Friends and Family Helping Cop-Killer Evade Police

I remember when Eric Robert Rudolph was hiding in the mountains of western North Carolina, and the media echoed law enforcement's disgust of a killer being sheltered by those with right-wing anti-government sentiments.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I doubt that narrative will go quite as far, so kudos to the Seattle Times for reporting what much of media will probably try to avoid:

Maurice Clemmons has been getting help and shelter from friends and relatives since shortly after the Sunday morning shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers, authorities have concluded.

"Basically, there's no way that he could be doing this by himself; he was shot in the abdomen," said Sheri Badger, Pierce County spokeswoman at the incident command center.

Also frustrating to law-enforcement officers is that Clemmons reportedly told acquaintances the night before the attack to "watch the news" because he was going to "kill cops."

No one reported his comments to police until after the attack, Badger said.

I'm going to loop this back around once more to Christopher John Monfort. Like Clemmons and many African-Americans, Monfort was weaned in a culture that not only demeans law and order, but which actively glorifies violence against it in popular music and other entertainment.

Folks want to ignore the truth because they want to avoid being called racists, but the simple fact of the matter is that much of African-American culture ranges between distrust of the police and outright hostility, and that hostility has exploded into violence that has left six police officers in this area alone gunned down in less than a month, with only one of those six escaping the coroner's attention.

It probably wouldn't take very much effort at all to loop this violent hatred of authority to the disdain of law practiced by left wing groups primarily composed of minorities such as ACORN, the thugs we've seen in SEIU, the New Black Panthers, and the slightly more sophisticated bigotry of Jeremiah Wright and both Barack and Michelle "for the first time in my life" Obama, but frankly, I'm tired.

Directly or indirectly, there is an African-American culture problem here that no one wants to address, much less attempt to fix. The recent ambushes of police officers by these particular angry black men simply underscore that uncomfortable and deadly truth.

Seattle Police Focusing on Cowan Park in Manhunt

Police are setting a perimeter around Cowan Park in Seattle as they hunt for a suspect wanted for the murder of four police officers yesterday in Parkland, WA. According to police radio chatter, a blood trail has been found, and CSI units are being called in to investigate.

Suspect may have Twitter account: http://twitter.com/mauriceclemmons, though he certainly didn't do much with it if he did.

Moments after that information went out, Twitter went down. Probably unrelated, but you never know...

Another Leftist-Motivated Cop-Killing in the Northwest?

My latest is up at Pajamas Media, discussing the previous murders of police officers from leftists educated in the area, and the possibility that the murder of four police officers yesterday by Maurice Clemmons may have been a copycat crime inspired by the most recent of those shooters (Monfort), aggravated by his own stated hatred of police and mental instability.

In the meantime, I'm following accounts of the shooting on Twitter at #WAshooting and listening to Seattle police continue their manhunt of the suspect via an online police scanner.

Obama Science Czar Being Investigated For His Role in Climategate

I'd be shocked—shocked—to discover that a member of the Obama Administration has ties to anything radical, immoral, or dishonest... wouldn't you? And yet, that is what Gateway Pundit brings us this morning, nothing that the anti-human (literally) John Holdren features prominently in the leaked CRU emails that have exposed the global warming movement as the biggest scientific fraud of the last century.

In related news, it seems that the CRU conveniently threw out the raw data they used, and now it has been shredded, they will release the remaining information that they've tried to hide from the public for so long.

I suspect that a lot of people in the global warming cult are guilty of considerable fraud, though considering their political backing by power-hungry politicians who see the cult as an excuse to gain power, I doubt many will end up in prison where they belong.

Huckabee Paroled Commuted Cop Killer

The Seattle Times has identified a suspect in today's shooting of four Lakewood, WA police officers in a local coffee shop:

A 37-year-old Tacoma man, Maurice Clemmons, is being sought for questioning in the execution-style shooting of four Lakewood police officers this morning, according to two law-enforcement sources.

Clemmons, who was recently released from jail, has an extensive criminal record in Pierce County and Arkansas, court records show. Clemmons is wanted in Arkansas and faces eight criminal charges in Washington state.

While governor of Arkansas, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckebee paroled a violent repeat offender by that same name as noted in this 2004 article:

Maurice Clemmons received a 35-year sentence in the early 1990s for armed robbery and theft. His sentence was commuted in May 2000, and he was let out three months later.

The following March, Clem-mons committed two armed robberies and other crimes and was sentenced to 10 years. You'd think they'd keep him locked up after that, but no: He was paroled last March and is now wanted for aggravated robbery.

If Huckabee decides to set these criminals free, Jegley says, at least "he ought to give an accounting. I can't imagine why in the world they'd want them released from jail. There's a good reason we're afraid of them. The sad truth is that a significant number of people re-offend."

The victims' families, Jegley says, "deserve an explanation. I look into people's eyes who've suffered the unspeakable. I believe they deserve justice.

If Huckabee—now a Fox News personality—did set this man free, his aspirations for a future White House run may be over.

Update: The Times confirms that Huckabee set this suspect free.

Update: Huckabee offers a deflection. My response? Yes, the legal systems in Arkansas and Washington did fail in protecting citizens from this violent thug, but Huckabee made it all possible.

It's rather hard to rape children or massacre law enforcement officers in Washington when still locked up in an Arkansas jail.

BREAKING: Four Police Officers Assassinated in Coffee Shop Ambush

The early reports indicated a targeted killing by a two gunman targeting police officers. There do not appear to be any other people injured. The shooters escaped the scene and are at large. Below is the Google street view image of the coffee shop on 116th and Steele where the killing occurred.

McChord Air Force base is directly across the street, and Interstate 5 and WA State 512 are only seconds away. The killers were possibly miles away as the first 911 calls were being made.

It is probably a total coincidence, but Parkland is 22 miles down I-5 from Evergreen State College, the radical leftist school that helped create Rachel Corrie and Andrew Mickel, the later of which ambushed a police officer in Nov 2002, and is now on death row. Another radical leftist shot and killed a police officer on Halloween after firebombing four police cars on Oct. 22, and was in turn shot earlier this month.

Update: War on Cops in Washington. Now, let us see if they are really willing to look at the motivations of the killers.

Politics of Eco-Terrorist from NJ Sentenced to Chinese Prison Strangely Absent from Times Reporting

Isn't it funny that any crime with even a hint of center-right political nuance is triumphantly paraded about by the media as an example of right wing extremism (and thereby justifying Obama Administration demagoguery), but verified left wing terrorism—even from known progressive terrorist organizations—is never cited as such?

Take for example, the story of Justin Franchi Solondz as reported in the New York Times.

Justin Franchi Solondz, an environmental activist from New Jersey who spent years evading charges of ecoterrorism in the United States by hiding out in China, was sentenced to three years in prison by a local court on Friday on charges of manufacturing drugs in this backpacker haven.

After serving his time, Mr. Solondz, 30, who is on the F.B.I.'s wanted list, will be deported to the United States, where he faces charges stemming from what the authorities say was his role in an arson rampage that destroyed buildings in three western states as a member of a group related to the environmental extremist organization Earth Liberation Front. He was indicted in absentia in 2006.

You don't get a much more direct link to left wing terrorism in the United States than the ELF (without joining the boards of directors of which our President has been a member), and yet, the Times just can't quite bring itself to recognize the political slant of the convicted terrorist/drug dealer in their story.

No bias here, folks.

Move along.

Russian Train Destroyed by Terrorist Bomb

The express train carrying passengers from Moscow to St. Petersburg was derailed Friday, killing 30 and injuring at least one hundred. Russian authorities claim that have found a blast crater and chemical residue that indicates the train was targeted in an act of terrorism, using homemade explosives equivalent to 15 pounds of TNT.

If homemade explosives were used I would be surprised to find out if it was anything other than triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an old standby for terrorists that was perhaps most infamously used in the London subway bombings.

No one has publicly taken responsibility for the blast, and a motive remains unclear at this time.

Holder Goes Around Congress, Enables ACORN to Receive Funds

Needless to say, those in Congress who voted to strip them of funding are not happy:

Since 1994, ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it in grants to help poor people obtain affordable housing. The Justice Department asked whether the funding ban applied to prior contracts. In a ruling first reported by the New York Times, a department lawyer said the payments under prior contracts should continue because the language of the law did not expressly wipe them out.

But Representative Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said "the bipartisan intent of Congress was clear -- no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN."

"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," Issa said in a statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism."

In his short stint as Attorney General, Eric Holder has protected Black Panthers, and ACORN, while doing his damnedest to avoid appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the White House's involvement in covering up the alleged corruption of Obama ally Kevin Johnson. The Administration went as far as firing Inspector General Gerald Walpin in an attempt to cover up Johnson's wrong-doing.

It seems we have an AG more interested in providing political cover for corruption than almost anything else. Am I shocked?

Not at all.

And the Walls Kept Tumbling Down

First, the fabled "hockey stick" warming trend was shown to have been doctored. Then there was "Climategate," where a hacker's raid on Britain's bastion of climate research uncovered manipulated data, a conspiracy to silence critics and control the flow of information, and programmer's notes in the computer code used to generate climate model's that shown them to be arbitrarily manipulated to generate a desired result. Now, global warming research from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NiWA) in New Zealand indicates that alarmists there are also guilty of fraud.

