Breaking News, North Korea, Clinton Vs. Obama, Afghanistan In Trouble, And Depleted Uranium (Monday's Second Hour)
Hi everyone. We kick it off this hour with BREAKING NEWS out of Salt Lake City. There's been a shooing at a mall. Initial reports say the man opened fire with a pump action shotgun and left five to six dead. That sounds horrible. I've always had this image of Salt Lake City of being...nonviolent. Also, there's three dead in a Philly shooting. People, this country has enough problems without you shooting each other.
Moving on now to John Vause live in Beijing to talk about the North Korea deal. He explains that right now they're working on stage one, which is North Korea freezing its plutonium production in exchange for energy assistance. Stage two involves giving up the nuclear arsenal, but that deal is probably going to be much more difficult to hammer out. John also tells us that the Bush Adminstration is looking at this as a win. See John Bolten? So there. Now go shave your mustache. After this we have a repeat of the John Roberts piece.
Transitioning now to a Candy Crowley piece where we analyze the knock down drag out steel cage match that is Clinton versus Obama. Buy your tickets now! Okay so the issue here is the war. Clinton voted for it and Obama was not yet in the Senate, but says he would not have voted for it. This is a plus for Obama and he's running with it. Clinton says she "takes responsibility" for her vote, but instead of actually saying it was a mistake like Edwards did, she'd rather just criticize Bush. Well who doesn't love to criticize Bush? But take a freakin stand. This wishy washiness is not winning her any friends with anti war protestors, who have been showing up at her events. Obama is taking hits himself. John Howard of Australia has basically just deemed him the terrorist candidate. Crikey! Obama's reply is that maybe Australia needs to send 20,000 more troops. Oh snap! Worry about your own politics Howard.
For political talk we're joined by David Gergen, who thinks this Clinton/Obama thing will remain civil. Aw, positive Gerg is back. John points out that Clinton actually has more support among blacks than Obama does. That's all Bill baby! And, well, also because a lot of people don't really know Obama yet. Honestly, it's over a year out. The polls are meaningless. John then brings up how a Giuliani playbook from 1993 has just ended up online. Man, that's like the second one. That guy needs to get some locks or something. So anyway, it's got all this liberal stuff in it, which probably isn't going to play well with the crazy base he's trying to court. He may as well just save his money and stop now. David says, "But I'll tell you this, John, he better not have too many more playbooks out there." Ha! It's interesting that most of the dialogue is being spent on democrats. I like it.
After this we have Gary again and then Rob Marciano comes to us from Washington D.C. Aw, red-nosed Rob! Anyway, he tells us about the craptastic weather system that half the country is getting or is about to get. I hate winter. Moving on from weather we have a Jamie McIntyre piece about an America aid worker in Afghanistan. She does not bring us good news. The Taliban is still in charge and any Afghans working with the US are killed. Basically all reconstruction projects she worked on were failures. She's extremely discouraged and quite frankly, bumming me out. And this is the place that I think we have a chance. Sigh.
Next up we have the depleted uranium (DU) piece that I saw on American Morning last week. So they are finally running it. Good. Though actually that wasn't the first time I urge them to cover DU issues. And I've only had this blog for five months. This has been seriously lacking in media attention for years. Anyway, the piece is by Greg Hunter and in it we meet some soldiers who were explosed to DU and are now sick. One guy cleaned up trucks and repeated breathed the stuff in. Now he's sick and his daughter has a birth defect. Of course their complaints are being brushed off by those in power even though one of the Pentagon's own studies states that DU can damage DNA. Oh yeah, that's safe. To make it all the more infuriating, there's actually a training video on DU, but the soldiers say they never saw it.
In part two of the piece we learn that the soldiers symptoms include painful urination, headaches, and joint pain. However, the army says it's PTSD. Right. The vets are skeptical too and they're suing. Good for them. One person in the piece claims that a large portion of Iraq is now contaminated due to all the DU dropped. The army denies it. Okay, this story needs a lot more investigation. We don't even have the Iraqi side at all. What's the birth defect rate like there? Has it increased over the past few years or since the first gulf war? Are Iraqis sick too? And what about veterans from the first conflict in the 90's? This was a great start to reporting that should have kicked off three and a half years ago, if not even sooner. After this we have more breaking news and then we're out.
So, Obama or Clinton?
Moving on now to John Vause live in Beijing to talk about the North Korea deal. He explains that right now they're working on stage one, which is North Korea freezing its plutonium production in exchange for energy assistance. Stage two involves giving up the nuclear arsenal, but that deal is probably going to be much more difficult to hammer out. John also tells us that the Bush Adminstration is looking at this as a win. See John Bolten? So there. Now go shave your mustache. After this we have a repeat of the John Roberts piece.
