s nationwide “Genuine Nebraska” tourism campaign by creating links from the tourism web page to “Work, Play and Stay” pages that itemize Nebraska’s cost of living and quality of life. In the future, Nebraska Works would like to target military personnel affected by base closures, as well as to continue its job fairs and targeted advertising.
“We’d also like to create workshops on ‘best practices’ in recruitment and retention to deliver [to employers] across the state,” says Wood. “These workshops should be ready by the fall of 1999 or early in 2000. Retention is a huge part of this, not just recruitment.”
Minnesota’s campaign, “Come Home to Minnesota,” also targets former residents, particularly among professional and technical job seekers. “Our ‘Minnesota Living’ brochure, which describes the quality of life, education, outdoor and recreational opportunities and the like, should trigger memories from former residents,” says Gary Fields, deputy commissioner of the state’s department of trade and economic development in St. Paul.
Evidently, it was a success, as Minnesota’s broadband is now straining under the weight of it use:
Internet speeds in more than four-fifths of Minnesota are too slow to support technologies that could draw new jobs, take cars off the roads and bring new services to people in their homes, a new report said Friday.
The Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force is calling for minimum Internet speeds of 10 megabits per second for the entire state by 2015, setting a standard 15 times faster than the current federal definition of broadband.
By that measure, 83 percent of the state needs an upgrade.
The group’s report describes broadband as “an economic and social necessity for all citizens of the state no matter where they are located.” It says faster Internet could enable everything from more telecommuting for workers to telemedicine linking patients and doctors through two-way high-definition video.
“It’s an important economic tool as we try to attract and retain the best companies here so we can have good jobs,” said Rick King, chief technology officer at Thomson Reuters Legal and the task force’s chairman.
King presented the report during a hearing before two legislative panels, where lawmakers said slow Internet service is a drag on the state’s economy. They hope Minnesota will compete successfully for federal stimulus grants to expand broadband in rural areas.
“It’s time to start thinking of broadband as a baseline utility accessible to every Minnesota home and business,” said Sen. John Doll, a Democrat from Burnsville.
At a press conference this morning with House Republican Leaders, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Ranking Republican Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) employed a colorful metaphor in his effort to describe the vast new government bureaucracy that will be established if Speaker Pelosi’s $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care becomes law. Video and remarks follow:
We developed this chart based on Nancy Pelosi’s new health care plan….The new chart shows more than 90 of these new mandates, commissions and agencies. The true number is well over 100, we simply ran out of space.
In terms of sheer bureaucracy, if the IRS and Medicare had a baby, it would look like this. And the question is how is that going to make our health care more affordable?
From PJTV’s Poliwood, Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon and fellow Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd debate the controversial statements from Rocco Landesman, National Endowment for the Arts chairman conflating the writings of President Obama with…Julius Caesar?!
Also, note that the interview with Burns was heavily edited for time; click here for the full length 18-minute “Director’s Cut” edition of the interview, and video of Burns’ recent appearance on Reason.tv.
A Newsweek.com article on Tuesday celebrated historic speeches by U.S. Presidents at the Berlin Wall, somehow ignoring the fact that Barack Obama has decided not to go to Germany to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism. At the same time, the piece, by Anita Kirpalani, pretended that President Obama has made such a trip.
The article, entitled, “Ich Bin Ein Speechmaker: Historic speeches by visiting American presidents have left an outsize footprint on Berlin,” listed visits by John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama’s entry insisted, “President: Barack Obama- Date: July 24, 2008.” This was prior to his election and was only in the city of Berlin, not at the wall. The article notes these facts, but why list him as President when he wasn’t? The rest of the piece is vague on this point.
Kirpalani began, “Five American presidents delivered addresses at the Berlin Wall and, 20 years after its fall, the city is still considered a prime venue for American presidents to deliver important speeches.” No mention is made of the President’s decision to snub German President Angela Merkel and not attend the upcoming 20th anniversary ceremonies.
Further, Kirpalani asserted, “…[Obama’s] plea for the fall of all walls echoed every earlier presidential speech, and the crowd of 200,000 was more than four times the number that attended Reagan’s 1987 speech.”
