Archives for September 2014

New polls reveal close governor’s race in Massachusetts. New report claims that President Obama is not attending most of his daily intelligence briefings. Embarrassing secret service security breaches.

The devaluing of individual human lives is responsible for the past century being the bloodiest in human history and puts our civilization in peril, with both collectivists and “radical individualism” contributing to the problem, according to acclaimed filmmaker Jason Scott Jones.

Jones, best known for his gripping film, “The Stoning of Soraya M., is also the author of “The Race to Save Our Century: Five Core Principles to Promote Peace, Freedom and A Culture of Life.”

In his book, Jones posits that since the start of World War I a century ago, mankind has slipped further into a state of “subhumanism” that is increasingly indifferent to the fate of individual lives.

“Subhumanism is really the culmination of various ideologies of evil that have collided and amalgamated into this new ideology that denies the incomparable dignity, beauty and worth of the human person.  From 1914-2014, it’s been the most violent, bloody period in human history, with horrible genocide and total war,” said Jones.

Jones cites five contributing factors that he sees as stepping stones to subhumanism, including the total war concept of targeting entire populations instead of just the military, racism and nationalism and utopian collectivism.

Those concepts are seen as characteristics in the 20th century horrors of the holocaust, Josef Stalin’s USSR, communist China and the Killing Fields of Cambodia.  However, Jones also says subhumanism results from the western tendencies of “radical individualism” and “utilitarian hedonism.”

“Those two are probably the most difficult to talk about as Americans, because those are the ideologies of evil that afflict our culture,” he said.

For years, Jones considered himself libertarian in nature, but has since concluded that approach devalues life from the opposite end of the spectrum from totalitarian states.

“When we look at today in the United States, with divorce ripping our families apart, the devastation of pornography and the horrible crime of abortion, we see what happens when we deny the true dignity of the human person and deny our inter-connectivity as part of the human family, he said.

Jones says while collectivists and fierce individualists disagree on virtually everything, they hold one thing in common that is very destructive to society.

“Individualists and utopian collectivists both agree that the only two realities in society are the state and the person.  As conservatives and as Christians, we understand there are these beautiful institutions, these natural institutions in civil society, that are intermediaries between the person and the state: the family, the church, community organizations.  These are very important to a humane society,” said Jones.

However, he believes these critical institutions are under constant assault, especially from an ever-intrusive government.

“The family’s been ripped apart.  We don’t even talk about the family anymore.  We talk about the nuclear family, but, really, the nuclear family is nothing but the family decaying.  The nuclear family is just one step away from a completely broken home,” said Jones.

“The church has been pushed completely out of civil society.  The church can’t be involved in adoptions anymore.  The federal government is forcing them to get out of medicine or get involved in the abortion business,” he said.

Jones also offers six “whole-life principles” as a guide for reversing the cultural slide, starting with a renewed appreciation for each human life.

“It is reclaiming and re-asserting the idea that each and every human being, every person, has this incomparable dignity, beauty and worth, whether it’s a child with Down’s Syndrome in the womb of her mother, whether it’s an elderly person at the very end of life, whether it’s the poor, whether it’s the children who happen to be in war zones on the other side of the world,” said Jones.

He further claims that deep respect for each life stems from a transcendent moral order.  Jones says many in society get very uneasy at the notion of there being a higher law than the ones in the U.S. code but when push comes to shove we all know it’s true and history provides many examples.

“After World War II, they wanted to try these Nazis for crimes but they hadn’t broken any laws.  They, in fact, followed the laws to the ‘T’.  So the West, again, begrudgingly has to acknowledge there’s a law above the laws of man.  I think it’s important that we acknowledge that to prevent the next holocaust rather than finally, begrudgingly acknowledge it to try those who perpetrated the crimes against humanity,” said Jones.

Other principles highlighted by Jones include extolling the moral unity of the human family and developing a humane economy.  But he says the road back starts with honoring life and he says the current abortion debate actually provides a golden opportunity to do that.

“It’s obviously the greatest tragedy in the United States today when one out of three of our children are destroyed by abortion.  But it gives us a real opportunity, a milestone to aim for: full legal protection for the human person from the moment of their biological beginning.  It is the beginning, the first real milestone into a culture of life, love and beauty,” said Jones.

