Have you ever read Skip Gates’ very brief memoir of growing up segregated Mineral County, W.Va.? A lot of junk will be foisted upon readers today and this weekend as editors and writers use the Martin Luther King holiday as an excuse to commit unbecoming acts journalism. Given the fact that a movie about the Civil Rights movement is in theaters and that we are still in the shadow of another failed effort at a “national discussion” on race, you can brace yourself for a torrent of treacle and overstuffed sentiment. That’s not to say that there won’t be good, important things to read and see, it’s just that you will have to look closely to find them. But if you’d like to start with a fish in your creel, read Gates’ recollection of how things were to his eyes at the time. It is sometimes bracing, sometimes warm and funny and, most importantly, seemingly honest: “Civil rights took us all by surprise. Every night we’d wait until the news to see what ‘Dr. King and dem’ were doing. It was like watching the Olympics or the World Series when somebody colored was on. In 1957, when I was in second grade, black children integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. We watched it on TV. All of us watched it. I don’t mean Mama and Daddy and Rocky. I mean all the colored people in America watched it, together, with one set of eyes.” -Fox News
WaPo: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker laid out a clear rationale for his prospective presidential candidacy and drew a sharp contrast with Hilly Rodham Clinton here Thursday night, saying the country needs new leaders with fresh ideas from outside of Washington…‘We took the power out of the hands of the big government special interests and put it in the hands of the hard-working taxpayers, and they [his opponents] didn’t like it,’ Walker said. “They were worried if we won, it would catch on. And I hope it will.” In a dinner speech to the Republican National Committee, Walker touted his record in Wisconsin and that of other Republican governors around the country as the GOP’s model for the 2016 presidential campaign. And just 24 hours before Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, was due in San Diego to make his first public remarks since declaring his serious interest in a 2016 run, Walker argued that Republicans need ‘a new, fresh leader.’” -Fox News
Daily Caller: “As Islamic terrorists launch attacks across the globe, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal plans to call on Muslim leaders to publicly condemn these ‘acts of barbarism,’ declaring: ‘Let’s be honest here, Islam has a problem. If Islam does not support what is happening in the name of Islam, then they need to stand up and stop it,’ Jindal says in prepared remarks released by his office ahead of his Monday speech in London. ‘Many Islamic leaders argue that these are the acts of a radical few.’ ‘I will warn you in advance that I’m going to say some things that are not politically correct, so brace yourselves,’ Jindal, a potential Republican candidate for president, will say at the Henry Jackson Society on Monday.”
#mediabuzz - Host Howard Kurtz will continue to have some of the best coverage of the media response to the attack by Islamist militants on Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo, but you also don’t want to miss what promises to be a spicy and smart discussion about the political press as The Daily Beast’s Jackie Kucinich and Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio will look at the negative media feedback surrounding Mitt Romney moving toward a 2016 candidacy. Watch “#mediabuzz” Sunday at 11 a.m. ET, with a second airing at 5 p.m. -Fox News
With vengeance-seeking global jihadists on the loose here and around the world, now is a good time to ask (again):
Are we ready for a nefarious terrorist attack on our train and transit lines?
Smoke and fire plagued two of the nation's major metro rail stations this week, raising justified questions about safety and preparedness. On Monday, one person died and 84 fell ill after heavy smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza Metro in Washington, D.C. Officials believe an "electrical arcing event" caused the lethal Beltway incident. A probe into the cause of the arcing -- as well as an investigation into evacuation delays that trapped hundreds of passengers -- is underway.
On Tuesday, an estimated 150 New York Fire Department personnel responded to a three-alarm fire at Penn Station that started before 2:30 a.m. Two firefighters suffered injuries battling the Big Apple blaze, which was initially deemed "suspicious" and then "accidental." Worth noting: A militant ISIS sympathizer published multiple threats on Twitter a few hours before the fire, warning that "tomorrow New York will burn" and predicting a "3:00 a.m. bomb."
Whatever the causes of these two incidents, Americans need to know whether homeland security bureaucrats are doing their jobs -- or hitting their over-worn government snooze buttons.
Jihadi rail attacks have been a domestic and worldwide threat for more than 15 years, from the 1997 NYC subway-bombing plot to New Delhi, Mumbai, Chechnya, Madrid and London. Since 9/11, there have been 1,800 worldwide terrorist attacks on surface transport systems, which have claimed 4,000 innocent lives. Jihadi mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose Gitmo classmates have been released in droves by the nObama administration, told interrogators in 2003 of al-Qaida's plot to target the D.C. metro rail system.
In 2010, Afghan-born jihadist Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to terrorism charges after plotting to bomb New York subways with devices similar to the ones used in the 2005 London rail attacks. And last year, two al-Qaida-supported terrorists were arrested after plotting to bomb and derail Canada's national train service between Toronto and New York City's Penn Station.
The U.S. General Accounting Office has issued copious rail security recommendations since at least 2004-2005. What has the Transportation Security Administration done with all those reports? Not much, as far as I can tell.
It's been nearly three years since the GAO last concluded that TSA was failing to collect and analyze rail security threat data. The audit found that oversight and enforcement of transit security measures were "inconsistent" and inspections so spotty that "three of 19 rail agencies GAO contacted were not inspected from January 2011 through June 2012, including a large (unnamed) metropolitan rail agency."
The Department of Homeland Security "accepted" the recommendations, but issued no timeframe to address the deficiencies. Capitol Hill and the White House have been far too preoccupied with legalizing millions of illegal aliens in the name of homeland security to follow up.
Meanwhile, Amtrak remains bogged down in union politics and crony business as usual. As I first reported in 2009, the nObama administration quietly gutted the nation's most highly trained post-9/11 counterterrorism rail security team, Amtrak's Office of Security Strategy and Special Operations (OSSSO).
The elite unit -- whose members came from U.S. Special Forces, counter-terrorism and other military service -- was disbanded in a power play with powerful labor leaders angered over its non-union status. Team nObama also pushed out former Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold, who played an instrumental role in creating OSSSO's predecessor at Amtrak, the Counter-Terrorism Unit. Weiderhold had blown the whistle on financial improprieties and called out the administration's interference with his watchdog probes.
Eleanor Acheson, Amtrak's general counsel and longtime crony pal of Vice President Loose Lips Joe Biden, remains in her post despite a congressional probe and the Transportation Department inspector general's conclusion that she "unlawfully interfered" with Weiderhold's investigative work. Sources tell me that Acheson's law department continues to be rife with contract favoritism, shady billing practices and partisan pocket-lining.
Rest assured: America's top rail officials are hard at work -- protecting themselves, their jobs and their bottom lines. All aboard!