I'm not scientist, but had a smattering of geology and oceanography courses as an undergraduate while thinking about pursuing a coastal and marine studies minor. As a result of that admittedly brief scientific education I understand that the Earth has been warmer than it is now, and that it has been cooler than it is now, and that the idea of a "right" temperature, sea level, or climate is entirely a man-made idea.

The biggest scam being perpetrated right now is that climate is stable, or can be stabilized. It will always change, and there is nothing significant we can do about that.

I believe in conservation, habitat preservation, minimizing pollution, and being energy efficient. That is entirely compatible with a lifestyle and a message we should pass along to future generations.

But we shouldn't have to lie to people and play on their fears to do what is in their best interests. By doing so, the global warming cult that is unraveling before us has severely damaged the credibility of a conservative, conservation mindset that far predated the current "green" trendiness.

No Matter Where You Are, Student Drivers Are Dangerous

At least the folks gunning for learner's permits in your town aren't driving tanks.

"I Cannot in Good Conscience, Encourage My Nephew to Reenlist"

I've tried to keep an open mind about Glenn Beck. I don't care for theatrics of his delivery or the melodrama so common on his show, and wonder if his on-air persona is really sincere. I try to keep in mind that just because I'm not a huge fan of the guy, that others certainly enjoy him and that's just fine. We are, after all, still free to disagree.

But like Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air, I think Beck went to far in the clip below. Beck lets his disgust with the military-hating liberals in our national government boil over, and suggests that our servicemen should not reenlist.

Frankly, I'm torn about his message.

I can understand that—as an uncle—he has a hard time advising his nephew to stay with the military when he feels that the present Commander in Chief won't support the troops. Some might compare it to advising a loved one to leave a business plagued with a corrupt board of directors and incompetent CEO.

But the simple fact of the matter is that while our soldiers are stuck with Obama as our President, they didn't sign on to serve and protect a President, they signed on to defend the United States. It shouldn't matter who is President.

And yet, I know from servicemen that were in the military under Carter and Clinton that to be a servicemen under a cowering Democratic President is demoralizing. I'm just as disgusted as the rest of you that three Navy SEALs are facing a military court for allegedly punching the terrorist responsible for killing burning, mutilating,and hanging the bodies of four contract security personal from a bridge in Fallujah, while our President and Attorney General provide the spectacle of public trial for terrorists that were part of a plot that killed thousands of innocent civilians.

But I hope our servicemen rise to the call, even under bad Presidents. Especially under bad Presidents, because when we look weak to allies and enemies alike with a "leader" on a Permanent Apology World Tour, we need their strength the most.

Obama's Cracker Support Crumbles

But at least he's still popular among those who still think O.J. was innocent.

The Opportunism of Ghouls

That was my preferred headline for this article at Pajamas Media, but hey, somebody else gets paid to write the heads and subheads. I just provide the content.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that liberal anti-gun groups are hoping to use the bodies of our soldiers killed in a terrorist attack as a weapon against our Constitutional rights.

So Much for Brotherly Love

A second set of potential terrorists was charged with attempting to buy arms in Philadelphia in as many days.

Three Lebanese nationals and one American resident were charged today with attempting to obtain 1,200 M-4 military assault weapons for Hezbollah, the second set of such charges in as many days generated in Philadelphia.

U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy declined to say if the government informer who penetrated the alleged smuggling ring was the same person cited in yesterday's allegations that a man connected to Hezbollah tried to obtain Stinger anti-aircraft missiles for Hezbollah, as well as M4s.

But the individuals charged are not the same.

"We are dealing with two different groups trying to buy M4s," he said.

Idiots. They should have simply asked for a stimulus grant.

Authorities to Release Findings in Census Worker's Death
UPDATE: Confirmed Suicide

Answers coming this afternoon at 2:00 PM:

Kentucky State Police Lt. David Jude says a news conference is set for 2 p.m. EST at the agency's crime lab.

Federal and state investigators who have been working the case since September haven't yet announced whether Bill Sparkman's death was a homicide, suicide or accident.

Sparkman's naked body was found Sept. 12 near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Kentucky. One of the witnesses who found the body said the 51-year-old was bound with duct tape, gagged and had an identification badge taped to his neck.

Earlier this month, law enforcement officials were investigating whether Sparkman may have staged an elaborate suicide to appear like murder so his son could make a life insurance claim.

Shortly after news of Sparkman's death was reported left wing propagandists in the blogosphere and news media were quick to try to capitalize on his death, implying that it was the fault of conservative politicians, or anti-government paranoia from backwoods rubes.

Even early on most credible sources found it more likely that Sparkman might have stumbled across a drug operation or moonshiners than any anti-government group.

Unsupported lies, however, are for more useful for the left's agenda.

Update: Sparkman's death was confirmed to a be a suicide staged to look like murder. May God have mercy on his family and his troubled soul.

Shut Down Copenhagen

For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in.

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It's the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being "confused" by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

Climate change "science" has been confirmed as a massive fraud by the scientific community. For a decade, leading climate change scientists apparently manipulated data to get pre-determined results, subverted the peer review process, and then conspired to deny access to their falsified research by subverting the British Freedom of Information Act.

Iain Murray describes "Climategate" as the climate change cabal's Vietnam. He's selling it short. "Only" millions died in Vietnam. More than 6.7 billion lives would be impacted by the catastrophic measures climate change cultists intend to force upon the world, and the downplayed possibility—perhaps probability—exists that the dramatic changes favored by the climate change cultists would have unforeseen adverse economic and political effects that would ripple across the globe killing millions.

The dozens, if not hundreds of scientists and activists that colluded to perpetrate this fraud should be investigated and sentenced to lengthy prison terms if found guilty. Among those put under the spotlight is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has been found guilty of gross exaggerations and misinformation in the past. Other world leaders, including heads of state, should also be deposed to determine if they knew of the crimes committed by their scientists... and if not, why not.

Above all, the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference must now be postponed indefinitely if not outright canceled since the science it was predicated upon has now been exposed as a massive fraud. The political machinations must also be stopped.

If they do not, there is every chance that once again December 7 will have another reason be remembered as "a day of infamy."

Former Head for Red Cross, NIH: Damn Right Death Panels Are a Part of Obamacare

Via Hot Air, Dr. Bernardine Healy rips into Obamacare, noting that under the Democratic plan the government will be making choices about how you will be treated, not you, and not your doctor:

The bill takes all sorts of choices out of patients' and doctors' hands. Even mammograms and prostate-specific antigen tests would be similarly restricted by the government for millions of people, and they actually serve as better examples of what happens more broadly to personal medical decision making in the new system.

The ground is being laid already, with the announcement by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-appointed body, of new guidelines for mammograms just days ago. Such a board of experts, composed mainly of primary care, prevention, public health, and epidemiology experts, would recommend the list of preventive services covered in the post-health-reform insurance plan that all would have no choice but to buy. Until now, the government's task force has been one voice among several medical groups issuing sometimes conflicting prevention guidelines, leaving room for patient-doctor choice. But in an elevated role under health reform, the federal preventive task force's declarations would carry greater force and have an economic impact on everyone.

Note that Dr. Healy isn't coming at this from any sort of right-wing or even centrist ideology. Even so, she knows the system inside and out and knows that liberals can try to obfuscate as much as they will, and that death panels by any name, are going to cost American lives and decrease both the quality of care and increase the probability that more Americans will die from certain diseases.

Obama Administration, al Qaeda to Try Bush Presidency in Court

Let's cut through the crap, shall we?

Barack Obama's Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, are bringing five 9/11 terrorists to New York for a pro forma show trial not to determine their alleged guilt in plotting the deaths of thousands of Americans, but to give them a months-long public forum where al Qaeda and the Obama administration can tag-team to excoriate the previous administration, attacking the Bush-era polices of intelligence-gathering and interrogation.

Barack Obama and his liberal allies do not even pretend to care that these are anything other than show trials that will end in the deaths of the defendants. It needs to be said—very clearly and plainly—that the reason the Administration decided to avoid the proper forum of a military tribunal for these terrorists is a warped, bitter desire carry out yet another partisan attack against the successful work of their predecessors. And in a sad way, it makes sense.

If the radical leftists in the White House cannot use this circus to publicly invalidate the eight years of successful tactics and strategies developed during the post-9/11 Bush years, then they cannot easily return to the 9/10, head-in-the-sand, terrorism-is-a-law-enforcement-problem mentality that is their comfort zone.

If they cannot publicly skewer the successes of the Bush doctrine, they will be forced to continue it. If they are forced to continue it, they cannot easily flee Afghanistan and Iraq as they would prefer. If they cannot flee Iraq and and Afghanistan, they cannot make significant cuts in the military and divert that taxpayer money (h/t Ed) to programs they would much rather support... perhaps GOTV efforts by SEIU and ACORN to establish the fabled "permanent Democratic majority."

Every day that goes by it becomes more readily apparent that the primary interest of the Obama Administration is the Obama Administration; what is best for the nation doesn't seem approach the importance of a footnote in their machinations.

