CBS News says: 5 Arab Men Detained After Flight Lands.

The later CNN story explains: Men detained 3 hours for school materials.

FBI: Israeli, four Angolans on airliner posed no threat
…
Five airline passengers speaking in foreign languages and carrying “aircraft flight materials” were briefly detained Saturday until authorities determined they were simply returning to their home countries after attending a U.S. helicopter training school.

Educated Angolans speak Portuguese, tend to be Catholic, and are definitely not Arabs. As for the Israeli…

Glenn Greenwald reports that the Shrubbery is thinking of appointing General Michael V. Hayden, Negroponte’s deputy, to be the next Director of Central Intelligence.

[It just occurred to me that this is another “Harriet Meirs” appointment – the next name the Shrubbery heard when told of the vacancy.]

Billmon’s article, Rumsfeld Über Alles, talks about the conflict between Rumsfeld and Negroponte over control of the intelligence system.

Hayden is an active duty, serving officer of the military. He may be taking orders from Negroponte at the moment, but Rumsfeld controls his rank and his pension.

The CIA and the DoD do not have a close and friendly working relationship. The CIA is not going to appreciate a serving officer as its head, and Hayden can’t act independently while he is in uniform.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. [Matthew 6:24 KJV]

Scout caught a short piece about Chertoff wanting embed reporters at natural disasters.

It won’t work. Reporters want to be where the action is, and I think Katrina made it quite clear that FEMA and Homeland Security are totally incapable of finding out what is going on. Without independent reporting they wouldn’t have had any idea what was really happening in New Orleans.

It took multiple media outlets and live images to convince DHS and FEMA that there were people at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Given their track record, FEMA will be lucky if anyone bothers to attend their press conferences.

Digby has a post about an active-duty Air Force major general engaged in blatant political activity using government facilities.

Major General Jack J. Catton Jr. has broken his dead father’s code of conduct. His father, General “Black Jack” Catton was commander of the 15^th Air Force when I was in the service, and he was a very “by the book” officer, as befits a product of Curtis LeMay’s Strategic Air Command.

From the Washington Post article:

Catton urged his classmates to support Bentley Rayburn, a recently retired Air Force general seeking the Republican nomination for a House seat being vacated this year by Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.). Hefley’s district around Colorado Springs includes the Air Force Academy, several military bases and the headquarters of Focus on the Family, James Dobson’s Christian broadcasting organization.

Both Catton’s e-mail and an accompanying note from Rayburn portrayed him as a candidate who would represent the military and conservative Christians.

“The lack of any Air Force presence within the Congress was particularly telling over the last few years,” Rayburn wrote, referring to controversy over proselytizing at the Air Force Academy and new Air Force regulations on religious expression. “For those of us who are Christians, there is that whole other side of the coin that recognizes that we need more Christian influence in Congress.”

First of all Congress is lousy with “Christian influence”. The whole Republican Party is beholden to the Religious Reich. You couldn’t swing a dead rat in either house of Congress without hitting someone ready to “speak in tongues”. I realize that criminal investigations are reducing their number, but there is a higher percentage of “Christians” in Congress, than in the country.

If these guys were worried about representing the Air Force, why didn’t they come up with some cash for Michael C. Francisco [Lieutenant Colonel, USAF retired] when he challenged Jeff Miller in the First Congressional District of Florida. Catton was stationed here at the time. Francisco got minimal support from retired officers, and was hurting for money.

Catton needs to be nailed to put an end to this type of misconduct.

The Florida legislative session is over and they haven’t totally destroyed the state, but not for a lack of trying.

Now we must wait for the “Special Sessions” which cost us an obscene amount of money, so they can fix the mistakes that occurred in the last minute rush.