Columnists

THE PUBLIC EYE: Chuck Hagel: Obama’s Hatchet Man?

By Bob Burnett
Friday February 01, 2013 - 12:42:00 PM

Even though he’s one of their own, many Republicans oppose President Obama’s Secretary of Defense nominee, former Senator Chuck Hagel. GOP leaders fear Hagel will be Obama’s hatchet man, leading the effort to shrink the defense budget.

Hagel is a Vietnam War veteran, an enlisted man who rose to the rank of sergeant as an infantry squad leader. A two-term Republican Senator, Hagel began as a hawk but his ardor for war diminished after he understood the mismanagement of the war in Iraq. In 2005, Hagel compared the Iraq conflict to the War in Vietnam.

If Hagel is confirmed he will oversee a bitter fight on the trajectory of the DOD budget. The 2012 budget was $646 billion – roughly 20 percent of the total US budget. But in 2013 sequestration would cut $55 Billion from the proposed budget. The current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said such a cut would be “a disaster for national defense.” Nonetheless, many Washington pundits doubt that there would be a dramatic impact, pointing to waste in defense spending and noting the US is winding down two wars. -more-


ECLECTIC RANT:
Osama, Where Art Thou?

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday February 01, 2013 - 12:30:00 PM

Under the prevailing narrative, Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALS at bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, at zero dark thirty, spy-jargon for "half past midnight," the time of bin Laden's death. According to this narrative, the raid was videotaped and photographs were taken. The body was then taken to the supercarrier USS Carl Vinson where traditional procedures for an Islamic burial were followed. The body was then placed in a weighted bag and slid into the sea. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: The Folly of Trying to Be Psychic

By Jack Bragen
Friday February 01, 2013 - 04:44:00 PM

The assumption that you are “psychic” teaches the mind to come up with nonsense and treat it as reality. Attributing internal feelings, thoughts and perceptions to outside forces is very un-liberating and will create more problems. While I have experienced things that I could not explain, and that seemed to come from some kind of supernatural phenomena, I know that trying to be a psychic or participate in a belief system of a psychic group will generally spell a disaster for someone trying to recover from mental illness. -more-