Almost TKO'd on the Verge of "Hopehangen," Climate Cultists Fight Back

You know what is really bad for the environment? The amount of bovine methane produced in this laughably false bit of fear mongering from Associated Press "science writer" Seth Borenstein:

Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated _ beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.

As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before.

And it's not just the frozen parts of the world that have felt the heat in the dozen years leading up to next month's climate summit in Copenhagen:

_The world's oceans have risen by about an inch and a half.

_Droughts and wildfires have turned more severe worldwide, from the U.S. West to Australia to the Sahel desert of North Africa.

_Species now in trouble because of changing climate include, not just the lumbering polar bear which has become a symbol of global warming, but also fragile butterflies, colorful frogs and entire stands of North American pine forests.

_Temperatures over the past 12 years are 0.4 of a degree warmer than the dozen years leading up to 1997.

Even the gloomiest climate models back in the 1990s didn't forecast results quite this bad so fast

Nice try, zealot, but the simple fact of the matter is that the junk science driving this hysteria has been revealed as the most massive hoax against the citizens of the world in human history.

Polar bears aren't in decline; they are growing in number and may need to be hunted. Far from sea level rising to overwash the Maldives, the islands are either rising, or sea level is falling.

And then there is the "inconvenient truth" that global temperatures are not rising in any way that can be attributed to the actions of man as Borenstein tries to claim.

The fetishists have invested billions in this bid to establish greater control over the citizens of the world, promoting junk science as a mask for an ideological totalitarianism.

It must be frustrating to watch their plot come so close to fruition, only to be dashed by the revelation of their own scheming.

The Unrequited Dream of Smart Guns

My latest article is up at Pajamas Media.

The Day the Left Stood Still

As you know by now the Great Climate Change Hoax—which has been steadily losing ground in the past few years—suffered what should be a fatal blow when hackers raided the servers of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit and posted ten years worth of emails. The CRU is among the greatest contributors to the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

And now their own emails expose the world top manmade climate change advocates apparently guilty of doctoring—apparently out right fabricating—much of the key research that has driven the climate change zealots to the edge of wrecking the world's economies (while making quite a few of them very wealthy).

Quite frankly, the evidence is starting to indicate that the global warming/cooling fetishists were duped by what appears to be the greatest scam ever perpetrated upon mankind, racketeering that may indict many of the world's top scientists and politicians, up to and including our own Nobel-winning former Vice President Al Gore.

The theory of anthropogenic climate change has been revealed as nothing more or less than a criminal enterprise. What does the media have to say about it?

As James Delingpole notes very little at all.

...in the case of "Climate Change", the MSM has been caught with its trousers down. The reason it has been so ill-equipped to report on this scandal is because almost all of its Environmental Correspondents and Environmental Editors are parti pris members of the Climate-Fear Promotion lobby. Most of their contacts (and information sources) work for biased lobby groups like Greenpeace and the WWF, or conspicuously pro-AGW government departments and Quangos such as the Carbon Trust. How can they bring themselves to report on skullduggery at Hadley Centre when the scientists involved are the very ones whose work they have done most to champion and whose pro-AGW views they share?

A quick scan of who's talking on Memeorandum indicates that the blogospheric chatter over the hoax is coming almost uniformly from the center-right.

The left wing blogs that have largely bought into the fraud of manmade climate change have been deathly silent as their pseudo-religion has been exposed.

But then, what is there to say? They were duped. Lied to. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. In their shame, perhaps the best option is silence.

The downside of the exposure of the AGW hoax is the possible backlash again the green movement. While the worst of them are indeed perpetrators and accomplices in this fraud, the vast majority of those in the green movement are engaged in very good work that encourages recycling and optimizing resource usage, something that all of us should get behind, regardless of our politics. We only have one world, and we should be it's stewards.

While fear-driven politics like those soon to be on display in Copenhagen and the the abortive cap-and-tax scheme here in the United States are destructive, we should, after the fears of AGW have been exposed, be able to take a far more rational look at how to best preserve the world that we call home.

Administration's Firing of Walpin May Have Been Part Of Cover-Up to Protect Ally

Doing things the Chicago Way:

A congressional investigation of the volunteer organization AmeriCorps contains charges that D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee handled "damage control" after allegations of sexual misconduct against her now fiance, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and a prominent ally of President Obama, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The charges are contained in a report prepared by Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The investigation began after the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received reports that Johnson had misused some of the $800,000 in federal AmeriCorps money provided to St. Hope, a non-profit school that Johnson headed for several years.

It's really quite simple.

IG Walpin got too close to discovering Johnson and Rhee had misappropriated AmeriCorps funds, including using some of it as "hush money" to keep one or more women from filing charges of sexual misconduct against Johnson. As a favor to Johnson, someone in the Administration—perhaps even Obama himself, considering their relationship—ordered Walpin fired before he could ferret out the truth. But Walpin refused to go quietly.

The White House's orchestrated smear campaign kicked into gear to label Walpin as senile. The tactic failed. Instead, it simply made people wonder just what they was trying to cover up, and why the White House was trying so hard to discredit Walpin.

The media will certainly try to downplay this unfolding drama as much as possible. Solid evidence of the Administration's involvement will certainly be difficult to obtain, and that which found will be shaped and spun to deflect criticism away from the President.

That allowed, it is very difficult to believe that Johnson would have confided his need in this to have Walpin removed to an underling when he has direct access to the President's ear. After all, President Obama has had his own suspected dalliances and cover-ups, so who would Johnson trust more to clean his dirty laundry than his old friend Barack?

Hacked Emails Show Climate Change Scientists Committing Fraud

The climate always changes. It is in a state of constant flux, and thought to be primarily driven by the warming and cooling cycles of our sun (which has a climate of its own), a fact that disreputable scientists competing for billions in grant money have sought to minimize in recent years as they championed what can only be referred to as scare-mongering for dollars.

Via Hot Air, it seems that one of the major climate change advocacy centers recently had their email systems hacked and had their internal emails posted online. It seems that University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been caught red-handed discussing techniques to generate fraudulent data:

From: Phil Jones To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000 Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

Somehow, I think Al manbearpig Gore will ignore this.

He's serial.

ACORN. Juvenile Prostitution. Los Angeles.

Stop me if you've heard this before, again.

I'm really starting to wonder exactly what it was Barack Obama was teaching these people. Needless to say, the consistent, nearly uniform acceptance of the sex slavery of minors should be grounds for dozens of investigations of the Democratic Party's shock troops. The fact that nothing has been forthcoming merely reinforces that the racketeering goes well beyond the street-level accomplices caught on tape.

Womb Raider Vows Return to Normalcy

But we all know Andrew Sullivan will wallow in insanity for the rest of his natural-borne days.

If Socialized Medicine Did This to Him, What Would it do to You?

A dirty little secret of mine is a love of mixed martial arts. Right now, the biggest star in the biggest MMA promotion is heavyweight titleholder Brock Lesnar of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

At 6'3" and 265 lbs of ripped muscle, the 32-year old former NCAA wrestling champion is arguably one of the most dangerous MAA fighters in the world today, and yet his career may be jeopardy... and at least one person is blaming his health problems on Canadian health care:

Brock Lesnar's chiropractor blames the Canadian medical system for failing to manage the UFC fighter's mystery illness after he collapsed here last week.

"His symptoms became severe while in Canada, which because of their health care system made it difficult to manage. And at this point it's a possibility that it could jeopardize his career," chiropractor Larry Novotny told KSAX-TV news in Alexandria, MN, according to the network's website.

Yeah, I know... an unknown chiropractor in Minnesota isn't exactly House (though he may be as qualified to comment on the quality of Canadian health care as Hugh Laurie).

But let us accept for the moment the possibility that Novotny is correct.

If a highly-conditioned professional athlete at the top of his game could see his health and career threatened by the inadequacies of socialized medicine, what would it do to those of us who aren't in that kind of shape?

Obama: Yeah, It's a Show Trial

What did you expect, folks? Leftists love this stuff:

Americans who are troubled by the decision to send alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial will feel better about it when he's put to death, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obama's visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

"I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him," Obama told NBC's Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasn't trying to dictate the result.

Bull. Crap.

The Administration is only holding these civil trials in New York because his Justice Department assures him that these show trials are merely a formality. Obama has every intention of using the body of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a podium from which he will no doubt trumpet his toughness in the war on terror, even as he finds a way to tuck his tail between his legs and scamper home from fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban without finishing the job.

Barack Obama doesn't care about justice. He cares about appearances. He'll have his show trials and the execution of these five, even as he leaves another 75 to rot in prison with no intention of bringing the to trial. KSM deserves no better and no different than his peers. There is no obligation to bring any of them to trial, and indefinite detention or even summary execution of terrorists is perfectly legal.

Unfortunately for Mohammed, his admitted show trial makes for better optics for our President's planned retreats.

Broken Minds

This observation from Tom Maguire has haunted me since last night.

As he told us last Friday, Eric Holder wants to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian courts because he (mostly) attacked civilians, while the attackers of the USS Cole will be sent to a military tribunal. The Dallas Morning News explained:

There is no contradiction here: military courts for attacks on the military, civilian courts for attacks on civilians.

OMG. And if the next batch of terrorists are clever enough to attack an elementary school will they be tried in juvenile court?

