America Supports You - the blog

ASY LIVE:

"ASY Live" is an extension of the Department of Defense America Supports You program, highlighting the support supplied by citizens and corporations nationwide to our men and women in uniform and communicating that support to our troops.

Here's why:

"Basically," said Maj. Henry Schott of the command’s plans and requirements section, "if it’s a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it’s fairly cut and dry that that’s a good source, an authorized source."

The Mike Stokely Foundation

Soldiers of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), distribute school materials donated by the Mike Stokely Foundation at a school in Mullah Fayad March 27. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Tony M. Lindback, 3rd BCT, 101st Abn. Div. (AASLT))

Re: Berkeley

The San Francisco Chronicle:

Calls renewed to fix Berkeley's citizen boards

Berkeley is finding that having its own foreign policy isn't cheap. The city's recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they've been slammed by related protests.

...protests on each side have cost the city about $208,000 in police overtime, city officials say.

Additional costs include city staff time to handle permits, the media, security and the thousands of e-mails that have intermittently crashed the city's computer server. In addition, businesses around the recruiting station have been hurt by the protests, and at least four hotels and a handful of restaurants have reported cancellations as a result of the boycott.

"The city is raising business fees and parking meter rates at the same time they're spending all this money on international issues and handling protests. It doesn't make sense, in these difficult economic times," said Ted Garrett, director of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. "We're very concerned about the effect this is having on business."

An Oregon Ducks football fan club and a Lafayette golf club are among the groups that have canceled junkets to Berkeley this fall, Wozniak said. A San Diego resort developer said he canceled three contracts with Berkeley suppliers and has persuaded other businesses to follow suit.

The boycotts have had no measurable effect on Berkeley's economy, which is generally healthy, said the city's economic development director, Michael Caplan.

D-nied

Jake Tapper quotes Bill Clinton on Hillary:

"I remember when we were young, right out of law school, she went down and tried to join the Army and they said 'Your eyes are so bad, nobody will take you,'" he said, after heralding her record on issues of concern to the military, such as body armor and access to health care.

I assume this is a version of the "Hillary Clinton tried to join the Marines" anecdote that then-First Lady Clinton told in 1994 that we wondered about since it's a story she never seems to have told again.

The original story was that in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1975, Hillary walked into a local Marines recruiting office. The Marine recruiter looked at her, she recalled, and asked how old she was. Twenty-seven, she said.

"He looked at me, and in those days that was before I learned how to wear contact lenses," Sen. Clinton told a crowd of women veterans in 1994. "I had these really thick glasses on. He said, ‘How bad's your eyesight?' I said, ‘It's pretty bad.' …Finally said to me, he said, 'You're too old. You can't see. And you're a woman.…But maybe the dogs would take you.'"

("Dogs" being a reference to the Army.)

I should ask Buzz Patterson if Hillary ever told him this story back in their White House days...

April Fools' - Berkeley Edition

Having a sense of humor is certainly important. I'm sure you would agree.

"In CodePink we tend to have a sense of humor," said CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin. "We tend to joke about a lot of things. It keeps us going where other anti-war groups have gone by the wayside."

What's all this about?

BERKELEY -- CodePink should be turning red.

That seems to be the consensus of many who were on the receiving end of a bogus announcement Tuesday by the radical anti-war group that the embattled U.S. Marine Corps recruiting center in Berkeley was caving to the pressure of weekly protests and leaving town.

"If you want to be taken seriously as an organization of serious protest, then you don't play jokes -- even on April Fools' Day," said Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written about the politics of language.

CodePink and other anti-war groups have been protesting the Marine recruiting center in downtown Berkeley for months, hoping to force the recruiters to leave town.

Medea Benjamin says "We've got a topsy turvey world."

"We do believe in putting out some positive ideas of what we want to see, and what better way to do it than April Fools' Day," she said.

Benjamin said she hopes the hoax will move people to action.

"We've got a topsy turvy world and if more people got out and joined us this wouldn't be an April Fools' joke. (It) would be reality," she said. "The Marines would be gone from Berkeley, the war would be over, there would be impeachment of Bush and Cheney and we'd be upholding our Constitution."

I couldn't agree more.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said the publicity stunt had people calling his office and others in the city. Although Bates initially supported giving CodePink a permit fee waiver and a free parking space at the Marine center for their weekly protests, he criticized their prank.

"I think they have hurt their credibility with this farce," he said.

Of all the stunts Code Pink has pulled, the mayor thinks this is the one which hurt their credibility?

Sheesh....

Ever seen a "pink Marine?" Check it out.