† Media Irrelevancy – A Self-Inflicted Wound: Writing about the fallout from Rolling Stone’s article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his PressThink blog, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen was struck, in particular by this analysis by Politico reporters Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee:

 

McChrystal, an expert on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, has long been thought to be uniquely qualified to lead in Afghanistan. But he is not known for being media savvy. Hastings, who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years, according to the magazine, is not well-known within the Defense Department. And as a freelance reporter, Hastings would be considered a bigger risk to be given unfettered access, compared with a beat reporter, who would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal’s remarks.

 

Rosen explains the implications:

 

They revealed one of political journalism’s state secrets: beat reporters have a motive to preserve key relationships, so they often don’t tell us everything they could, which makes them more reliable, more predictable, in the eyes of the powerful people they cover. …

 

Tom Ricks, a former beat reporter for the Washington Post who also covered the military, says pretty much the same thing: beat reporters have an investment in continuing the relationship so they are less risky for a powerful figure like McChrystal.

 

But then, regular readers of this blog know that this is one of the beefs The Stiletto has with the MSM.

 

† Not Your Father's (Or Your) Sex Education (second item): Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) called Superintendent Beth Singer to ask her to reconsider a new policy that makes condoms available to Provincetown public school students as young as six-years-old. The Associated Press reports that  after Patrick expressed his concern about elementary school students being covered by the policy, and about provisions that prevent a parent from exempting his or her child or being told that the child was given a condom, Singer promised she was “going to try to walk this back a bit.”

 

The Boston Globe reports that Singer then spoke with School Committee chairman Peter Grosso, who told the paper that the gist of the conversation was that “the School Committee is going to have to revisit the policy and definitely reword it so it’s self-explaining, and possibly wording it so that maybe there would be an exclusion of the real young grades.’’

 

Note the weasel words “possibly” and “maybe.” In the next breath, Grosso told The Globe that he does not support limiting condom distribution to high school students:

 

“Not at all,’’ he said. “It’d have to go lower than that, because we all know kids are sexually active before high school. I’d say we’ll keep fifth- and sixth grade’’ in the free condom program.

 

School Committee member Carrie Notaro said that while she prefers the current policy, she is willing to compromise.

 

“If parents are that upset, and we have to revise it to fifth- and sixth-graders, then that would be fine with me,’’ said Notaro, who has a preschooler and a second-grader in the elementary school.

 

Notaro said she is undecided about the parental provision, but Grosso said he will vote against giving parents a say. “If they’re going to go get a condom,’’ he said, “they’re not going to ask their parents anyway.’’ …

 

Notaro said that when the School Committee unanimously passed the policy June 8, the intent was to provide condoms to older students.

 

The possibility that younger students would request the condoms was not considered, because it was unrealistic, she said.

 

Asked what she would do if her second-grade son came home with a condom, she said: “I wouldn’t overreact. I guess I would ask him where did he get it and how did he get it.’’

 

The Stiletto guesses, no is certain, Notaro should ask why the second-grader asked for the condom and what he plans to do with it, since she already knows that thanks to her and her lame-brained colleagues on the  School Committee she already knows where and how he got it.

 

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: All those sweet deals offered by chain restaurants over the past couple of years to entice customers to part with their dwindling discretionary dollars may be here to stay , much as the industry would like to phase them out, reports The Wall Street Journal:

 

With unemployment at 9.7%, consumers may still need deals to get them to eat out. "Competitive discounting is going to go on again this year, probably more so than people thought," Oppenheimer restaurant analyst Matthew DiFrisco said.

 

That could put some restaurant chains in a bind. When the recession struck, most of them responded by offering more discounts and cutting costs, including everything from reducing waste to cutting employee hours. But as industry sales take longer than expected to bounce back, restaurants are left with fewer places to cut costs.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (ninth item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Chicago's handgun ban, the city plans to take a page from Washington, D.C.’s playbook and pile on a slew of restrictions to make it tougher to buy guns,” reports The Associated Press:

 

Prospective gun owners in D.C. now are required to take training courses that include spending one hour on a firing range and several hours in a classroom learning about gun safety. They also must pass a 20 question test based on D.C.'s firearm laws.

 

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says he's encouraged by what he sees in D.C. and vows not go down without a fight.