How bizarre is Holder's logic? First, why give more rights and more protections to a terrorists who targets civilians? Secondly, the court ought to be determined by the nature of the defendant, not the nature of the victims - if KSM is an enemy combatant he deserves a military tribunal regardless of who he was crafty enough to target.

I've long disagreed with the underlying ideology of the Obama Administration, which is based upon the philosophies of those men who replaced his father in his life. Radical left-wing ideologies like those the President learned from his mentors—Frank Marshall Davis (communist), Bill Ayers (Marxist), Jeremiah Wright (racist black liberation theology, Marxism), etc—have never led to anything other than misery for the wretches that survive it.

But Obama and his subordinates compound the errors of these diseased ideologies by adopting another failed ideology, one that acts as if the open warfare of Islamic fascism is a civilian law enforcement problem. That flawed thinking already led to horrors of 9/11. Why are our President and Attorney General so dimwitted that they desire to repeat those mistakes and put the lives of Americans at greater risk?

CNN's "Militias are Crazy!" Day 2

After yesterday's report attempting to portray a militia group as borderline terrorists, CNN's Jim Acosta used today's report to try to portray the founder of the group as also being an unfit parent.

Lee Miracle may run training exercises for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia once a month in a rural area outside of Flint, but he's just as busy at home. He and his wife Katrina have eight kids, and there are more than 20 guns in the house. This explains why Lee refers to the family as "Lee and Kate plus eight plus a gun rack."

Make that several gun racks. The Miracle children are very much growing up in the militia. They take part in militia training exercises, including the weapons training.

We were there when 13-year-old Megan fired off her shotgun, but even the couple's six-year-old has had her share of target practice.

CNN's dimwitted followers obediently go where they are led, all but wetting themselves in the comments. One reader professes shock and outrage that a family has both children and guns in the same house, declaring that "somebody should do something" about that. The next poster down rhetorically asks if there is any difference between the militias and the Ku Klux Klan. It is tough to discern whether they feel having guns or belonging to the Klan would be more distasteful.

The hit job CNN did on the Miracle family was as easy as it is predictable.

They crafted both the text of the blog entry and tone of the video to inspire shock that young women and girls in the family are being taught to shoot firearms.

Being CNN, they never mention the fact that these young ladies are adequately supervised, use both the proper eye and ear protection, and in the one instance they broadcast, use a single-shot, preferred by many for training young and new shooters. In other words, the Miracle children exhibit the tells of youth taught how to act responsibly around firearms. That the women are as empowered to use firearms for their defense as are the males somehow doesn't excite the pseudo-feminist leanings of the CNN staff.

Those things don't fit CNN's narrative, you see.

It's much better to play up a caricature and beat down a strawman. Why waste time trying to discover why increasing number of people have determined that our federal government too incompetent, corrupt, and power-mad to trust?

After all, it's only news.

Leftist Terrorist Lawyer Ordered to Jail

If there is any justice, this will work out to be a life sentence.

A federal appeals court has ordered leftist Manhattan civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart to surrender and begin serving her sentence immediately on her 2005 conviction for shuttling messages from imprisoned terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.

Stewart, 70, has been free on bail pending appeal since her 2005 conviction for using her status as Abdel-Rahman's lawyer to violate federal rules barring him from communicating from his high-security imprisonment, and her 2006 sentence to 28 months in jail by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl.

A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Tuesday morning's ruling, not only affirmed Stewart's conviction and ordered her to prison immediately, but remanded the case to Koeltl to consider whether she should get a harsher sentence.

Another Left-Wing Mob Attacks

While the Obama Administration and the media continue to try to demonize God-fearing, Constitution-respecting Americans as potential domestic terrorists, groups of thugs closely tied to the left wing of the Democratic Party continue to violently attack those who disagree with their militant drive towards socialism.

Here is the latest attack, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

So far thugs from ANSWER, MoveOn.org, and SEIU have threatened or intimidated thousands of attendees to town hall meetings and protests, and have physically assaulted and maimed unarmed citizens with little or no provocation.

The Obama Justice Department headed by Eric Holder?

Dead silent.

h/t Michelle Malkin

Yes Virginia, There are Death Panels

Remember how Democrats and the media kept telling you that the Obamacare health care rationing scheme passed by Nancy Pelosi's House didn't have death panels that would decide who lives and who dies?

They lied.

As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.

Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."

On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."

Liberals are trying to hide behind a fig leaf by attempting to say there are no death panels because no individual cases are brought up, reviewed, and dismissed. Instead, they envision an emotionally distant genocide, where unelected appointees will summarily dictate how much money is spent to combat a specific illness or condition. Once that money is spent, Americans who have those conditions will not get their health care ration. They will suffer, and they will die, while racking up private debit attempting to save their own lives. It will be worse than what we have now, while forcing the nation every closer to bankruptcy.

Lovely.

Shocker: Brian Ross and The Blotter Get Details of Fort Hood Story Wrong

There are two constants we can expect from the ABC News blog The Blotter.

They will report in great detail on stories involving the criminal use of a firearm.

They will invariably get significant details grossly wrong.

Whether the subject is Mexico's drug cartels, items restricted by the 1994 Crime Bill, or basic descriptions of guns used in massacres, Ros and ABC News are predictably incompetent, and their streak continued today as they try to discuss some of the weaponry purchased by Fort Hood Jihaidi, Major Nidal Hasan:

Right next door to the strip club is the gun store, Guns Galore, where authorities say Hasan bought his semi-automatic pistol and bullets and in the weeks before the shooting, 13 extra ammunition clips that could hold up to 30 bullets each.

As anyone with a rudimentary understanding of modern firearms will tell you, modern handguns do not use clips. They use magazines, and yes there is a distinctive difference between a single piece of spring steel that holds a group of cartridges together (a clip) and an enclosed, spring-loaded mechanical device that encloses and protects cartridges an actively feeds them into a firearm's chamber (a magazine).

Then there is the fact that one cannot readily buy a 30-round magazine for the Five-SeveN pistol as ABC tries to claim.

Precisely two magazines are available with the Five-seveN, a 10-round magazine for states that restrict the number of cartridges a civilian's handgun can carry, and the standard 20-round magazine that the weapon was designed to accept. No one makes a 30-round magazine for the Five-seveN, though CMMG has a 10-round extension one can purchase separately and install to the base of the factory 20-round magazines. There are no reports that Hasan actually purchased such extensions, much less used them in his attack.

But that sort of inaccuracy is par for the course for a propagandist far more interested in pushing a political agenda than actually reporting the facts, and Ross is quite consistent in framing stories in such a way to give gun control groups an edge.

After all, who needs facts?

Militia Stories

A constant theme of the political left since the election of Barack Obama has been that militias are forming, and gosh-dern it, they're going to lynch somebody or blow something up, just you wait and see. These stories are almost always canned, trotted out and rehashed to rally Obama supporters after he has done something particularly stupid, with the most recent incident caused by Obama subserviently bowing to a foreign head of state.

CNN is running such a canned story as their top story right now on CNN.com, and left wing Raw Story predictably parrots their claim, recalling a dubious report from Mark Potok, the official source for reports on radical hate groups according to the left wing intelligensia. That Potok has to make such claims to justify his paycheck is never questioned.

And yet despite all the fear-mongering led by Potok's need for fundraising and the media's desire to buck-up their floundering President, the various militias have consistently disappointed the media. They've welcomed the press with open arms as they did the CNN crew and have been unwilling to bomb buildings or rob banks or engage in any of the other behavior so many left-wing extremist groups did from the late 1960s through the 1980s and up until the recent activities of left wing radicals.

And perhaps it is with a certain degree of irony that the other militia story in the news today comes from the NY Times own Times Traveler Blog, recalling a story from a century ago where militiamen saved the life of an African-American that an Illinois mob had decided to lynch:

The guile of police and deputy sheriffs, and then the arrival of the militia forces, prevented the Cairo, Ill., mob yesterday from seizing a second African-American, Arthur Alexander, after it lynched Will James a day earlier. Alexander "was clothed in a policeman's uniform and was thus taken safely through the city to the county jail. Word had gone ahead that he had been captured, and members of the mob were looking for the officers who had him in charge, but the disguise was not penetrated. It was well along in the morning before the knowledge spread that Alexander was in the jail. A crowd gathered then, and might have taken the negro out, but by this time the call had gone out for Company K, the local militia body, and the rioters were awed. Before they could get up the courage to act the guardsmen had gathered and a squad was sent to the jail. Part of the company also guarded the homes of Major Parsons and Sheriff Davis, who had been threatened with violence. These men seemed determined to do their duty and the mob took no chances. Meanwhile special trains were hurrying to the city the troops ordered out by Gov. Deneen. The Carbondale company arrived at daybreak, and others came in rapidly, so that by early afternoon eleven companies, comprising 800 men, were on duty at points where they might be needed. Saloons, which had kept open all night in defiance of the Mayor and the police, were closed tight and kept closed, and crowds were kept moving. It was decided late in the afternoon that Alexander should be taken to some point where there was no mob feeling. He was escorted from the jail to a special train on the Illinois Central Railroad by seven companies of militia."