He also believes that fighting tirelessly for the institutions of the family and church will strengthen society and serve as a vital check against the state’s efforts to control more and more aspects of our lives.

“If we look at the 20th century, from Stalins’ Russia to Mao’s China to the Khmer Rouge, they had to decimate those intermediary institutions between the state and the person.  I think this is a crucial step in promoting a humane society,” said Jones.

“We don’t need to ask the federal government’s permission to build a strong, vibrant family, to be involved in our local community or to be involved in our church,” he said.

But how does this change happen after a century of descent into subhumanism?  Jones says it’s all about how society is engaged on the issue.

“I think being involved in the arts and education and mass media gives us the opportunity to communicate ideas pretty quickly.  We just have to be bold and proclaim them and have a sense of urgency,” said Jones.

“I wrote this book more than just to give answers but to really just create in folks the burning sense of urgency.  Things are beginning to unravel, but we do not need to despair.  We have everything we need to create a culture of life,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer a new poll showing Joni Ernst opening up a six-point lead in the Iowa Senate race.  They also rip President Obama for blaming the swift rise of ISIS on the intelligence community underestimating it.  And they rip Politico for asking a bunch of astrologers what the political future if for Chelsea Clinton’s three-day-old baby.

Eric Holder ran the most politicized Justice Department in U.S. history, did enormous damage to the rule of law that will be nearly impossible to reverse and actively worked to make voter fraud easier, according to a former DOJ official who recently authored a book on Holder’s years as attorney general.

Hans von Spakovsky served as counsel for the assistant attorney general for civil rights during the George W. Bush administration and later served two years as a member of the Federal Elections Commission.  He is now manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and co-author of “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.”

On Thursday, Holder announced he was stepping down after nearly six years on the job but will stay until the Senate confirms his replacement.  While Holder and President Obama characterized his tenure as attorney general as a time of making sure equal rights were afforded to all Americans, von Spakovsky says Holder’s true legacy is clear and troubling.

“He has politicized the department to a degree never seen before.  I think he has done a lot of damage, not just to the Justice Department but to the impartial and objective administration of justice, which is what the Justice Department is supposed to do and hasn’t been doing for the last six years,” said von Spakovsky.

In “Obama’s Enforcer,” von Spakovsky highlights a multitude of issues he sees as proof of this politicizing.  Holder controversies include allegations of refusing to enforce laws with which he disagrees, failing to aggressively investigate allegations of IRS abuse of conservative groups, coddling radical Muslim organizations and harassing reporters from Fox News Channel and the Associated Press.

There are two other flash points that von Spakovsky sees as especially troubling.  When asked which actions of Holder did the most damage to the nation, he reflexively mentioned a gun-smuggling sting gone bad that led to the murders of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexicans and Holder being held in contempt of Congress by the House of Representatives.

“I think when people die, you have to say that is the greatest damage.  That takes us back to Operation Fast and Furious.  An American border agent died directly as a result of a reckless operation that allowed guns to get into the hands of Mexican drug dealers.  Eric Holder’s directly responsible for that and that’s why he was held in contempt by the House, the first and only attorney general in history to have that happen,” said von Spakovsky.

“I think it will be a stain on his legacy.  I don’t care who you are.  You cannot explain away the death of an American and, frankly, what may be hundreds of Mexican citizens that are a direct result of a law enforcement operation conducted under Holder’s supervision,” he said.

In addition to refusing to enforce laws on the books, including the Defense of Marriage Act, Holder also actively sought to block states from implementing laws designed to prevent voter fraud, such as requiring voters to present photo identification.

Holder explained his position as one looking out for the poor and disenfranchised from measures that threaten to take Southern states and others back to the days of blatant discrimination against minorities and others.  von Spakovsky doesn’t believe that.

“He has waged a war, literally a war, on election integrity and tried to stop voter ID laws.  He keeps losing, but he has made it extremely costly for states to try to put in basic, common sense measures like voter ID.  It seems like he really wants to promote and make sure that voter fraud is easy to commit, which is a terrible legacy for an attorney general,” he said.