 

"We're not going to roll over," Daley told The Associated Press. …

 

Since the ban was lifted in D.C., just over 800 guns have been registered in city. The relatively low total comes as the district passed the slew of new requirements that also include being fingerprinted and taking ballistic tests, which could help police track bullets back to specific guns if needed.

 

"The Supreme Court tore down the wall, and D.C. built up 95 percent of it again," said Richard Gardiner, who is suing the district over the new laws on behalf of Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the original case. …

 

Washington, D.C.'s police chief, Cathy Lanier, said the city has "yet to have a case where someone was about to be the victim of a crime where someone pulled a handgun and saved themselves." However, that isn't the case in Chicago, and many say that could provide the motivation for more people to purchase guns if a ban is lifted.

 

Just as Heller was forced to sue a second time after the flurry of restrictive regulations that obviated his right to bear arms, so too will Chi-Town residents. Even if they prevail, the city council can dissuade people from opening gun shops with onerous regulations and paperwork requirements, as Washington, D.C. has. Or, Daley can do it The Chicago Way and simply pass an ordinance banning gun shops within city limits.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ): The Stiletto travels to the West Coast roughly once a month, often connecting through Phoenix, and has noticed that flights to the capital of that supposedly reviled state are always packed. So what happened to all those boycotts against AZ? Showboating pols in CA are quietly backing down or finding ways to weasel out of the business bans, reports The Christian Science Monitor:

 

[W]ith just over a month to go until the law takes effect July 28, maintaining those embargoes appears to have been tough going for most - especially in the wider economic downturn - and several have watered down their actions. …

 

“The comment ‘not so well’ looks to be fairly accurate,” says Jack Kyser, director of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, in describing how boycotts are progressing. From the beginning, Mr. Kyser says, an official boycott is much tougher than just getting the word out. It takes time and money for officials to go through rosters of suppliers and to analyze if another supplier costs more or not. …

 

Some cities have pulled back on their boycotts, claiming concern that the action hits only the businesspeople and employees involved – often Hispanic – and not the legislators who created the law. Others have gone scrambling to parse legal definitions – such as the difference between “corporate offices” and “corporate headquarters” – to rationalize which companies are subject to the intent of the boycott.

 

And many municipalities are legally obligated to source goods and services from the lowest bidder, which makes it difficult to nullify a contract and find an alternative supplier if the lowest bidder is an AZ company.

 

†  Updates To Previous Posts (Home-Grown Muslim Terrorism Discombobulates The Media): A Pakistani court has convicted five Northern VA men terrorism charges and sentenced each to 10 years in prison, reports The Washington Post:

 

The men - Umar Chaudhry, Ramy Zamzam, Ahmad A. Minni, Waqar Khan and Aman Hassan Yemer - were convicted of criminal conspiracy and funding a banned terrorist organization. The charges carry sentences of 10 and five years, respectively, but the judge ordered the terms to be served concurrently. …

 

In addition to the prison sentences, they were each fined 70,000 Pakistani rupees - about $820. …

 

The trial in Pakistan moved with unusual speed in a country where cases often drag out for years and where terrorism convictions are rare and often overturned on appeal. The trial was closed to journalists and observers.

 

An attorney for the men accused prosecutors and the judge of ignoring key evidence, and says he plans to appeal. The Pakistani government also plans to appeal, seeking to double the prison term the judge handed down.

 

This may be the first of many such foreign prosecutions of radicalized American Muslims. John Brennan, deputy White House national security adviser for homeland security, tells The Washington Times that “[d]ozens of Americans” have joined terrorist groups:

 

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been tracking down U.S. nationals and U.S. passport holders who pose security threats, like the Yemen-based al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, he said.

 

"They are concerning to us, not just because of the passport they hold, but because they understand our operational environment here, they bring with them certain skills, whether it be language skills or familiarity with potential targets, and they are very worrisome, and we are determined to take away their ability to assist with terrorist attacks," Mr. Brennan said.

 

The remarks came in response to questions about procedures used by the president to order lethal strikes on U.S. citizens who have joined al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. …

 

"If a person is a U.S. citizen, and he is on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq trying to attack our troops, he will face the full brunt of the U.S. military response," Mr. Brennan said. "If an American person or citizen is in a Yemen or in a Pakistan or in Somalia or another place, and they are trying to carry out attacks against U.S. interests, they also will face the full brunt of a U.S. response. And it can take many forms."