The Times article is unclear of the nature of the militia, and whether it was comprised of the National Guard or the state militias that were still common during that era. But you can rest assured the current Times wouldn't cover that eventuality if it occurred today.

It doesn't fit the narrative.

Buyer's Remorse?

ABC News has an article up noting that six in ten Americans see Sarah Palin as being unqualified for President. That's saying a lot.

Palin was on the Wasilla, AK city council from 1992-96, was mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002, chaired the AK Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003-2004 until she resigned in protest over the lack of ethics of other Republicans on the commission. Palin then became Alaska's governor from 2006 until her 2009 resignation.

By comparison, our current President spent three uneventful terms in the Illinois state senate before winning a U.S. Senate seat, where he managed to compile a voting record to the left of even declared socialist Bernie Sanders. He never held a private sector or elected executive position in his entire life prior to the Presidency, and his one piddling "executive experience" with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was an unmitigated failure.

So when Americans are polled about Palin, what are they really responding to?

Are they responding to the media's unflattering portrayal of her, or could they be responding not to just Palin's own perceived inadequacies, but also out of regret now that they see the consequences of electing someone was even less qualified than she was for the office?

Future ACORN Employees of the Year?

As we've seen in the various videos released thus far, ACORN seems completely fine with the idea of trafficking children for the purposes of pedophile prostitution. We can only assume that Mario Andrette McNeill and Antoinette Nicole Davis are looking to not just join the group, but shoot for senior management positions.

The two are presently under arrest for kidnapping, and human trafficking and child abuse involving prostitution.

The victim is Davis' own five year-old daughter, Shaniya.

O-bow-ma

It seems that he will never learn:

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

And that's the problem.

As a matter of protocol, American President's should not bow to other world leaders that are their equals. To adopt a subservient role is not acceptable as a matter of protocol, and is demeaning to the office he holds. The fact that he's done this before only exacerbates the problem.

I'm do not doubt other American Presidents have made fabulous faux pas of protocol, but I don't recall one who has ever done it so frequently, so early into office.

I guess we should simply be thankful that we he arose, he didn't give a chintzy, thoughtless gift...

The "Obama Prayer"

Psalm 109:8

It was sent to me like that via email. Straight up it's pretty amusing, though the larger context of the entire Psalm it is a bit strong to apply to the President... to put it mildly.

Census Worker Made Suicide Look Like Homicide for Insurance Payoff?

I guess they'll quietly drop this from the narrative.

Two law enforcement officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said investigators were trying to determine whether Bill Sparkman committed suicide but altered the scene to make it look like a homicide, allowing his son to collect.

Life insurance policies typically do not cover suicides within a certain time period after the policy begins.

Sad, in so many ways.

ACORN Again

Another member admits to widespread voter fraud.

The ties between ACORN, the SEIU, AFL-CIO, and the Obama Administration is starting to sound like the largest incident of racketeering in American history.

Flaming "Oba Mao" Popular in China

Via Breitbart:

The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames.

Don't get excited, folks... though he flees the country as much as possible, President Britney always come back eventually.

Anyone Got $150 Billion for a Skid Plate?

Obama needs one for the bus.

Thump thump:

White House Counsel Greg Craig is expected to announce as early as Friday that he plans to step down from his post following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.

Craig, the top lawyer at the White House and a close aide to President Barack Obama, has helped lead the administration's efforts on several national-security policies that initially enjoyed popular support but have since become liabilities for Obama.

These include the planned closure of the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the release of Bush administration-era national-security documents.

Craig's departure has been widely expected since the summer. He came under criticism from inside the administration and in Congress for a perceived failure to manage the political issues that have originated from Obama's decision to close Guantanamo, according to officials in the administration and in Congress.

Pelosi: We'll Send You to Jail if You Don't Buy Obamacare

Scratch a progressive, and uncover a Stalinist ready to fill the gulags.

You know what the difference is between Bill Ayers wanting to put Americans in concentration camps for believing in capitalism, and Nancy Pelosi wanting to put you in prison for not buying government-rationed insurance?

Not a damn thing, except Pelosi's threat carries with it the appearance of occurring under the color of law.

The Convictions of a Coward: Obama Fails to Choose and Chooses to Fail on Afghanistan

Barack Obama knows nothing of military strategy or tactics, doesn't understand counterinsurgency, and holds a barely-disguised contempt for the military. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, then, that the President has rejected all options for winning the war in Afghanistan presented to him:

After months of deliberating, President Obama opted not to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The Obama Administration sat silently by and enabled what most believe to be a fraudulent reelection of Karzai, and now wants to use his reelection as an excuse? That's like watching an arsonist douse a house in gasoline, only to complain later about the smoldering rubble being a blight on the neighborhood.

Karzai is a starwman, and a pathetic one at that. On two separate occasions in recent we've noted a remarkable counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan that bypasses Karzai's corrupt central government altogether, and works with the real arbiters of power in Afghani society, the tribes. One Tribe at a Time (PDF) is a blueprint for winning the Afghan war, and with a smaller footprint to boot.

The Administration could easily adopt this plan, but refuses to consider it an an option. Considering it removes their self-inflicted strawman of an ineffectual and corrupt central government that largely doesn't exist outside of Kabul.

Jim Hanson, retired SF operator and Director of the Warrior Legacy Institute, notes:

He has already had the advice of his entire military chain of command with a near unanimous call for for reinforcements to move to the strategy that won in Iraq. We have watched as he has heard from the deep wisdom of Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel. We have seen him dither and quibble and show a completely ineffectual and uncommitted face to our enemies and the rest of the world. Now months after his hand-picked commander has told him the situation is bad and getting worse, our troops in the field fight and die without the support of their Commander in Chief. He sent 21,000 more brave men and women there and now they are flappin' in the breeze. How can a squad leader look his men in the eyes and tell them to saddle up and head out on a patrol, perhaps to be the last to die for a cause their President no longer believes in?

Quite clearly, Barack Obama has decided against winning the war in Afghanistan, showing his long history of claiming that the Afghan war is the right war, and the war we must win, to be a bald-faced lie he repeated to get into office.

He is steeling himself for surrender, hunting for excuses to fail. And the rubes that believed he was anything other than a self-loathing defeatist have nobody but themselves to blame for electing him.

Are Iranian Weapons Flowing Through Your Country's Ports?

The 500 tons of Iranian rockets, grenades, ammunition and mortar shells that Israel intercepted on the MV Francop was destined for Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, a fact that Iran's friends in the Obama White House will not doubt seek to downplay if not outright ignore. That means that a media largely compliant to the Administration's wishes will fail to pick up on the alarm sounded by Israel, which noted the weapons they intercepted had first been shipped into an unsuspecting third country, unloaded, transferred, and shipped out again without anyone in that nation knowing.

The weapons were not segregated or controlled, were not properly stored or packed, and highly explosive.

And it could happen any any port at any nation on earth.

"When you deal with those containers without any precautions at all, they can explode almost anywhere. And any one of your ships could carry one of those containers one day, and any one of your ports could deal with those explosives."

This isn't a secret.

So why isn't anything being done about it?

Veteran's Day

The monuments in Washington all seemed false in the cool morning mist. They were big and white and extravagant, yet the tourists cheapened them somehow as they gawked, took photos, and scurried to the next place on their list of things to see. Their attention seemed to focus on what things were rather than why they were. The scene was a poor example of Americana. Even Honest Abe seemed to frown from his throne. Of all the walls of stone only one seemed real.

This wall's long black marble slices into the ground. On it are engraved fifty-eight thousand American names from an undeclared war that no one wants to remember in the jungles of a country half a globe away. There are no ornate scrolls or stenciled directions, no fancy faded pieces of parchment, no self-serving sentiments, just names.

There's also a statue some distance away. Three bronze soldiers stare into the wall, waiting for word of their fellow soldiers, or perhaps morning their loss. The soldiers don't talk; they simply stare. They are all just boys, most of them only six years older than I was then: nineteen.

Under the statue-soldier's gaze, an elderly man lagged behind a tour at the wall. He caressed it and knelt to leave a single rose at its based. He sobbed. He had difficulty standing up. A nearby park attendant helped him and asked, "One of yours, sir?" The old man shook his head and replied, "Not just one of them. All of them."

I penned those words in the fall of 1989... 20 years ago.

They are an excerpt of a story I authored as an 18-year-old college freshman. It was based upon a trip to Washington D.C., and to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, simply known to all as The Wall. It is fictionalized, but only just. To this day it remains one of the most emotional places I've ever visited.

At the time, Vietnam was our most recent "major" conflict, though I know all wars are major are those who fight them. We were still several years away from the first Gulf War, and more than a decade from 9/11 and the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq that we still fight today.

I'm met dozens of veterans since that time, from World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and our current wars. I've tried to thank them for their service, but mere words always feel inadequate to capture the gratitude I feel for all they have sacrificed so that I can live in a land of freedom and liberty.

I've tried to explain the sacrifices they've made as best I can to my older daughter. I've told her some of what I know about my Uncle Bobby's war in Korea, where he had the harrowing duty of splicing damaged communications lines for forward observers while in combat. I tried to tell her of how her grandfather—who we buried just before last Veteran's Day—stood guard against saboteurs in the wet salt spray as victory ships burned from to the torpedoes of German U-boats off the Carolina Coast.