Transitioning now to a Candy Crowley piece where we analyze the knock down drag out steel cage match that is Clinton versus Obama. Buy your tickets now! Okay so the issue here is the war. Clinton voted for it and Obama was not yet in the Senate, but says he would not have voted for it. This is a plus for Obama and he's running with it. Clinton says she "takes responsibility" for her vote, but instead of actually saying it was a mistake like Edwards did, she'd rather just criticize Bush. Well who doesn't love to criticize Bush? But take a freakin stand. This wishy washiness is not winning her any friends with anti war protestors, who have been showing up at her events. Obama is taking hits himself. John Howard of Australia has basically just deemed him the terrorist candidate. Crikey! Obama's reply is that maybe Australia needs to send 20,000 more troops. Oh snap! Worry about your own politics Howard.
For political talk we're joined by David Gergen, who thinks this Clinton/Obama thing will remain civil. Aw, positive Gerg is back. John points out that Clinton actually has more support among blacks than Obama does. That's all Bill baby! And, well, also because a lot of people don't really know Obama yet. Honestly, it's over a year out. The polls are meaningless. John then brings up how a Giuliani playbook from 1993 has just ended up online. Man, that's like the second one. That guy needs to get some locks or something. So anyway, it's got all this liberal stuff in it, which probably isn't going to play well with the crazy base he's trying to court. He may as well just save his money and stop now. David says, "But I'll tell you this, John, he better not have too many more playbooks out there." Ha! It's interesting that most of the dialogue is being spent on democrats. I like it.
After this we have Gary again and then Rob Marciano comes to us from Washington D.C. Aw, red-nosed Rob! Anyway, he tells us about the craptastic weather system that half the country is getting or is about to get. I hate winter. Moving on from weather we have a Jamie McIntyre piece about an America aid worker in Afghanistan. She does not bring us good news. The Taliban is still in charge and any Afghans working with the US are killed. Basically all reconstruction projects she worked on were failures. She's extremely discouraged and quite frankly, bumming me out. And this is the place that I think we have a chance. Sigh.
Next up we have the depleted uranium (DU) piece that I saw on American Morning last week. So they are finally running it. Good. Though actually that wasn't the first time I urge them to cover DU issues. And I've only had this blog for five months. This has been seriously lacking in media attention for years. Anyway, the piece is by Greg Hunter and in it we meet some soldiers who were explosed to DU and are now sick. One guy cleaned up trucks and repeated breathed the stuff in. Now he's sick and his daughter has a birth defect. Of course their complaints are being brushed off by those in power even though one of the Pentagon's own studies states that DU can damage DNA. Oh yeah, that's safe. To make it all the more infuriating, there's actually a training video on DU, but the soldiers say they never saw it.
In part two of the piece we learn that the soldiers symptoms include painful urination, headaches, and joint pain. However, the army says it's PTSD. Right. The vets are skeptical too and they're suing. Good for them. One person in the piece claims that a large portion of Iraq is now contaminated due to all the DU dropped. The army denies it. Okay, this story needs a lot more investigation. We don't even have the Iraqi side at all. What's the birth defect rate like there? Has it increased over the past few years or since the first gulf war? Are Iraqis sick too? And what about veterans from the first conflict in the 90's? This was a great start to reporting that should have kicked off three and a half years ago, if not even sooner. After this we have more breaking news and then we're out.
So, Obama or Clinton?
posted by eliza at 7:56 PM
4 Comments:
Clinton.
looks like they started pushing serious issues to the second hour and have softer news in the first hour. I noticed that during the whole week. That depleted uranium report is a very importaant topic that shouldn't be at the end of the hour.
I lived in Salt Lake City for 2 years, and I can testify that for a city with over a million people (including the suburbs) it is incredibly non-violent. I have been to the mall where the shooting took place a couple of times. It is very upscale and in a safe area, but even if it was in an unsafe area of SLC, it is still SLC, so that kind of thing is unheard of. That is why it is so shocking to people here. I live in Idaho Falls now which is about 3 hours from SLC and there was a report of 2 people getting shot at Wal-mart on Sunday. There is even less volience in Idaho Falls than in Salt Lake but two people got shot trying to buy cheap groceries at Wal-mart. What is happening to this country!? But I know how lucky I am because I don't live in Baghdad, so I have absolutely no right to complain. All of this violence is just weird and unsettling . . .
@cheri-so I was right. That's scary. I guess it just goes to show that no place is safe. I live in St. Louis, so shootings aren't exactly shocking.
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