 

Mr. Brennan added, "To me, terrorists should not be able to hide behind their passports and their citizenship, and that includes U.S. citizens, whether they are overseas or whether they are here in the United States. What we need to do is to apply the appropriate tool and the appropriate response.”

 

Although Brennan contends that "[t]here has been a lot of continuity” in counterterrorism policies between the Obama and Bush administrations and that “sometimes there is too much made” of any distinctions, the controversies over Mirandizing terror suspects, trying KSL and his co-conspirators steps from Ground Zero and moving Gitmo detainees to a prison in IL suggest that the current crew is either too clueless or too ideologically motivated to make common-sense decisions regarding the appropriate tool and response.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Today’s Letter Is “I.” As In Ingrate.): Gen. David Petraeus told FOX News that his first order of business when he takes the reins in Afghanistan is to review the rules of engagement (RoE) put into place by Gen. Stanley McChrystal:

 

Troops on the ground and some military commanders have said the strict rules -- aimed at preventing civilian casualties - have effectively forced the troops to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.

 

The rules … are classified but generally aim to limit civilian casualties by prohibiting troops from firing unless they're shot at - or from launching bomb or artillery attacks when civilians are near the target. …

 

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales Jr., a Fox News military analyst, said there's no question Petraeus will have to make the changes.

 

"First of all, to reinforce his commitment to take care of the troops and secondly, because he realizes as does virtually everyone in Afghanistan that these rules are getting soldiers killed," he said.  …

 

The issue is likely to be front and center in Senate confirmation hearings for Petraeus next week.

 

Bill and Beverly Osborn, whose son Benjamin Osborn was killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, will no doubt be paying close attention to what Petraeus has to say about the current ROE. WNYT-TV (Channel 13-Albany, NY) reports that the Osborns believe the RoE played a role in their son’s death “by restricting use of firepower and the ability to call for backup, a strategy designed to minimize civilian casualties”:

 

"They were ambushed they were under attack and they couldn't fire until they were ordered to do so," Ben's father Bill Osborn said. …

 

"The rules of engagement have put our son at risk and everyone that's over there," Bill Osborn said.

 

"They are laughing at us. The Taliban is laughing at us," said Beverly Osborn.

 

The Osborns don’t think President Barack Hussein Obama has what it takes to be an effective Commander in Chief:

 

"I think he's the wrong man for the wrong job at the time, and I think he has things backwards I think that it's a kind of a touchy feely approach to war and it doesn't work," Bill Osborn said.

 

"We have to win the war first. The only way to do that is to have someone in charge who's a warrior, not a flower child," Beverly Osborn said.

 

Other Americans apparently feel the same way. According to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, 57 percent of U.S. voters think Hillary Clinton is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama (just  51 percent think he has what it takes to do the job).

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, Fed Up With Farmers): Comedian Stephen Colbert is joining forces with the United Farm Workers of America to issue this challenge: Come on, take our jobs. The Associated Press reports:

 

All applicants need to do is fill out an online form under the banner "I want to be a farm worker" at http://www.takeourjobs.org, and experienced field hands will train them and connect them to farms.

 

According to the Labor Department, three out of four farm workers were born abroad, and more than half are illegal immigrants.

 

Proponents of tougher immigration laws have argued that farmers have become used to cheap labor and don't want to raise wages enough to draw in other workers. …

 

Farm workers are excluded from federal overtime provisions, and small farms don't even have to pay the minimum wage. Fifteen states don't require farm labor to be covered by workers compensation laws. …

 

To highlight how unlikely the prospect of Americans lining up to pick strawberries or grapes, Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" plans to feature the "Take Our Jobs" campaign on July 8.

 

The Stiletto beat Colbert to the punch back in March when she suggested (second item) that “[c]rop mobs can help, say, NY farmers pick apples, CO sheep ranchers  herd and shear sheep (seventh item) and then they will not have to import foreign workers – legally or illegally - for seasonal farm work.” Unlike Colbert, however, The Stiletto is not joking.

 

And after farmers’ immediate labor needs are met by crop mobs, we should set about passing legislation that ensures farm workers are covered by the same wage-and-hour regulations as other workers, and are protected by the same safety, health and disability regulations. When farmers can no longer make harvesting and ranching so unappealing that they cannot attract enough American workers, there will be no need to hire illegals. And when there is no longer an economic incentive to hire illegals, there will be no incentive to hire illegals.