Voting and civil rights presented the very first controversy of Holder’s tenure, when his dropped voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, even after the group pleaded no contest to the charges.  His actions on racial issues also marked one of the final controversies of his tenure, as he weighed in on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

“It bookends, starting with the New Black Panthers.  And how do we end?  We end with him going in and saying, before an investigation has even been done, that race was at the root of what happened in Ferguson, Missouri.  That shows how he views everything through a racial prism,” said von Spakovsky.

An even bigger problem for von Spakovsky is that the work by Holder is not easily reversed.

“It’s lasting damage and extremely difficult to change it back,” he said, pouring cold water on the notion that a conservative attorney general could make things right again.

“They have basically bent and broken civil service laws and put radical left-wing lawyers and political cronies and Democratic donors into civil service positions.  As a result of that, these people will be there in the next administration, even if it’s a Republican administration.  They will continue to push the same kind of procedures and policies that Holder put them in there for in the first place,” said von Spakovsky.

How much of a return can Americans ever expect to a Justice Department that is faithful to impartial enforcement of the laws?

“The most good we can expect from a future attorney general is one who comes back in and says, ‘We are going to fairly administer justice and we’re going to do it on a non-political, non-ideological basis.’  Frankly, anyone in the department with any interest in doing it differently should resign.  If they try to engage in that kind of behavior, they’ll be terminated,” said von Spakovsky.

Possible replacements for Holder are rumored to range from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is a former DOJ official, to current Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.  Whoever it is, von Spakovsky doesn’t expect Obama to pick someone much different from Holder.

“I suspect the president’s going to want someone who continues the same kind of behavior as Eric Holder and one who will keep the lid on the way Holder has:  for example, refusing to turn over documents in Operation Fast and Furious, refusing to conduct a real criminal investigation of the IRS.  That’s exactly the kind of person I expect the president to nominate,” he said.

von Spakovsky says the Senate schedule will not allow for confirmation hearings before the midterm elections.  If Republicans win the majority, he expects Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to confirm the president’s choice in a lame duck session at the end of the year.

“So if [Holder] doesn’t resign now and they don’t get somebody confirmed in December, Holder would probably be set to stay there through the end of the president’s term,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Andrew Johnson of National Review cheer new polls showing liberals turning on President Obama.  They also react to tea party candidate Milton Wolf considering an endorsement of the “independent” candidate in the Kansas Senate race.  And they slam Chuck Todd for contending that Eric Holder is “not political at all” as attorney general.

Attorney General Eric Holder says he will resign as soon as his successor is confirmed, and Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert says Holder needed to go a long time ago for politicizing every issue from Fast and Furious to the fight against radical Islam.

Holder is one of the longest-serving attorneys general in U.S. history and has hinted at retirement several times in recent years.  His tenure is one of the most controversial in history, with Holder drawing fire on issues ranging from civil rights to the treatment of reporters and the level of cooperation with Congress to the intensity with which he investigated issues embarrassing to the Obama administration.

For most conservatives, there are no tears at Holder’s departure.

“I’ve made no bones about it.  I felt like he needed to be impeached.  He lied to Congress.  He’s just a guy that needed to be gone,” said Gohmert, a member of the House Judiciary Committee and a former judge in Texas.

“The attorney general is supposed to be the highest-ranking law enforcement officer, not the highest-ranking blocker and tackler for the president.  It seems like his whole term as attorney general he has been covering for the White House and covering for his own department,” said Gohmert, who believes Holder’s legacy will be a dubious one.

“He will have been successful in keeping facts that in some cases will lead to crimes being able to be proved that were committed.  He’s covered ’em up.  He’s kept ’em covered up.  We’ve never had an attorney general that flaunted the law this much,” he said.

While Gohmert is thrilled to see Holder leave, he is a bit suspicious about the timing.

“Because of the timing, I can’t help but wonder if this is the president’s attempt to change the subject from the horrors that Obamacare has caused to people’s health care and the dismal economy and the world falling apart because of this president’s foreign policies or lack thereof,” he said.