I've told her what I know of some of our local heroes that I know she's heard of and seen, and of those who quietly walk among us with little recognition at all.

Today is the day we thank all veterans who have served this nation and who put their lives on the line to preserve our way of life.

Words are not enough, but all the same, thank you.

Well Done, Mr. President

Considering his disturbing performance the afternoon of the massacre at Fort Hood I was nervous that President Obama would get the tone wrong in today's memorial of the fallen.

I should have known better.

There are few things he does well, but reading from a teleprompter is one of those things he excels at, and he gave the soldiers killed in the terror attack the memorial service they deserved.

Allah has the video, and has more to say about the President's address.

PJTV: National Security Report on Iranian Arms Smuggling to Terrorists

My appearance with Bill Whittle of EjectEjectEject and AfterBurner fame on PJTV, talking about Iran arming terrorist groups, based upon this article from yesterday at Pajamas Media and this one here.

Thanks for having me on, Bill!

Iranian Rockets Captured by Israel Identical to Rockets Fired At U.S. Bases in Iraq

107mm rockets of recent Iranian manufacture are among the 500 tons of ordnance recovered by the Israeli Navy, and the rockets they recovered precisely matched those captured outside of U.S FOB Hammer in July of 2007.

And in case you are wondering, yes, those same rockets are still being used, and are still killing American soldiers today.

An American logistics contractor known to readers of this blog as "Big Country" says via email that those same rockets are still being used against American bases:

...between the hours of 2000 and 2200 (8pm to 10pm) drop, yep you guessed it, 107mm rockets on us. Some days they don't drop at all, which is even worse. The waiting ya know? The largest number was 6 in short order, and the lowest was a single one. Guess it depends on how confident they are about getting caught. One of them KIA'd a guy on the pad across from me a few weeks back… 4 WIA, 1 KIA. (That one made FOXnews and CNN) I'm getting my intel firsthand on this, (it's pretty common knowledge on post) and the Army is fully aware of the whole thing, but whether or not it helps, I dunno... wheels within wheels as they say. I hope they put the zap these jokers soon.

Will President Obama man-up and stop Iran from supplying weapons being used against our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against our allies and national interests? Or will he continue to pretend these weapons are not being used against Americans, so he can play at gutless diplomacy?

Somehow, I think we all know the answer.

Bush Visits Hood Wounded, Families

I just wish that Fox News had embargoed the story of the visit and honored the former President's wishes of keeping the meeting secret.

I would imagine that visiting the families of servicemen killed and wounded is among the most emotional experiences that any President will encounter, and the fact that George and Laura Bush took the time to be with those impacted by Major Hasan's jihadist rampage says quite a bit about their character.

I hope the visit was able to provide the families and those wounded with some inspiration and comfort.

President and Mrs. Obama are due to make an appearance at a formal memorial service tomorrow. I suspect they will spend time with the troops as well.

Thank Goodness fo "Cop-Killer" Weapons

For once, an anti-gun organization's spurious claims may have saved lives.

My latest article is up at Pajamas Media.

The "Cop Killer" FN Five-seveN

The media is wasting very little time informing us that the weapon used by Major Nidal Malik Hasan in his rampage at Fort Hood was a "cop killer."

Ft. Hood terrorist used a cop killer FN-Five Seven tactical pistol—20 round clip -- Examiner

'Cop Killer" Gun though to Be Used in Ft. Hood Shooting, Offiicals Said -- ABC News

Fort Hood shootings: gunman used 'cop killer' weapon in massacre at US Army base -- UK Telegraph

Ironically, there is no known record of that weapon even being used to kill a police officer in the United States, and there is a distinct possibility that Sgt. Kimberly Munley, wounded while engaging Hasan, may have been the first American law enforcement officer ever shot with a Five-seveN.

How did the Five-seveN get it's "cop killer" reputation, then?

It was created in a Brady Campaign press release in February of 2005.

The Victims of Fort Hood

My latest article is up at Pajamas Media.

Liberals Finally Got the Military Murders They've Been Asking For

Disdain for the military is a constant theme on the political left, a group that has consistently portrayed soldiers as violent psychopaths and babykillers for far longer than I've been alive. I've noted images of progressive protesters carrying signs attacking the troops on numerous occasions. Among the most galling of their constant steam of obscenities directed at our soldiers are variations of the sentiment, "We support our troops when they shoot their officers."

These same liberals must have been thrilled yesterday afternoon to discover that an officer opened fire on our troops. It's time for them to break out their magic markers and pen new signs to praise Major Nidal Malik Hasan for doing what they've asked.

I imagine that President Obama's old mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are also pleased with the attack. After all, they sent Ayer's girlfriend and other domestic terrorists of the Weather Underground to attack an Army dance at Fort Dix, an assault thwarted only by their own bomb-building ineptitude. If they had been competent, their attack on Fort Dix would likely have been worse than yesterday's assault.

So what say you, progressives... was the massacre of American soldiers all you dreamed it might be?

Tone Deaf

Here is President Obama's bizarrely flippant address yesterday afternoon in response to the massacre at Fort Hood conducted by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist.

Robert A. George was quick to call the President for his frightening insensitivity and deep disconnect from the tragedy of the situation. It isn't the end of the world, but it gives us reason—yet again—to doubt his temperament, judgment, and gravitas, and wonder if he is ready for the challenges of the Presidency.

Census Worker Death Investigation Increasingly Focused on Suicide

From the Associated Press:

Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

The officials said investigators continue to look closely at suicide as a possible cause of Sparkman's death for a number of reasons. There were no defensive wounds on Sparkman's body, and while his hands were bound with duct-tape, they were still somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said.

Fort Hood Shooter ID'd

With the release of two other possible suspects, it is now starting to look like the shooting at Fort Hood today was the work of a single man, armed with two handguns. He was named as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who ironically specialized in treating traumatic stress, and who was angry about having to deploy to Iraq at the end of November.

Like another mass murder who targeted young adults, Hasan went to Virginia Tech.

Figures.

Update: Breaking news as of 10:00 PM is that Hasan did not die, and is in custody in stable condition.

Terrorist Attack on Fort Hood

There is breaking news of what sounds like a terrorist attack on Fort Hood.

Early reports are citing 7 dead, 12 wounded, and one shooter taken into custody and another still possibly on base. Some accounts claim there is a third suspect.

While there is no word yet on who is responsible, this sounds very similar to various plots by homegrown Islamic terrorist cells, such as the Willow Springs cell arrested in North Carolina in July.

One gunman may have been killed

Updates as they come in:

Number of wounded revised to 15, and perhaps as many as 20.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram says suspects were armed with M-16s. that could just as easily mean civilian AR-15s, as well.

The shooters are possibly soldiers?

Two suspects captured, four SWAT team members wounded.

FBI rules out terrorism. I think what they meant to claim is that this wasn't the work of an Islamic terrorist cell or an attack by domestic extremists. By any measure, this was a terror attack, no matter who the shooters or victims were.

Casualty figures have grown to 9 dead and 30 wounded.

12 KIA, 31 WIA, shooters confirmed as soldiers, at least one of which had a "Arabic-sounding name".

Briefing:

Twelve people were killed and 31 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood on Thursday, officials confirmed.

Ford Hood spokesman Sgt. Tim Volkert said the shooting occurred at 1:30 p.m. A military briefing at 4 p.m. said three assailants, all soldiers, fired shots at the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and the Howze Theater next to it.

The facts of the story have solidified. Thee was one shooter, an American Major who used two handguns. Details here.

Benen: V for... Bachmann, or Something

It seems the stress of the health care debate is getting to the delicate Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly today, as he hysterically tries to explain to us that those protesters descending upon Capitol Hill today to do rhetorical battle against the Democratic Party's government-rationed health care bill may as well be terrorists targeting Congress with bombs.

And when has Bachmann scheduled her Capitol Hill soiree? This afternoon -- November 5 -- a date widely known as Guy Fawkes Night. (You know, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November.") In other words, Bachmann wants to rally right-wing activists, label them an "insurgency," and encourage them to roam the halls of Congress deliberately "scaring" members of Congress, on the infamous date that marks an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

From a security perspective, if Capitol Police aren't operating at a heightened state today, they're making a mistake.

Apparently in Benen's mind the dagger-wielding fictional character "V" played by Hugo Weaving in 2005's V for Vendetta is pretty much the same as a real-life middle-aged Congresswoman from Minnesota, and protesting a bloated bill that drags a sixth of the U.S. economy into a raft of 111 new bureaucracies subject to the whim's of government rationing is the same as blowing up the Houses of Parliament.

I suppose it isn't worth noting that the character "V" was created by a power-mad government conducting medical experiments upon its citizens.

A Simple Request

The 1,990-page Democratic plot to enable the government-rationing of your family's health care has grown yet again, and now weighs in a bloating and putrid 2,032 pages long. The additional 42 pages recently added give the government even more control over your lives.

Of course, few—if any— of the Democratic Congressmen and women who are pushing this bill have actually read it.

Scratch that.

