Press Blackout

The federal government has made the decision to not allow the press to cover the recovery of what may be up to 40,000 dead Americans on American soil. FEMA is having the military turn back any member of the media at the entrance to New Orleans. Brian Williams of NBC News is reporting on his blog this:

While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads.

Welcome to 21st century America, the America of Joseph Stalin.