Gohmert says there are many issues throughout Holder’s time as attorney general that trouble him greatly.  One is his role in Operation Fast & Furious, a plan designed to smuggle guns to Mexican drug cartels with the purported purpose of tracking the guns to the cartels and helping Mexican authorities break them up.

Instead, the government lost track of the guns, which were subsequently used in the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and U.S. Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry.  Gohmert says Holder’s stonewalling of the congressional investigation is inexcusable.

“Fast and Furious should have had all the details come out years ago, but he has completely thwarted those materials coming out to the public.  He has been in contempt and is, as I speak to you, in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena for documents,” said Gohmert, referring to the June 2012 vote to make Holder the first person in his position ever held in contempt of Congress.

However, of all the issues on which he’s battled with Holder, Gohmert says one stands out from all the others.

“One that is very troubling to me is his lack of investigation and enforcement of the laws of the land as it pertains to radical Islam,” he said, asserting, among other things, that the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing could and should have been prevented.

“The FBI under his watch got a heads-up from Russia that (Tamerlan) Tsarnaev had been radicalized.  As best I can tell, they didn’t do anything but talk to Tsarnaev and talk to his mom and said, ‘Well, They say he’s not radical so we’re OK.’  If Holder’s department had done a proper job, the Boston bombing would not have had to have occurred,” said Gohmert.

While his criticism of Holder on the issue of radical Islam started with the Boston bombing, it certainly doesn’t end there.

“Rather than investigate (radical Islam), they partnered with them.  They had community outreach programs with them.  They still have those programs.  They have been responsive to CAIR’s and ISNA’s demands.  Federal courts have found that those two organizations are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam,” he said.

“[Holder]’s been helping to lead the charge to support and be sensitive to what these supporters of radical Islam want him to do.  I think that is going to reap benefits for radical Islam for the future, until we have a president that’s serious about going after them and not just bombing some empty buildings when nobody’s there,” said Gohmert.

As for Holder’s successor at the Justice Department, Gohmert says he has some very simple criteria.

“I don’t just hope.  I hope and pray that this president will appoint somebody who will help bring America together, that will be completely color-blind and religious-blind in their approach to justice, unlike this attorney general.  I hope he will appoint somebody that really cares about enforcing the law fairly across the board for everybody.  If he does that, I will think it is fantastic,” said Gohmert.

Does the congressman believe that will happen?

“I don’t know,” he said, soberly.  “That’s my hope and prayer and I’m not giving up hope on it.”

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer the impending resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder after nearly six years of partisan activism.  They also soak in the depressing statistics from a new Rutgers University study showing how poor the job market remains six years after the financial crisis.  And they groan as the talk of a 2016 Mitt Romney campaign gets much more serious.

As President Obama tries to rally the world to embrace his agenda to curb carbon emissions, Weatherbell Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi is condemning the “prostituting” of climate science by Obama and others to further what he considers a political agenda.

On Tuesday, Obama addressed the United Nations Climate Summit, saying the world needs to confront the effects of man-made climate change and that no responsible nation can sit on the sidelines while the condition of the earth hangs in the balance for future generations.  He also says the U.S. is one of the nations most responsible for the rise of carbon dioxide levels and, in turn, global temperatures.

Bastardi believes this is all a smokescreen.

“This is not about the weather.  It’s not about climate.  It’s not about science.  Those things are being used to further another agenda.  And as someone who has loved (weather) all his life, it’s really disheartening to see this going on in my country,” said Bastardi.

He believes the real purpose of the climate change movement was on display in the People’s Climate March, which took aim at Wall Street and big business earlier in the week.

“The mask came off.  It’s about destroying capitalism, destroying freedom as we know it,” said Bastardi, who earlier this week suggested climate science was ‘prostituted’ by global warming activists.

“I really believe this is an agenda-driven situation, and it’s frustrating to me.  People got mad at me because I used the word ‘prostituted’,” said Bastardi.

“Something I love is now being used for a completely different thing. If there was one positive about that climate march, if you go and look at the people marching and the signs they had up, it should be obvious that it’s not the climate they’re concerned about.  It’s the destruction of the American way of life as we were taught: the competitiveness, the capitalism, that type of thing where the individual has the chance to pull himself up.  That’s what I believe this is about,” said Bastardi.