Not one member of Congress in either party has read the bill in its entirety. Therefore, none understand it fully, and I'd wager that no one member even understands a majority of the bill in any detail.

The Republicans, God bless them, have enough common sense to refuse to vote to give the government life-and-death control over your lives. The last we've heard, not a single one of them will vote in favor of a bill that is so massive and convoluted that no single human being can understand it.

Democrats in the House of Representatives seem to have far less concern about what the bill actually says. On the whole, they are satisfied that it gives the government more of a role in your lives, and reduces your opportunity to make decisions with which they might disagree. That is enough of an enticement for many, if not most of them.

Some of the more moderate Democrats fear for their seats, however, and want to at least pay enough lip service to hot-button social concerns in the bill, such as the funding of abortion and the inclusion of illegal aliens. The attempts at &qout;compromise" you hear so much about are moderates looking for ways to create language to hide funding for those endeavors. They don't actually want those those provisions made an impossibility. They just want them hidden deep enough in the bill, or relocated to a vaguely-worded Trojan horse clause, so that they can claim they "didn't know" these provisions existed when their next re-election campaign arrives.

It is because no one understands this bill, and because Democrats are trying to cover for their more moderate members that they are now pressuring to rush this still-evolving bill to a vote this Saturday, before anyone has time to read and comprehend it.

There is something truly vile if not down right evil about the Democratic attempt to force through a bill without giving Americans (or their congressional representatives) an opportunity to read and understand it.

That refusal to release a "final" final bill, to constantly revise it and then attempt to force a rushed vote is the antithesis of how our Founders wanted Congress to discuss and debate legislation so that it would benefit the American people.

We don't even know if the bill they are attempting to force down our throats is even vaguely constitutional.

And so I have a simple request for those of you who care about America's future.

Write or call your Congressman, and get them to officially commit to delaying a final vote on a health care bill until:

• the bill is in a finalized, "frozen" form
• they are willing to to claim that they read and understand the entire bill

The reason to ask for this commitment is simple.

No Congressman should vote on a bill they do not understand, especially one that will drastically impact the lives of their constituents and fundamentally alter the social contract between the American people, private enterprise, and government.

If those we elected to Congress cannot commit to this simple request, then they clearly are not act in the best interests of their constituents or of the United States as a whole.

Where is your commitment, ladies and gentlemen of Congress?

We, the People, have a right to know.

A Year in American Politics (Abridged Version)

Obama '08!
Oh, Crap! '09

Red Jersey: Christie Wins NJ

The Associated Press calls it for the Republican:

In the end, all the stumping in the world from the President of the United States wasn't going to stop regime change in New Jersey's highest office.

Republican Chris Christie ended Democrat Jon Corzine's four-year run in Trenton with a narrow victory on Tuesday, The Associated Press projected. Independent Chris Daggett, thought of by many as the wildcard who could upset the order of things by siphoning off votes from Christie, finished well back.

With 4,507 of 6,305 precincts reporting, Christie led Corzine 50 percent to 44 percent.

Independent voters gave President Barack Obama a huge advantage in the state last year, but they heavily favored Christie on Tuesday.

The Democratic Party and the White House spent a tremendous amount of time and resources campaigning for Corzine in a traditionally Democratic state (outspending Christie 3-1), and they still appear to have lost by a substantial margin.

There are going to be all sorts of attempts by Democrats and the left-leaning media and blogosphere to say this is not a judgement of Barack Obama's short but inept Presidency thus far.

I just wonder if any of those claims will be looked upon with the least bit of credibility.

Jonah at NRO:

Wow. That's just amazing. I don't see how the White House can spin it away. Remember their explanation for Deeds' loss was that Deeds didn't embrace Obama enough. Corzine hugged Obama and made the election about Obama in a state Obama carried by 15 points and where Dems outnumber Republicans by a wide margin. And he lost.

Donks Die in VA

Riding Obama to success was a thrill for the Democrats one short year ago.

It isn't looking like such a fun ride anymore.

Reared in Misery, Pining for More

We're enduring a battered economy teetering on the edge of a depression. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are growing as the unemployment rate far exceeds unrealistic expectations. Trillions of taxpayer dollars are being blown in reckless government spending. Tremendous tax increases are in our future, and rapid inflation is a distinct possibility.

Amid all this Gallup releases a poll that shows African-Americans are apparently thrilled with it all:

Blacks' satisfaction with the direction of the country has surged since Barack Obama became president in January, while satisfaction among whites has increased by far less. Today close to half of black adults nationwide, 47%, say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country. In mid-2008, the figure was 10%.

This is compared to the 59% majority of likely voters who feel the country is on the wrong path.

You aren't going to see too many bloggers commenting on this shocking poll result, nor will you see the media do anything but shy away from any criticism that could even vaguely be misrepresented as racist, but seriously... what kind of plantation mentality is this?

African-Americans are among the hardest hit in the Obama economy, finding it more difficult to find work or obtain housing, and yet they profess satisfaction with their diminished opportunities for success, and the likelihood that their children will live a less successful life than their own?

Yes, we all know that they are thrilled that a black man is the President, and they should be proud of the symbolism of Barack Obama's election.

But Barack Obama's inept-to-disasterous term thus far should be another matter entirely. Policies that he and his allies in Congress are pushing will enslave generations under tax burdens are crushing and strong as any cutting iron chain, and especially hurt the possibility of those in the lower and lower-middle income tiers from establishing more comfortable and successful lives for their families.

Are bonds of melanin stronger than the bond of familial love? Of cultural success? Of society's progress? Of true equality?

Or have some simply given up hope of their own success, and only find grim satisfaction in seeing others dragged down to their level of resignation and despair?

There is something deeply perverse about the psychology of people who find solace in the decay of their own nation. It's too bad no one cares enough to address the problem, much less fix it.

Sticker Shock: Cost of Government-Rationed Health Care Jumps to $1,200,000,000,000

The cost of the government-rationed of health care has exploded 33%, even before coming to a vote:

The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.

While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.

Keep in mind these are the purposefully low-balled estimates. Invariably government-mangled programs end up costing ten to twenty times as much as proposed once implemented.

The cost of government-rationed health care has ballooned from $900,000,000,000 to $1,200,000,000,000—over $300 billion—in less than a week, without ever leaving paper... just imagine how bad it will get if it ever becomes law.

Bachmann: Storm the Gates

Firebrand Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is mad as Hell, and she doesn't want you to take it from Congress any more.

"The American people spoke loud and clear at town hall meetings all across the country throughout August. But, it would appear that Congress didn't hear a word they had to say. The Democrats' latest health care proposal unveiled late last week may be packaged a little differently, but it’s the same old bad bill as before.

"This bill is a trillion-dollar, budget-busting, government takeover of our health care system. It will put bureaucrats between people and their health care. It will lead to rationed care, hurting the most vulnerable amongst us first. It will break the bank, leaving our children to pay the bill with diminished freedoms and dwindling prosperity.

"The American people need to stand up again and make sure that Congress hears them this time. Speaker Pelosi is putting her bill on fast track to a vote – and it remains to be seen if the House will even get a chance to vote on the commonsense Republican alternatives. The people need to make a House Call on Washington this week and tell their Representatives to vote no to a government take-over of one-fifth of our economy. This is gangster government at its worst.

"I urge all Americans to come to Washington this Thursday. Come and meet up with your Representative and tell them that you want to control your health care."

"Gangster government at its worst."

That's putting it mildly.

"Land of the Greed and Home of the Slave."

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's mentor of two decades, speaks:

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S.

In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism."

In the video, which captures Wright's appearance at a September 17, 2009, anniversary celebration of Monthly Review, Wright said that while the "corporate media" provide a "binary lens" of the world, in such terms as "communist versus Christian," Monthly Review offers what it calls "no-nonsense Marxism."

He added: "You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism."

He called America "land of the greed and home of the slave."

It's a nice Republic we have, if we can keep it.

D'oh! CNN Falls for Long-Debunked Kilimanjaro Global Warming Claim

This is CNN:

The ice and snow that cap majestic Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are vanishing before our eyes.

If current conditions persist, climate change experts say, Kilimanjaro's world-renowned glaciers, which have covered Africa's highest peak for centuries, will be gone within the next two decades.

"In a very real sense, these glaciers are being decapitated from the surface down," said Lonnie Thompson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. Thompson is co-author of a study on Kilimanjaro published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study's authors blame the disappearing ice on increases in global temperatures and diminished snowfall at Kilimanjaro's summit.

Previous studies of Kilimanjaro's glaciers have relied on aerial photographs to measure the rate of the retreating ice. For this new survey, scientists climbed the mountain and drilled deep into the glaciers to measure the volume of the ice fields atop the 19,331-foot (5,892-meter) peak.

"Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused mis-example of the effects of climate change," said University of Washington climate scientist Philip Mote, co-author of an article in the July/August issue of American Scientist magazine.

Mote is concerned that critics will try to use the article to debunk broader climate-change trends.

He hastens to add that global warming is, indeed, responsible for the fact that nearly every other glacier around the globe is melting away. Kilimanjaro just happens to be the worst possible case study.

Rising nearly four miles from the plains of eastern Tanzania, Kilimanjaro has seen its glaciers decline steadily for well over a century — since long before humans began pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Mote points out.

