Good reporting by Jessica Clark from First Coast News. Earlier, the Tampa Bay Times broke a story about sexual misconduct in the Florida National Guard.
Florida's National Guard is headquartered in National Guard, constituting a local voting bloc that empowers its alumni, including mediocrities and mendacities like former County Administrator BEN ADAMS, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994.
Naturally, the St. Augustine Record has long printed PR fluff and militaristic jingoistic hagiography about the Florida National Guard, like noting a retiring general's planned retirement party flyover by four Stealth aircraft (cancelled after I reported it to the Defense Department Inspector General).
While that flyover would have been legal, and would have used training time that would have been required anyway, to his everlasting credit, retiring General Douglas Burnett rightly cancelled it because of the appearance of impropriety -- an appearance cultivated by the St. Augustine Record's twice reporting it in in-your-face front page stories during a time of national economic crisis.
CBS News did an hourlong special on the Pantagon Propagnda machine, which still promotes body counts and foreign wars, as it did in the sunup to the Iraq War, even ensnaring a gullible New York Times reporter, Judith Miller.
Is it too much to ask that the St. Augustine Record investigate local sacred cows, like Sheriff DAVID SHOAR f/k/a HOAR, and the Florida National Guard. It's our money.
Newspapers should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
Kudos to Anne Schindler and Jessica Clark at First Coast News:
Florida's National Guard is headquartered in National Guard, constituting a local voting bloc that empowers its alumni, including mediocrities and mendacities like former County Administrator BEN ADAMS, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994.
Naturally, the St. Augustine Record has long printed PR fluff and militaristic jingoistic hagiography about the Florida National Guard, like noting a retiring general's planned retirement party flyover by four Stealth aircraft (cancelled after I reported it to the Defense Department Inspector General).
While that flyover would have been legal, and would have used training time that would have been required anyway, to his everlasting credit, retiring General Douglas Burnett rightly cancelled it because of the appearance of impropriety -- an appearance cultivated by the St. Augustine Record's twice reporting it in in-your-face front page stories during a time of national economic crisis.
CBS News did an hourlong special on the Pantagon Propagnda machine, which still promotes body counts and foreign wars, as it did in the sunup to the Iraq War, even ensnaring a gullible New York Times reporter, Judith Miller.
Is it too much to ask that the St. Augustine Record investigate local sacred cows, like Sheriff DAVID SHOAR f/k/a HOAR, and the Florida National Guard. It's our money.
Newspapers should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
Kudos to Anne Schindler and Jessica Clark at First Coast News:
