Little Luke will fix everything

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Inside Media with Luke Russert

This is actually how your media types think. David Gregory is “left leaning,” Joe Scarborough is a “political analyst,” and nepotism is the solution to everything!

NBC is bringing in Luke Russert, son of the late beloved “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, as a regular panelist on the Sunday morning show in a bid to turn around its catastrophic ratings slide, Page Six has exclusively learned.

Also joining new moderator Chuck Todd’s team will be former Republican congressman and “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, who sources say “is taking on a larger role within NBC News as a senior political analyst and would be one of the regular Sunday panelists.”

We’re told the move is part of a plan to bring a right-leaning voice to the program to appeal to viewers turned off by the show’s famously left-leaning former hosts including the ousted David Gregory.

The source added, “Chuck Todd is busily assembling the team of on-air talent that will join him on the new ‘Meet the Press.’ Joe will be a regular alongside Luke Russert, whose father famously moderated the show for 16-plus years.”

Russert, 29, is currently NBC’s congressional correspondent. Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post and a few others, including NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, are also said to be in the mix for a new panel. Todd’s much anticipated debut as moderator is this Sunday.

Oops!

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

George Washington Bridge, NYC [OC] [2448x2448]

I’m sure it was just a big old misunderstanding, and not political payback. Because that would be wrong, and cops never break the law:

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Police officers on the George Washington Bridge last September during lane closures apparently ordered by Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s aides as political payback said they warned superiors about the hazardous conditions created and were told not to talk about it on their radios, according to a summary provided by their lawyer to a legislative panel investigating the scandal.

Attorney Dan Bibb, who works for the union representing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officers, relayed information from 11 officers, including at least three who said they were told about the traffic change by a lieutenant who ordered them not to move the traffic cones blocking the lanes. Bibb’s comments were included in a synopsis obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Bibb told the legislative panel’s investigators that one of the officers, Steve Pisciotta, used his police radio to report hazardous conditions being caused by the severe traffic and was told to “shut up” by Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish. Bibb said Pisciotta told him that Lt. Thomas Michaels and a sergeant visited him “to tell him that his radio communication had been inappropriate.”

Michaels said in an earlier interview with the investigators that the Port Authority executive who ordered the closures, David Wildstein, called him the week before and asked him what would happen if three lanes were reduced to one. But the investigators said he told them that he didn’t have any direct knowledge about why the lanes were changed and that he found out about the plan to change them the night before.

Failure in Gaza

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

GUETO
Good take on the politics behind the scenes in Israel and Gaza, and why Netanyahu never wanted a peace agreement.

Netanyahu could have chosen a different path.2 He could have used the reconciliation to reinforce Abbas’s position and further destabilize Hamas. He could, in recognition of the agreement, have encouraged Egypt to open its border with Gaza in order to demonstrate to Gazans that the Palestinian Authority offered a better life than Hamas. Instead, Israel prevented the transfer of salaries to 43,000 Hamas officials in Gaza, sending a clear message that Israel would not treat Gaza any differently under the rule of moderate technocrats from the Palestinian Authority.

The abduction of three Israeli youths in the West Bank on June 12 gave Netanyahu another opportunity to undermine the reconciliation. Or so he thought. Despite the statement by Khaled Mashal, the Hamas political bureau chief, that the Hamas political leadership did not know of the plans to carry out the abduction, Netanyahu was quick to lay the blame on Hamas, declaring that Israel had “unequivocal proof” that the organization was involved in the abduction. As yet, Israeli authorities have produced no such proof and the involvement of the Hamas leadership in the kidnapping remains unclear. While the individuals suspected of having carried out the kidnapping are associated with Hamas, some of the evidence suggests that they may have been acting on their own initiative and not under the direction of Hamas’s central leadership. Regardless of this, Netanyahu’s response, apparently driven by the ill-advised aim of undermining Palestinian reconciliation, was reckless.3

Determined to achieve by force what he failed to accomplish through diplomacy, Netanyahu not only blamed Hamas, but linked the abduction to Palestinian reconciliation, as if the two events were somehow causally related. “Sadly, this incident illustrates what we have been saying for months,” he stated, “that the alliance with Hamas has extremely grave consequences.” Israeli security forces were in possession of evidence strongly indicating the teens were dead, but withheld this information from the public until July 1, possibly in order to allow time to pursue the campaign against Hamas.

On the prime minister’s orders, IDF forces raided Hamas’s civil and welfare offices throughout the West Bank and arrested hundreds of Hamas leaders and operatives. These arrests did not help to locate the abductors or their captives. Among the arrested were fifty-eight Palestinians previously released as part of the deal to return the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been a captive of Hamas since 2006.

As part of this ill-conceived operation against Hamas, Israel also mounted air strikes on Hamas facilities in Gaza. Apparently, Hamas did not take an active part in firing rockets for more than two weeks, although it did not prevent other factions in Gaza from firing.4 Only on June 29 or 30 did Hamas restart the rocket bombardment of Israeli territory, which it had not engaged in since November 2012.5 Israel retaliated against Hamas in Gaza and a vicious cycle began. Netanyahu lost control over an escalation he had instigated. In his badly misjudged eagerness to blame Abbas and punish him for reconciling with Hamas, Netanyahu turned a vicious but local terrorist attack into a runaway crisis.

H/t Kush Arora.