Most of the world's glaciers didn't begin their precipitous declines until the 1970s, when measurable global warming first appeared.

Also, recent data from Kilimanjaro show temperatures on the 19,340-foot volcano never rise above freezing. So melting triggered by a warmer atmosphere can't be the reason the small summit ice sheet is retreating about 3 feet a year, said Georg Kaser, co-author of the new article and a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Man-made global warming (creating glacial melt) cannot be a factor in a glacier disappearing if the temperature of the glacier never comes close to rising above freezing (which is underlined by the fact that the global temperature has been declining since 1998).What is far more likely is that constantly lower amounts of participation over the past century mean that the glaciers are in a natural state of decline, and state they have been in since at least 1912.

What is causing the decline?

Instead, melt on Kilimanjaro is caused by sublimation, which turns ice directly into water vapor at below-freezing temperatures—essentially the glacier gets a giant case of moisture-sapping freezer burn.

Thompson has been beating this drum since 2002, but the fact remains that his claim that man-made global warming in the cause of the glacial retreat is a farce.

No Obligation to Indecency

As human beings living in tribes and later large social structures of cities, states, and nations, we agree (implicitly or expressly) to abide by rules and laws. These agreements are meant to establish order and security in what otherwise would be a chaotic and dangerous world.

As part of the social contract of our democratic Republic, we follow the laws set down to us by the House of Representatives and the Senate, deliberative bodies elected from and by the people.

But laws and social contracts are not immutable or ironclad, especially when they invalidate liberty and justice, and infringe upon the inalienable rights of man.

When the elected become corrupt, and instead focus on using their offices to build more power for themselves instead of working for the betterment of the society, then they have violated the sacred trust of population.

There are various articles of legislation currently being manipulated by the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House, intolerable acts that are an affront to the ideals this nation was founded upon.

It was during such a previous failure of the social contract between our people and their distant government that these enduring words were authored:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such words and such a dissolution of the contract between the government and the governed should never be entered into lightly or in haste; even the best outcome of such a conflict stands to wreck the surviving nation while the echoes of that decision reverberate, and the distinct probability exists that the resulting congress may result in an amalgamation no better than the last, with far too many broken bonds and bodies to show for an enfeebled change.

Nor is there any reason to suspect that the existing social remedy of the ballot box is too far corrupted to cease having power, despite the best attempts at collusion between power brokers, nationalized community organizations, and special interests.

But history has shown us that ever society has a breaking point where the State becomes more powerful than the people it represents, and laws are thereafter written for the benefit of the government instead of the governed. This we call tyranny.

There should be very little doubt at all that the current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, represents the essence of that tyrannical impulse. She leads men and women who have never trusted in the resourcefulness of their fellow man, and never understood that a man's dreams and aspirations are a far more powerful and driving force for success than any diktat. They represent a faction that creates laws that makes men subservient to the state, and ultimately to themselves.

Likewise, Harry Reid, the present Senate Majority Leader, has little use for justice, just a thirst for social control and obedient, docile constituencies. His faction schemes and plots, disemboweling individual liberties and disinterring pogroms against our founding principles that should have long ago been discarded "on the ash heap of history" as one of our most eloquent leaders recounted in a reclaimed phrase.

But perhaps no one has less faith in the promise of America than our current President, Barack Obama.

Whether his vision of what this nation could accomplish and what it should represent was tarnished in a youth spent living abroad in a foreign nation, or was twisted in a transformational radicalizing experience that saw him align with murderous terrorists and race-obsessed radicals is really of little consequence.

He has shown himself to be a friend of radicals and an alien to the core beliefs of our nation, ready to defend our enemies at a moment's notice, propping up dictatorships, and caring more about the welfare of terrorists than pregnant women, but that is his right as an elected official, and our curse for listening to his oratory instead of discerning his lack of substance, character, and decency.

WE have an obligation to our Constitution. But our obligation to the law and the lawmakers is not a one-way social contract.

If our lawmakers abandon the founding principles of this nation, and use their power to obfuscate, deceive, bully and strip basic rights away from the people, then they forfeit the social contract, even if they have managed to "abide" by the laws they've written in support of the state.

Ultimately, laws are only lawful if the govern find them fair and justified. All else is dogma.

And so when power-mad legislatures and executives use direct lies and emotional rhetoric in order to deceive their constituencies in attempts at tyranny that serve to increase their power while undermining the principles that has enabled this government of the people, for the people and by the people, we then owe them no more allegiance.

Fortunately, unlike other nations and states in times both past and present, we have the possibility of correcting our mistakes and removing the disloyal via the ballot instead of by the barrel of a gun. Tomorrow, November 3, gives many Americans an opportunity to use their ballot as a declaration that they will not trade their liberties for the certainty of serfdom.

Let us hope that the report at the end of the day is as resounding as the shots fired at Concord.

Matrix Producer to Film Muhamad Flick

Obviously, Roman Polanski must direct.

They Need a New Name: How About "Organizing for Identity Theft?"

Big Brother Democrats aren't just watching you, they're handing out your personal identification to their cronies in a massive invasion of personal privacy (h/t Instapundit).

The red boxes are around questions asking for the person's e-mail address and what time of day they plan to vote.

So, now yours truly, a perfect stranger from outside of New York's 23rd Congressional District, knows the Name, Phone Number, Age, and Gender of 25 residents of NY-23.

Because the e-mail I received is part of a large orchestrated campaign, an undetermined but far from small number of perfect strangers predominantly from outside of New York's 23rd Congressional District will know this information about hundreds — if not thousands — of residents of NY-23.

Additionally, if I were to carry out the calls (which I of course will not), I would have the cell phone number, e-mail address, and planned voting time of any person in the group of 25 who responds to my request for that information.

It doesn't take much imagination to see what could happen, but I guess I need to draw a picture for old Mitch:

• With a person's e-mail addy and cell number, a spammer can put them on every junk mail and calling list there is.
• Thanks to easily available Internet phone directories, criminals can learn where these people live. By asking a few additional questions, they can learn who lives alone. If they also learn when they won't be home (i.e., out voting) and live reasonably close, they can steal them blind while they're away.
• Even more scary, a violent criminal can use answers to OFA's official questions combined with other information they might learn through probing to commit violent acts when these people ARE home.

Not just organized, but organizing for crime... that's the Chicago Way.

On a more serious note, I've been following the NY-23 situation, but felt others in the media and blogosphere have covered it in sufficient detail that any additional "me, too" commentary was superfluous.

That said, it seems that the Conservative Party was right to run Doug Hoffman against RINO Dede Scuzafavor (or whatever her name is) and Democrat Bill Owens, which was clearly revealed when Scuzzy threw her support behind the Democratic candidate despite receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars (and perhaps as much a sa cool $1 million) in financial support from the Republican Party. Needless to say, I think she'll find the GOP's purse strings with be cut off in her next local election, and I suspect her official transition to the Democrat party will be coming soon (if not immediately, if rumors that she is doing robo-calls for the Democrat are true).

The effort of the national DNC and associated activist groups in this race is fascinating considering this is a race for a one-year term. Obviously, they are far more concerned about the trendsetting and symbolism of a very conservative candidate besting the squishy GOP moderates they would much rather prefer to face, not to mention the Democratic candidate that they want to win. And besting them handily he is: the most recent polls show the conservative Hoffman dominating the race over Owens 54%-38%.

If Hoffman wins in a dominating fashion as the polls are suggesting, it could potentially ignite a trend of conservative candidates to be fielded against Republican moderates in primaries, not with the expectation that the resulting conservative versus Democrat race would amount to a protest vote, but with the expectation that the conservative candidate may actually stand a far better chance of actually getting elected than the squishy RINO or the Democrat. That has to terrify not just an Obama White House worried that their brand is rapidly becoming an albatross, but status quo-invested moderate Republicans as well.

Such a turn of events would only embolden the grass roots conservative movement, but we'll have to see if the election is a bellwether of a momentum shift, or an endpoint. As Glenn Reynolds notes, it isn't just the election, but what happens afterward that matters.

Riddle Me This...

Why is it that grass roots activist opponents of the President are gleefully derided as "teabaggers," when it is the subservient liberal special interest groups that worshipped him up until the election—only to be cast aside afterwards with one broken policy promise after another— are the ones left with a bad taste in their mouths?

Explosion at Bragg OP Kills Civilian

If I recall correctly, we're in the middle of Robin Sage, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how exploding civilians could be related to a military training exercise.

An explosion on a Fort Bragg observation point killed a civilian Friday, Fort Bragg spokeswoman Jackie Thomas said Sunday.

Two civilians were in the area when the blast went off at 12:15 p.m., Thomas said.

One was killed, the other was not injured. The names of the victims were not released. Thomas said they were not Army employees.

It sounds like these civilians were probably not supposed to be there, but the statement is so antiseptic that we can't be sure exactly what is going on.

I'm going to recall an old NCIS episode and wonder if they might have been hunting scrap metal on a bombing range and set off unexploded ordnance.

Update: When I'm good, I'm good. Score one for Darwin:

Fort Bragg officials say a civilian killed in an explosion at the North Carolina Army post was scavenging for scrap metal when he stepped on a round and it exploded.