Bastardi says a dead giveaway that the movement is a fraud can be seen in the evolving terminology of the cause.

“Why would you trust anybody that changed ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’?  If you were playing somebody in a baseball game and suddenly he decided to change it to ping pong because he was getting beat, why would you get involved with them?” asked Bastardi.

“If you look at the thirty-plus excuses now that they have for this so-called pause in warming…over two-thirds of their excuses are natural excuses.  Oh, the sun’s not doing this.  Oh, the volcano.  Oh, there’s this or that.  It’s hard to believe this whole thing is occurring,” he said.

According to Bastardi, one of the biggest reasons this political movement gained traction is because the media refuse to investigate the basis for it.

“The media is complicit in this.  They don’t even bother looking.  It’s astounding as a 59-year-old man, remembering all the things that the media uncovered and went after, how they just march along like sheep.  I don’t get it.  I really don’t,” said Bastardi.

“You have to tell the truth, even if you believe you have the greater truth.  You have to look at the facts.  The media and everybody else have to get on to this thing because, in the end, what’s going to happen is if you don’t have energy to drive the lifeblood of your economy, your economy’s not going to go anywhere,” he said.

As for the science, Bastardi says it’s pretty well established what causes temperature fluctuations.

“Nature, not man, rules the climate.  You can do the math.  It’s common sense to understand that the sun, the oceans and stochastic events far outweigh what CO2 can possibly do.  It’s boxed in effectively.  It’s one-one hundredth of the greenhouse gases, the most prominent being water vapor,” said Bastardi.

Bastardi says the global warming movement’s contention that human activity leads to more carbon dioxide that leads to higher temperatures is already proven false.  In recent years, CO2 levels continued to rise even as temperatures cooled, refuting the famed “hockey stick” of Dr. Michael Mann which predicted temperatures would rise with no end in sight.

Bastardi says climate history is even more definitive.

“I’d like the president or anybody else to explain to me how we had an ice age at 7,000 parts per million.  If you actually looked at the geological time scale and the relationship of CO2 to temperatures, I don’t understand how you can be driving home this point that the United States, or anybody else on the face of the planet, is to blame for so-called climate change,” he said.

As for the leveling off and even reduction in average temperatures in recent years, Bastardi says actual data is a death blow to Obama and other activists.

“All we need to do is watch the temperatures now over the next 10-20 years.  As the Pacific began to cool, temperatures leveled off.  The Atlantic’s going to cool.  They’ll fall even more.  I made the statement back in 2007, that by the year 2030, they’ll fall back to where they were back in 1978, the start of the satellite era and when the Pacific went into its warming cycle,” said Bastardi, who also dismisses the concerns of activists that rising ocean levels threaten the lives of tens of millions of Americans in coastal areas.

“Seven inches a century of so-called sea level rise along our coasts is well within natural realms if you look at how far the ocean has varied up and down over the geological time scale,” he said.

“So when these people say these things, you can sense the frustration in my voice.  It takes me ten seconds to refute them.  I could go right to something that shows the opposite going on,” said Bastardi.

When confronted by arguments like Bastardi’s, global warming activists contend those are fringe views and that there is near unanimous scientific consensus.  In his State of the Union Address this year, President Obama declared that “the science is settled.”

Bastardi says that’s another canard.

“Over 31,000 degreed scientists signed against the Kyoto Accords, 9,000 of them Ph.D’s for goodness sake.  Why doesn’t anybody bring that up?” he said.

However, Bastardi says some statistics do tell the story of the impact of fossil fuels and the industrial era have had on the United States, and he urges Obama to examine them.

“Mr. President, take a look.  The only true hockey sticks from fossil fuel are in per capita GDP for each human being on the earth and life expectancy, which has shot up.  Both those things have shot up in the age of fossil fuels,” said Bastardi.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer the confirmed death of one terrorist leader and the suspected death of another while noting much stronger language from Pres. Obama on the terrorist threat.  They also applaud Sarah Palin for campaigning for Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, even after his ugly primary win over a tea party challenger.  And Jim sounds on off on the elitist column from New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says radical groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) can never be completely eradicated and any meaningful degrading of the terrorist army will only come with competent ground forces working in tandem with powerful airstrikes like we saw Monday night.

