This Week in National Insecurity: Frequent Fliers Edition

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Welcome, insecure reader, to the friendly skies of national defense! In this weekly link dump: Air marshals are freeloaders; WikiLeaks Wiki-locks down on its public image; dirty subs, built dirt-cheap; Iranian arms dealers stop for cheesesteaks; your granddaddy’s Medal of Honor means bubkis at the White House; and a tea party Republican exaggerates just a teensy bit about his military experience.

The sitrep:

The United States government’s national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow. You’re welcome.

  • Sky marshals, who fly with you (for free) to prevent a hijacking, sit in first class a lot. Which airline executives don’t like. Not because “a free ride in a fluffy seat” costs the airlines money, mind you, but because it’s less secure. Silly air executives: Protecting profits is a national security issue. Every good free-marketeer knows that.
  • What’s long, hard, and wrapped in a “Wal-Mart tarp”? The Navy’s new $2 billion submarines, whose super-stealth coating falls apart in the water. It turns out that cutting costs on the construction of nuclear vessels is not totally a good thing.
  • What’s the best investigative national security story you haven’t heard about? It’s this Philadelphia Inquirer series about how authorities used a storefront sting to ensnare an arms dealer for the Iranian government, operating in a Philly suburb. Wait, what?
  • We’ve said it before: If you’re a descendant of the last African American Medal of Honor recipient in World War II, who rallied his fellow black troops and took out a bunch of Nazi gunner’s nests after his white commander deserted, and you don’t want to be turned away from a tour of the White House…don’t wear shorts and a T-shirt bearing the likeness of your hero grandfather. It’s just disrespectful.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

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