However, in a November 3 column, National Review editor Rich Lowry pointed out:
Obama famously made a speech in Berlin during last year’s campaign, but at an event devoted to celebrating himself as the apotheosis of world hopefulness. He said of 1989, “a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”
The line was typical Obama verbal soufflé, soaring but vulnerable to collapse upon the slightest jostling from logic or historical fact. The wall came down only after the free world resolutely stood against the Communist bloc. Rather than a warm-and-fuzzy exercise in global understanding, the Cold War was another iteration of the 20th century’s long war between totalitarianism and Western liberalism. The West prevailed on the back of American strength.
President: Barack Obama
Date: July 24, 2008
Obama hadn’t even been elected when he went to Berlin during his 2008 campaign. For that reason, the Germans did not allow him to speak at the Brandenburg Gate—they reserve it for presidential speeches. But his plea for the fall of all walls echoed every earlier presidential speech, and the crowd of 200,000 was more than four times the number that attended Reagan’s 1987 speech.
In a 20th anniversary piece on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the very least Newsweek could do is acknowledge the bewildering decision by Obama to turn down an invitation to Germany.
Hey, it may not be that bewildering, given the number of overt Marxists in Obama’s immediate orbit. But in any case, Newsweek’s article also brings into question a piece they ran a month ago, when they asked “Was Russia Better Off Red?” If you’re a publication longing for the days of the Soviet Union, it’s more than a little hypocritical to praise American efforts to liberate East Germany from its oppression.
As I noted back then, Newsweek’s piece ran right around the same time that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times was insisting that communist China was a better governing model than American democracy. But then, this is a surprisingly long tradition for American media, as a new report by Newsbusters’ parent organization, the Media Research Center highlights. Titled “Better Off Red?” It looks back at over two decades of the American media swooning over the Soviet Union, both before and after its fall, communist China, and communist Cuba.
Firefighters and police responded to a reported shooting Friday at a high-rise building in Orlando, Florida.
Authorities received a report shortly before noon of a shooting on an upper floor of the office building, said John Tormos of the Orlando Fire Department.
CNN affiliate WESH reported that at least eight people were shot at the Gateway Center — a 16-story building.
Police cars and emergency vehicles surrounded the area, video showed. It also showed people fleeing.
Note on the side of the story: “CNN affiliate WESH reports that at least eight people were shot.”
People are streaming out of an office building in downtown Orlando, Fla., where officials say a shooter is on the loose.
Orange County Sheriff’s Spokesman Jim Solomons says his department is backing up Orlando police and they’re still looking for an armed man wearing a light blue polo shirt and jeans.
The Legions Place office building in downtown Orlando was ordered on lockdown Friday afternoon as officers began a floor-by-floor evacuation.
Orlando Police Sgt. Barbara Jones confirms there has been a shooting but can’t say how many people are hurt.
The Orlando Fire Department tells WESH-TV that at least eight people are injured. Interstate 4 is closed in both directions through downtown and a nearby school is locked down.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Police in Orlando say they have surrounded a Florida high-rise after gun shots were fired.
The Legions Place office building in downtown Orlando was ordered on lockdown Friday afternoon as officers began a floor-by-floor evacuation.
Orlando Police Sgt. Barbara Jones confirms there has been a shooting but could not say how many people, if any, were hurt.
Orlando Fire Department spokeswoman Vicky Robles tells WESH 2 a shooter has not been taken into custody.
No word yet motive, but the fact that at least three gunmen are involved already has Shuster and Miklaszewski mentioning similarities to the Fort Dix Six plot on MSNBC. Seven dead, 12 wounded so far. Supposedly two of the gunmen are still at large and one has fired shots at the SWAT team on the scene.
At least seven people are dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, the base’s public affairs office told NBC News on Thursday.
The official would not give his name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN, which said the person had opened fire on the SWAT team at the base.
KCEN reported that a policeman was among those shot.
KCEN in Waco reported that the second suspect may be holed up in a building on the post.
An Army spokesman at the Pentagon says the shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Fort Hood, the AP said.
The spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Banks, says two shooters were apparently involved. There is no word yet on who they were, nor on identities of the dead, according to the AP.
Banks says the second incident took place at a theater on the sprawling base, the AP said.
He says it is too soon to tell whether there is any link to battle stress or repeated deployments. The Army is suffering a record high suicide rate and other signs of stress from fighting two wars, the AP said.
Greg Schannep, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Carter, told Statesman.com he was on the Army post to attend a graduation service. He said that as he neared the entrance of a building where the service was being held, a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.
Schannep said the shootings appeared to have occurred in a complex near a theater where the service was scheduled. He was with the injured soldier, who he said appeared to have been struck in the shoulder but did not have life-threatening injuries.
At 2:18 p.m., all workers at Fort Hood received this email alert from the post headquarters:
“Fort Hood is locked down. Units are advised to do 100 percent accountability. This is not a drill.”
Todd Martin, assistant for communications at the Killeen school district, said the district has seven elementary schools and two middle schools on the post itself.
“Those have been locked down since this began,” Martin said. The other schools in the district outside the post have not been locked down, he said.
The district serves Killeen, Fort Hood, Harker Heights and Nolanville.
The elementary campuses, which typically releases between 2:45 and 3:15 p.m. had a two-hour early release day scheduled for today, so some students already had gone home. District administrators did not know how many of the students from the elementary schools were still on campus.
It is unclear how long the schools will remain on lockdown or when students will be able to go home.
I’m here working at Casey Library on post, and we’re on lock down as there was a shooting rampage (that’s what people are calling it) at the SRP site at the former Sports USA down the street from us. Apparently 7 are dead and 15 injured. They’re still trying to catch all the perpetrators. Pray for the victims and their families, please. Story here.
The aforementioned Statesman has already setup a Twitter feed for breaking news. Follow them at twitter.com/FtHoodShootings.
Update: Allahpundit has added numerous updates to his post at Hot Air:
Update: One of the shooters is alive and in custody. We should have a motive soon.
Update: MSNBC TV says two shooters are in custody now.
Update: CNN now says the death toll is nine.
Update: MSNBC’s story has been updated to say that four SWAT members were wounded in the shootout with the gunmen.
Update: Am hearing via Twitter that Fort Hood’s public affairs office says the earlier reports of a third shooter were wrong and were based on a second eyewitness report of the second shooter. Which means everyone’s in custody now.
Update: Heavy suspicions of a fragging grow heavier still. From Chuck Todd’s Twitter account: “More from NBC’s Pete Williams: US official says early reports are the man in custody is in the military, late 30s, with officer rank.”
Update: Press conference being held now. 12 dead, 31 wounded. No idea of motive yet but it sounds like both shooters are military. Or rather, were: One of the shooters is dead.
Update: Okay, wait, I misunderstood: According to MSNBC, there were three shooters. One is dead, two more are in custody. Has there ever been a case of “battle stress” that involved a conspiracy by multiple people?
Update: From Chuck Todd’s Twitter feed: “The main #fthood suspect was a U.S. Army Major.”
Update: From WOAI, a San Antonio NBC affiliate: “AP: The U.S. Army says 12 people have been killed and 31 wounded.”
Update: From Jake Tapper of ABC: “Attn Texas tweeps: Scott & White Memorial Hospital says due to the recent events in #FtHood, it is in URGENT need of ALL blood types.”
Update: ABC News Radio is reporting “Ft Hood suspect name is MAJOR Malik Nadal Hasan.”
Update: This ABC article also lists suspect’s name; further details:
Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.
Gunman kills at least 7 and wounds 12 at Fort Hood.
The suspected gunman was identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, Lt. Robert W. Cone said.
The gunman used two handguns, Cone said. He wasn’t sure if the shooter reloaded the weapons during the attack.
The general called the attack “a terrible tragedy, stunning.” He said the community was “absolutely devastated.”
The extent of the injuries of victims “varies significantly,” according to Cone.
President Obama called the Fort Hood shootings a “horrific outburst of violence.”
“It if difficult enough to lose” soldiers overseas, but said it is “horrifying that they should lose their lives at an Army base in the U.S.,” he said.
The president said “my prayers are with the wounded and the families of the fallen.”
Cone said the motive for the attack, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. CT, is unclear.
Fort Hood, located just 60 miles north from Austin, is the largest U.S. military installation in the world, and has suffered the greatest number of caualities of all American bases in the war on Iraq.
Update: According to the Anchoress, “CBS says Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Hasan was licensed psychiatrist from Maryland.”
Meanwhile, Hot Airadds, “Kay Bailey Hutchison apparently has info that Hasan was upset about being deployed to Iraq. Which, without further specifics as to why, doesn’t tell us much given the possible motives in play here.”
Update: ABC notes that “shooter was shot by civilian law enforcement.”
Update: There’s a page at Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress that notes:
Nidal Hasan, M.D., M.P.H.
Fellow, Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry
F.Edward Hebert School of Medicine
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Biography pending.
That’s also the photo of the alleged suspect that Matt Drudge is running with.
Update: Here’s that Army Times report, which was being swamped by a Drudge-lanche earlier:
An Army psychiatrist was identified Thursday as one of the gunmen in a shooting rampage on Fort Hood, Texas, that left at least 12 people dead and up to 31 wounded.
One soldier, a suspect, was killed and two soldiers were taken into custody, according to base spokesman Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, who added that the three suspects were soldiers.
A Pentagon source identified the shooter as Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan; the source said Hasan was a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to work with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood. He was killed at the scene.
The Fort Hood Web site posted an alert that said, “Effective immediately, Fort Hood is closed.” The Web site said units at the base have been ordered to account for all personnel.
The site said, “This is not a drill. It is an emergency situation.”
Fort Hood was “asking for EMTs because it’s a mass casualty event,” said Hilary Shine, spokeswoman for the City of Killeen, where Fort Hood is located. “They are having issues getting on and off post because they’ve locked it down. Right now there are a lot of questions and confusion.”
Fort Hood is set up like its own city with its own fire, police and medical facilities, Shine said. It has not asked for Killeen police to assist, but the police are on call if needed, she said.
Fort Hood is halfway between Austin and Waco, Texas.
FBI agents are traveling to Fort Hood to assess the crime and work with the Army Criminal Investigation Division, which is the lead agency, said Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack, a spokesman for the FBI.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he told President Barack Obama about the shootings and the staff is trying to get details.
“I told him what we knew,” Gibbs said, adding that he awaited an update himself.
Update: The Galveston County Daily News has some further details of the attack. Note item at end of the passage excerpted below:
Tom Hunt, himself a former Army sergeant who was stationed at Fort Hood, said his son called about an hour after the shooting to tell him he was safe.
John Hunt, 27, serving with the 510th Combat Engineers, was with his platoon at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center where soldiers who are about to be deployed undergo medical screening. He was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in January.
But because John had broken his foot several weeks ago, he was sent outside and told to get some extra paperwork that would clear him for deployment. John was waiting in the parking lot of the center when the shooting started, his father said.
“Everybody started running and shouting, and he saw the wounded come out,” Tom Hunt said. “He didn’t hear the shooting, but he said it was ‘a bloody mess.’”
Hunt said his son told him he loaded up many of the wounded and drove them to the hospital. The wounded relayed what they saw inside when the shooting happened.
“They were telling him that one guy was shouting something in Arabic while he was shooting,” Tom Hunt said. “He couldn’t say much more than that.”
Update: Shepard Smith of Fox News interviews a former colleague of Hasan at the psych ward at Fort Hood who claims Hasan made statements along the lines of “Maybe the Muslims could stand up and fight against the aggressor”, as the person who uploaded the clip to YouTube notes:
Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood,Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.The officials say the postings appeared to have been made by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was killed during the shooting incident that left least 11 others dead and 31 wounded. The officials say they are still trying to confirm that he was the author. They say an official investigation was not opened.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.
Meanwhile, Allahpundit at Hot Air links to another video of Shepard Smith on Fox News:
Update: The two suspects detained earlier were released, but according to Rep. John Carter, another one has just hauled in.
Update: Here’s another Shep interview that people are buzzing out, this one with Hasan’s cousin. The cousin says Hasan decided after 9/11 that he didn’t want to deploy overseas, that he heard horrific stories from returning soldiers, and that he was harassed by other soldiers.
Update: “Wretchard”, our fellow PJ Express blogger at the Belmont Club asks, “When is religion indistinguishable from politics? When is politics indistinguishable from religion?”
Update: Huh: A Las Vegas CBS affiliate is reporting “Suspect not dead in Fort Hood shooting”; apparently news via press conference by Lt. General Cone. Mary Katharine Ham quotes Cone as saying:
“There was a confusion at the hospital” about Hasan’s death. CID officer with him since apprehension.
Ace adds, “Now they are saying it’s a single shooter, Hasan, and he is in the hospital”, adding, “The officer who shot him was thought to be dead but she’s alive and out of surgery.”