Nonetheless, Nash is impressed by the performance of U.S. forces this week in the first airstrikes conducted in Syria and is pleased to see Arab allies, particularly Sunnis, joining the fight.

Late Monday, the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. was carrying out the first wave of airstrikes inside Syria.  War planes with precision-guided munitions and multiple U.S. Navy vessels firing a variety of missiles took part, with varying levels of assistance from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

By all accounts, the strikes were on target and avoided civilian casualties.  However, Nash says Americans should have no illusions about what our military efforts can and cannot accomplish in taking the fight to ISIS.

“It will never be destroyed.  The violent element is in the DNA of Islam.  It’s in their documents.  Moderates and radicals read the same documents and draw their inspiration from the same religious texts.  It will never disappear.  It can only be degraded,” said Nash, who is also a military analyst for the Fox News Channel.

According to Nash, air power can be very effective, but it has the greatest impact when accompanied by competent ground forces that can take the fight to the enemy’s ground forces.  He says the U.S. learned that the hard way in the NATO campaign against Serbia in the late 1990s.  In that campaign, without guidance from the ground, U.S. pilots were very focused on striking Serbian tanks, only to discover they were decoys.

“Unless you have a ground force to oppose a ground force, there’s no reason for that other ground force to coalesce into a defensive position and become dense enough to become a lucrative air target,” said Nash.

Finding effective ground troops in this campaign could prove difficult.  U.S. officials say it will take up to a year to get moderate Syrian rebels prepared to fight ISIS.  Iraqi forces continue to prove they are not up to the task.  This past Sunday, ISIS militants successfully smuggled explosive-laden humvees onto an Iraqi base in Anbar Province.  Once detonated, up to 500 Iraqi soldiers were lost.

Nash says the Iraqis will need to shape up in a hurry if they are to be used effectively against ISIS.

“They’re going to have to get competent leadership at the officer level.  They do have some good troops in the commando units, the special forces units that we’ve trained.  Those guys are good but there just aren’t enough of them.  The regular army infantry that the Iraqi forces have are not properly led, not properly equipped.  The events of last Sunday showed that,” said Nash.

Even if the Iraqi military improved drastically in the coming months, Nash sees little alternative but to have U.S. personnel at the front to coordinate the air campaign.

“There have to be boots on the ground at some point that are working on the same goals as we are.  I’m not saying they have to be U.S. boots necessarily.  We’re either going to have Title 10, some people in uniform who are used to working with U.S. aircraft, or Title 50 where they are chopped from the military to another agency where they’re on the ground,” said Nash.

“But call them Americans on the ground.  Sooner or later, there are going to be Americans on the ground.  Otherwise, we’re just going to be chasing ghosts,” said Nash.

Nash also sees a couple of significant positive developments in the wake of last night’s bombings, especially the involvement of five Arab nations in the mission: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.  An even more ‘critical step,’ he says, is that Sunnis in the region are ready to confront other Sunnis.

“The critical step is admitting and going out to defend, in their own populations, the fact that these Sunni countries are in combat against a Sunni unit in this ISIS group.  They’re taking on the risk of having internal problems, internal terrorist acts or demonstrations in their own countries,” said Nash.

While Monday’s strikes are just the beginning of a campaign the U.S. admits will take years, Nash also reminds Americans to marvel at just how good our military is at what it does.

“We make this look really easy.  It’s not.  There’s a lot of skill, a lot of practice.  The experience of war over time has educated the people who are flying the airplanes and planning the missions.  It makes it look easy but it’s fairly complicated,” he said.

How complicated is it?

“The big thing is getting everything to work as it’s supposed to work.  You plan on it to work and then you come up with back-ups if things go wrong, if the weather intervenes, if this group is running late because they got off late.  How late can you get off and still make the mission?  What are the fall back positions?  Is everybody communicating or is somebody in a ducting layer, where you can’t hear them?” said Nash.

“There are all kinds of things that can happen in the environment and in human performance  that can really throw a monkey wrench into things.  So when things go smoothly, everybody says, ‘Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.’  But it’s hard to pull off,” he said.