Tag: Military

From the Tim Kaine for Senate campaign: New Kaine TV Ad Features Testimonials of Virginia Veterans About Kaine's Support for Helping Veterans Get Jobs   Ad Will...

From Sen. Tim Kaine's campaign: Kaine's Commitment to Virginians' Safety and Security Takes Center Stage in New TV Ad Ad Contrasts Kaine's Support for Growing the...

by Edwin Santana I’m Edwin Santana. I was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and ran for Congress earlier this year because I hated...

I’m Edwin Santana. I was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and ran for Congress because I hated the direction our country was...

SPONSORED CONTENT Military bases can be thought of as islands from a legal standpoint. For the most part, they are in a state and tend...

Earlier today, DPVA Vice Chair for Rules Marc Broklawski posted: "If anyone knows the whereabouts of Greg Riddlemoser, Stafford County Registrar, let me know....

The following is just a small sampling of Virginia Democrats' condemnation of Donald Trump's announcement this morning that he would ban transgender people from...

This was written as my wife and I are making our first trip to Israel. It is one of a series of pieces I've been...

Denial isn't just about ignoring real-life impacts of global warming - it's also about ignoring real-life impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels. One prominent professional denier is even willing to ignore the safety of American soldiers, calling the military's efforts to cut its need for risky fuel convoys "the most foolish thing in the world."

Fuel supply convoys are a frequent target for insurgent attacks, with attacks on fuel convoys being responsible for over 3,000 American soldier or contractor deaths between 2003 and 2007 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Considering over 10,000 U.S. soldiers and contractors have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel convoy deaths make up a sizable percentage of total casualties.

The military has responded with a furious effort to cut its need for fuel convoys increase fuel efficiency and deploy clean energy. To cut its dependence on fossil fuel-powered generators and slash fuel costs, the military is developing everything from large solar tents to provide both power & shade to small, foldable solar panels that troops in the field can use to recharge their laptops and other electronic devices.

I joined CCTV's The Heat this weekend to talk about the impacts of global warming and what to do about it. Alongside me was longtime science denier Steve Milloy, who's moved from taking money from Phillip Morris and denying the link between cigarettes and cancer to taking money from Exxon and denying the link between man-made carbon pollution and global warming. Milloy dismissed the military's clean energy efforts and called for the fuel convoy status quo to continue.  

Reporting means more than just uncritically repeating a candidate's talking points and calling it a day.   It requires judging what politicians say by the only appropriate standard of journalism, the truth.

By this standard, the Washington Post's coverage of Romney's trite militaristic speech the other day fell miserably short.

First of all, can someone please tell me exactly what a "muscular" foreign policy is? Does it mean we invade other countries at will, even say, when it costs us a trillion dollars with no benefit?

Was Hitler "muscular"?  Is it a good thing to be?  I guess it must be, since its apparent opposite, a "flaccid" policy, doesn't sound too great.

"Muscular", in this context, is an utterly meaningless adjective used simply to make warmongers like Romney sound cooler and sexier. It is in short, a marketing term -- not a journalistic one.

Beyond such phony packaging, the Post story failed to challenge Romney's muscular manhandling of the facts on at least 4 key points.