An Army psychiatrist opened fire Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding 31 others, military officials said.
The gunman, identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was wounded multiple times at the scene but was captured alive and was in stable condition, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, commanding general of the Army’s III Corps, said at a press conference late Thursday.
Eleven of the victims died at the scene, military officials said. A 12th died later at a hospital, NBC station KCEN-TV of Waco reported. Cone said that most of those shots were military but two were civilians.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, has not been killed and is in stable condition at a hospital, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said at a press conference at Fort Hood.
He is in custody at an undisclosed hospital, Cone said.
Three soldiers taken into custody after the shootings were released, he said. Investigators believe Hasan acted alone.
“Evidence does not suggest this was a terrorist event,” Cone said.
The death toll from the attack remains 12 after another victim died, Cone said.
Update: Patterico notes that the MSM is working overtime to pound this story into a prescribed narrative — when it’s not airbrushing out inconvenientdetails about the alleged suspect, of course.
Assume you’re an eager beaver reporter who’s as anti-war as the next fellow in the newsroom. How do you frame a story about a murderous lunatic who’s never been deployed overseas to serve your agenda? Why, this way of course: “Fort Hood has felt strain of repeated deployments”.
Hasan attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and was “very devout,” according to Faizul Khan, a former imam at the center. Khan said Hasan attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues.Khan also said Hasan applied to an annual matrimonial seminar that matches Muslims looking for spouses. “I don’t think he ever had a match, because he had too many conditions,” Khan said.
“We never got into details of worldly affairs or politics,” the former imam said of his conversations with Hasan. “Mostly religious questions. But there was nothing extremist in his questions. He never showed any frustration. . . . He never showed any . . . wish for vengeance on anybody.”
A co-worker at Walter Reed said Hasan would not allow his photo to be taken with female co-workers, which became an issue during Christmas season when employees often took group photos. Co-workers would find a solo photo of Hasan and post it on the bulletin board without his permission.
Lee told Fox News that Hasan “was hoping that President Obama would pull troops out. . . . When things weren’t going that way, he became more agitated, more frustrated with the conflicts over there . . . he made his views well known about how he felt about the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
And when he talked about fighting “the aggressor,” his fellow soldiers “should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” Lee said.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told reporters after a briefing on the shootings that Hasan was born in Virginia to parents who immigrated from Jordan. The congressman said that Hasan “took a lot of advanced training in shooting.”
On Twitter, Michael Patrick Leahy of the TCOT Reportnotes, “Fox News reports Major Hasan handed out Koran to neighbors this morning. Brother says he was always Muslim.”
A source tells NPR’s Joseph Shapiro that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues, according to the source, who worked with him at the time.
Update: Tim Blair has a quote from Waco ABC affiliate KXXV which dovetails with what Michael Patrick Leahy mentioned on Twitter a few updates ago:
“News Channel 25’s Henry Rosoff is reporting Nidal Malik Hasan’s neighbors who say Hasan was giving away all of his furniture and copies of the Qu’ ran Thursday morning. They also say he was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan in the coming days.”
Update (11:29 PM PST): I believe this mammoth post has run its course for the night. Barring any major developments during the rest of the evening, watch for additional updates on this topic to appear elsewhere on the blog proper.
John Stossel has a nifty capsule summary of how his career in the legacy media morphed once he became a champion of free markets, instead of collectivism:
As a local TV reporter, I could find plenty of crooks. But once I got to the national stage — “20/20″ and “Good Morning America” — it was hard to find comparable national scams. There were some: Enron, Bernie Madoff, etc. But they are rare. In a $14 trillion economy, you’d think there’d be more. But there aren’t.
I figured out why: Market forces, even when hampered by government, keep scammers in check. Reputation matters. Word gets out. Good companies thrive, and bad ones atrophy. Regulation barely deters the cheaters, but competition does.
It made me want to learn more about free markets. I subscribed to Reason magazine and read Cato Institute research papers. Then Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Aaron Wildavsky.
My reporting changed. I started taking skeptical looks at government — especially regulation. I did an ABC TV special, “Are We Scaring You to Death?” that said we TV reporters often make hysterical claims about chemicals, pollution and other relatively minor risks. Its good ratings — 16 million viewers — surprised my colleagues.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so popular with them.
I stopped winning Emmys.
I was invited on CNN’s media program, “Reliable Sources,” to be interviewed by The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and an indignant Bernard Kalb. They titled the segment, “Objectivity and Journalism: Does John Stossel Practice Either?” It was in big letters over my head.
Apparently, I had broken the rules.
On the air they told me that I was no longer objective. I was too stunned to defend myself effectively. I said something like: “I’ve always had a point of view. How come you had no trouble with that when I criticized business?”
In hindsight, I wish I’d said: “Look at the title on the wall, you hypocrites! It shows you have a point of view, too. Many reporters do. You just don’t like my arguments now that I no longer hew to your statist line. So you want to shut me up.”
But I didn’t.
So I’ll say it now: Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view.
So why am I the one called biased?
I like what “Americans for Prosperity” defends. I’m an American, and I’m for prosperity. What creates prosperity is free and competitive markets. That means limited government.
And I will speak about that every chance I get.
Now there’s an attitude that won’t fly with most of the anchormen at today’s CNN.
Here’s a new one: the Washington Post describes how the newly-minted governor of Virginia survived the paper’s smear campaign against him. Ken Shepherd of Newsbusters says it reminds him of Anchorman, though perhaps with less blow-dried hair:
“From deep down in my stomach, with every inch of me, I pure, straight hate you. But g*d***it, do I respect you!” seethes rival TV station anchor Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn) to Burgundy (Will Ferrell).
The Washington Post hatefully threw all it had at making the “thesis issue” a career killer for McDonnell, who went on to win 54 percent of the women’s vote in Tuesday election. But looking back, Post staffer Amy Gardner gave readers a look into how the McDonnell campaign hunkered down, stuck with a disciplined message, and thwarted the paper’s scheme to “macaca” McDonnell:
Of course, as Shepherd’s reference to “macaca” highlights, liberal journalists’ attacks on conservative politicians are considered merely par for the course in DC. Bill Clinton was quoted by the Post, coincidentally or not, at the height of their macaca phase, “There is an expectation among Democrats that establishment old media organizations are de facto allies — and will rebut political accusations and serve as referees on new-media excesses.”
As the election results were coming in last night for the New Jersey gubernatorial race, I was as surprised as Fausta Wertz that the following scenario didn’t occur:
Most of us who have lived in New Jersey for decades, however, expected the unions to turn out en masse to outmuscle and outnumber other voters in favor of Corzine. After all, the state is the largest employer in New Jersey, and that’s what unions do, sometimes not very subtly. Union leaders have been known to brag about it:
“We call it knock and drag,” said Jim Williams, general president and director of organizing of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, with about 3,500 members in New Jersey. “We knock on the door and drag ‘em out to vote.”
Corzine also greatly outspent (from his own pockets) his challengers; he outspent Christie 3:1 and Daggett by nearly 12:1.
The state Democrats had the full support of the Obama campaign staff, but it didn’t stop there. President Obama visited the state four times and was in New Jersey campaigning at five events last Sunday, telling voters to get their cousins out to vote for Corzine:
“You’re going to need to get Cousin Pookie off the couch and say ‘Pookie, it’s time to go vote,’” Mr. Obama said. “You’ve all got a Cousin Pookie. You know whom I’m talking about.”
I suppose — but it still seems rather unpresidential to use as silly a word as “Pookie.” Imagine the drubbing the President Bush would have gotten from such an anecdote.
“A story from my old stomping grounds of Chicago. Years ago, during the original Mayor Daley’s tenure, I heard of a precinct captain who, after the polls closed, realized that no one had voted for the Republican candidate for mayor. He came to the conclusion that no one would believe it. So, to avoid charges of voter fraud, he went in and pulled the lever for the Republican a dozen or so times.”
As Jay adds, “Don’t know if it’s true, but it sort of rings true.”
As long as social issues dominate the Republican Party, they will continue losing their north–I had a lot of relatives who at least considered voting for Obama. Ironically, I wonder if the tea parties won’t help bring the two wings of the Republican party together: guns and lower government spending are the two things all members can agree on. But if the south wants to keep its northern Republicans–and the congressional seats that come with them–it’s going to have to back off trying to make the northern party look like a miniature version of itself.
From the 1996 election up through and including 2008., affluent counties in the East, Midwest and West have trended Democratic, largely through distaste for the religious and cultural conservatives whom voters there have seen (not without reason) as dominant in the Republican party. Now, with the specter of higher tax rates and a vastly expanded public sector, they may be—possibly—headed in the other direction. An interesting trend to watch.
Christie certainly called himself a conservative in a historically very blue state, and won dramatically in the process.
Bob McDonnell won big tonight in the Virginia gubernatorial race, as did the entire Virginia Republican party. The implications of the race will be sorted out soon enough. But one big loser is the Washington Post which may unwittingly have helped the Republican, despite their best efforts to put his opponent over the top.
On the last weekend in August the Post ran the first of dozens of stories about McDonnell’s 1989 masters’ thesis, in which he wrote, among other things, that working women were detrimental to families and that government should favor traditional marriage over gay unions. While they didn’t know the exact target, the McDonnell camp was expecting, as one top adviser put it, a “hatchet job” from the Post. A top campaign strategist says, “We always knew we’d have to fend off some attack from the Post, probably on a social issue. But in all candor we didn’t expect the thesis. It was a 20 year old paper.”
The Post was off and running, harping on the story for weeks. It was, some conservatives feared, a replay of the infamous “macaca moment” (a more successful Post election obsession) which helped sink George Allen’s 2006 Senate campaign.
The McDonnell camp quickly made some critical tactical decisions. First, the Monday after the story broke McDonnell held a 90-minute media call to explain his views, and answer all questions. Second, rather than respond to every potential allegation they focused on the most potent one–that McDonnell was hostile to working women. His TV ads focused heavily on this issue, featuring testimonials by his daughters and women who had worked for him.
Larry J. Sabato explains that “the thesis story actually helped Deeds at first. For nearly a month the contents of McDonnell’s thesis closed the gap to a near-tie.” But then Deeds went, as one party insider says, “bonkers” over the issue, badly overplaying his hand. McDonnell communications director Tucker Martin says, “It was like someone threw a tennis ball over the fence and we all watched the Labrador Retriever race after it, leaving the whole yard to us.” Deeds rolled out TV ads and a Twitter feed devoted to the thesis and even organized book clubs to conduct “readings” of the thesis.
One McDonnell adviser says that it took a “lot of discipline” both to narrow the focus and to continue to stick to his positive, issue-oriented message. One day no fewer than 11 Post editors and reporters peppered the campaign with thesis queries.
Fortunately, as Jennifer writes, “The Post may have learned the hard way that voters are not so easily distracted. And Republicans, if they are smart, will plan ahead for the moment in their races when the mainstream media come after them.”
Admittedly, that’s a pretty shaky source, but still, they’re actually right about this one. At Newbusters, Ken Shepherd writes:
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 1,000 times: the New York 23rd Congressional District (NY-23) has had a Republican incumbent since the 1870s. It’s a helpful talking point for mainstream media types bent on portraying the Hoffman loss in the district last night as evidence of how the Republican mainstream has moved away from conservatism.
The only trouble with the talking point is it is patently false and the New York Times can prove it. (h/t EyeBlast.tv’s Stephen Gutowski)
From the 1990 obituary for one Samuel Stratton:
He was the third-most senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee when he announced in 1988 that his failing health prevented him from running for a 16th term.
He was first elected to the House in 1958, becoming the only Democrat in 42 years to be sent to Congress from what was then the 32d Congressional District in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area.
Despite several redistrictings in a predominantly Republican area, he was returned to Congress with ease every two years and became dean of the New York delegation in January 1979. At his retirement, Mr. Stratton represented the 23d District.
Stratton retired in 1989 and was replaced by another Democrat, Michael McNulty, who held the seat from 1989-1992. Pursuant to redistricting, McNulty ran for and won election as the representative from New York’s 21st district in 1992. Liberal Republican Sherwood Boehlert ran for and won election to NY-23 in 1992 and was succeeded by moderate John McHugh (R) after Boehlert was redistricted to the 24th district in 2002.
It appears this is one case where the mainstream media are wrong and Wikipedia is right.
And speaking of NY-23, the Democrats’ victory there has paid one dividend already — it caused NBC’s Andrea Mitchell to drop the mask once again: “David Axelrod — well, we loved you in the HBO documentary, and umm, uhh, we’ll always have the New York-23rd.”
From PJTV’s 
